THE QUESTION OF GUAYAQUIL.
417
either on good policy or on good military tactics. Bolívar could not recede without consenting to the mutilation of Columbia, a republic of his own creation. The direct intervention of San Martin endangered an open rupture between them, which would upset the plans of both.
Under these sinister auspices took place the interview previously arranged between San Martin and Bolívar, at Guayaquil, which had been postponed in consequence of the exigencies of the war.
