Local triumphs did not satisfy him. Distrustful, crafty, frigid, without the declamatory eloquence of other presidents, ambitious of wealth and power, he longed to extend his despotic sceptre over new States. Imitating Napoleon, like Iturbide in Mexico, and remembering the successes of the First Consul, he prepared expeditions of conquest, and fostered anarchy in Peru, which he intended to govern once more as in 1826. Orbegoso, President of the neighbouring republic, called for his assistance in 1835 in order to overcome Salaverry, a brilliant officer who had proclaimed himself dictator. Santa-Cruz thereupon constituted himself the arbiter of Peruvian {124} disputes, and invaded the country. He defeated Salaverry at Socabaya and Gamarra, his ally, at Yanacocha. The dictator was shot in 1836, and the Bolivian president founded a vast confederation as a bulwark against Peruvian anarchy: he reconstituted the old vice-kingdom. His ambition then led him so far as to attack Rosas, the tyrant of Argentina. He had inherited the Unitarian ideals of Bolivar, and prepared to realise them. Three States, Bolivia, and North and South Peru, each with its own capital, its president, and its congress, formed the Confederation, under the imperial authority of the new Inca. Santa-Cruz organised the three States with amazing rapidity, imposed codes and constitutions, and expected to rule from Lima, the fashionable metropolis; it was said that he was the avenger of the oppressed race of half-breeds, oppressed by the colonial oligarchy. The Confederation existed from 1837, but Chili, in the south, envious of the Peruvian-Bolivian hegemony, threatened its existence. Portales, that omnipotent minister, sought pretexts to attack this solid political structure. He accused Santa-Cruz of fostering expeditions against the Chilian conservatives--for instance, that of Freire--and called him "the unjust violator of the sovereignty of Peru"; he feared that his power would strike a blow at the independence of the South American republics. Portales and Santa-Cruz represented two irreconcilable ambitions; they had the same love of authority and organic construction, and each professed a narrow nationalism and a violent patriotism. The Chilian oligarchy, led by Portales, proceeded to organise the "liberation campaign" against and on behalf of Peru. The historian Walker Martinez justifies this policy of interference and intervention in American affairs, although since the Pacific war the Chilian diplomatists have always pronounced against it. {125}