After this bloodless revolution the third division embarked at Callao on the 17th of March 1827, and landed in the southern department of Colombia in the following month. Intelligence of these events reached Bolivar while in the north of Colombia, and he lost no time in preparing to march against the refractory troops, who formerly had placed such implicit confidence in him. But he was spared the necessity of coming to blows, for the leaders, finding the government in the hands of the national executive, had peaceably submitted to General Ovando. In the meanwhile Bolivar had accepted the presidency, and resumed the functions belonging to his official position. But although Colombia was, to all external appearance, restored to tranquillity, the nation was divided into two parties. Bolivar had, no doubt, regained the personal confidence of the officers and soldiers of the third division; but the republican party, with Santander at their head, continued to regard with undisguised apprehension his ascendancy over the army, suspecting him of a desire to imitate the career of Napoleon. In the meanwhile all parties looked anxiously to the convention of Ocana, which was to assemble in March 1828, for a decided expression of the national will. The republicans hoped that the issue of its deliberations would be favourable to their views; whilst the military, on the other hand, did not conceal their conviction that a stronger and more permanent form of government was essential to the public welfare. The latter view seems to have prevailed. In virtue of a decree, dated Bogota, the 27th of August 1828, Bolivar assumed the supreme power in Colombia, and continued to exercise it until his death, which took place at San Pedro, near Santa Marta, on the 17th of December 1830. Bolivar spent nine-tenths of a splendid patrimony in the service of his country; and although he had for a considerable period unlimited control over the revenues of three countries--Colombia, Peru and Bolivia--he died without a shilling of public money in his possession. He achieved the independence of three states, and called forth a new spirit in the southern portion of the New World. He purified the administration of justice; he encouraged the arts and sciences; he fostered national interests, and he induced other countries to recognize that independence which was in a great measure the fruit of his own exertions. His remains were removed in 1842 to Caracas, where a monument was erected to his memory; a statue was put up in Bogota in 1846; in 1858 the Peruvians followed the example by erecting an equestrian statue of the liberator in Lima; and in 1884 a statue was erected in Central Park, New York.