and the rest of her dominions were not, for they governed themselves by different laws and constitutions." Then Bolívar ventures to prophesy the destiny of all nations of the continent, from Mexico to the River Plata, and he does so with such accuracy of vision that almost to the word the history of the first half century of independence in Latin America was shaped according to his prediction. The tranquility of Chile, the tyranny of Rosas in Argentina, the Mexican empire, all were clearly seen in the future by his genius. Near the close of his letter, he adds these inspired words: "How beautiful it would be if the Isthmus of Panamá should come to be to us what the Isthmus of Corinth was to the Greeks! May God g that some day we may have the happiness of installing there an august congress of the representatives of the republics, kingdoms and empires, to discuss and study the high interests of peace and war with the nations of the other three parts of the world! This kind of cooperation may be established in some happy period of our regeneration...." He ends this capital document of his career as a political writer, by pleading again for union as the only means of putting an end to Spanish domination, in America. Nothing better can be said than the following words of a biographer of Bolívar:[1] "Alone, poor, in a foreign land, when his friends had denied him and had persecuted him, and his enemies had torn him to shreds in blind rage, when everybody saw America carrying once again the yoke imposed upon her, Bolívar saw her redeemed, and from the depth of his soul he felt himself bound to this wonderful task of redemption. His spirit, animated by an unknown breath, and which had lived a superior life, saw Colombia free, Chile established, Argentina expanding, Mexico Perú liberated, the Isthmus of Panamá converted into the center of communications and activities of human industry; it saw South America divided into powerful nationalities, having passed from slavery to struggle and to the conquest of her own dignity, and from the times of the sword to those of political civilization and organization of power; national units weighty in the statistics of the world by reason of their products, by their commerce, by their culture, by their wars, their alliances, their laws, their free governments; with names of their own, with famous histories, with supreme virtues. All that Bolívar saw, and of all that Bolívar wrote. Can human intelligence go any farther?" [Footnote 1: Larrazábal, "Vida del Libertador Simón Bolívar," Vol. I. page 404.] CHAPTER IX _Bolívar's Expedition and New Exile. He Goes to Guayana_ (1815-1817)