CHAPTER XLVIII.
THE FIRST NATIONAL GOVERNMENT OF PERU.
1822-1823.
One of the heaviest charges brought by his contemporaries against San Martin, and which history has repeated, is the precipitate manner of his retirement from Peru. He left his army under the command of a General without prestige; he left the country in the hands of a Government which had no authority; and he made no provision for an efficient Government. If he had delayed his departure until he had arranged all this it is probable that he would never have gone at all. The fact is that he left everything in a state of complete disorganization. It was more than an abdication, he abandoned the country.
Congress instead of appointing at once an efficient executive appointed a governing Junta of three of its own members, two of whom were foreigners. General La Mar, a native of Quito, was President; his colleagues were Don Felipe Alvarado, a brother of the Argentine General, and Don Manuel Salazar y Baquijano, Count of Vista Florida, a citizen of Lima, and a leader of society. The selection pleased nobody. The popular party, headed by Riva-Agüero, commenced to conspire. The new Government had no support, save in Congress itself. Abandoned by the Protector, the only hope of Peru was now in the Liberator.
Bolívar no sooner saw the coast clear than he wrote to the new Government offering them a reinforcement of 4,000
