his cavalry, aided by guerillas, scoured the country, and shut up the Royalists within a small triangle formed by the encampment at Asnapuquio, Lima, and Callao, and there awaited the opening of a formal negotiation.
After the Liberal movement in Spain in 1820 the revolusionists of South America were no longer spoken of as rebels or insurgents, but were recognized by the Home Government as belligerents, and were now invited by King Ferdinand, by a proclamation, to treat for peace with their brethren of the old country, "as their equals," but they were offered only the Constitution of 1812, which they had already rejected by declaring themselves independent, and were threatened with forcible compulsion in case of refusal. This olive-branch of peace, wafted across the seas, only supplied fresh fuel to the flames of war.
Envoys from Spain bearing this message of peace had reached the northern part of the continent in December, 1820, during an armistice between Bolívar and Morillo. They had persuaded Bolívar to send Columbian commissioners to Spain, but in April, 1821, before anything could be known as to their prospects of success, hostilities recommenced, and there were no further attempts at negotiation.
To Mexico also the same message was sent, a message apparently one of peace and conciliation, which, when looked into, was seen to mean submission or war, and to which, in Mexico as elsewhere, answer was given in one formula, independence or war.
When in 1820 the revolution broke out in Spain the revolution in Mexico was crushed. General Vicente Guerrero, with a handful of men, alone upheld the flag of insurrection in the rough country to the south. In Mexico the movement was chiefly the work of the indigenous element of the population, and assumed the character of a rising of the proletariat against the superior classes, thus arousing a spirit of resistance in the country itself, which powerfully aided the efforts of the Royalist troops for its
