But the triumph of the new Protector did not last long. For some reason he failed to understand that the withdrawal of the royalists from the neighborhood of the coast was merely a strategic retreat that made the occupation of the capital a more or less empty performance. This blunder and a variety of other mishaps proved destined to blight his military career. Unfortunate in the choice of his subordinates and unable to retain their confidence; accused of irresolution and even of cowardice; abandoned by Cochrane, who sailed off to Chile and left the army stranded; incapable of restraining his soldiers from indulgence in the pleasures of Lima; now severe, now lax in an administration that alienated the sympathies of the influential class, San Martin was indeed an unhappy figure. It soon became clear that he must abandon all hope of ever conquering the citadel of Spanish power in South America unless he could prevail upon Bolivar to help him. A junction of the forces of the two great leaders was perfectly feasible, after the last important foothold of the Spaniards on the coast of Venezuela had been broken by the Battle of Carabobo, on July 24, 1821. Whether such a union would be made, however, depended upon two things: the ultimate disposition of the province of Quito, lying between Colombia and Peru, and the attitude which Bolivar and San Martin themselves should assume toward each other. A revolution of the previous year at the seaport town of Guayaquil in that province had installed an independent government which besought the Liberator to sustain its existence. Prompt to avail himself of so auspicious an opportunity of uniting this former division of the viceroyalty of New Granada to his republic of Colombia, Bolivar appointed Antonio Jose de Sucre, his ablest lieutenant and probably the most efficient of all Spanish American soldiers of the time, to assume charge of the campaign. On his arrival at Guayaquil, this officer found the inhabitants at odds among themselves. Some, hearkening to the pleas of an agent of San Martin, favored union with Peru; others, yielding to the arguments of a representative of Bolivar, urged annexation to Colombia; still others regarded absolute independence as most desirable. Under these circumstances Sucre for a while made little headway against the royalists concentrated in the mountainous parts of the country despite the partial support he received from troops which were sent by the southern commander. At length, on May 24, 1822, scaling the flanks of the volcano of Pichincha, near the capital town of Quito itself, he delivered the blow for freedom. Here Bolivar, who had fought his way overland amid tremendous difficulties, joined him and started for Guayaquil, where he and San Martin were to hold their memorable interview.