The result of the convocation of government Juntas in the various colonial capitals was a general declaration of loyalty to the banished King Ferdinand, and a refusal to recognize the authority of Spain so long as its government remained in the power of the usurper. In Peru, all the vigilance of the viceroy was employed in stifling the efforts of the patriots, which became ever more persistent. In 1810, a young nobleman of Lima, Don José de la Riva-Agüero, the leader of one of the secret societies formed for the purpose of promoting the revolutionary cause, was taken prisoner and banished to the interior. Another colonial grandee, Don José Baquijano, Count de Vista Florida, a poet and historian, the son of rich parents, joined the patriots and used his talents in behalf of the cause of freedom, his influence contributing to increase its popularity among the aristocracy. The Spanish government having proclaimed liberty of the press in 1810, a patriotic newspaper was started, called _El Peruano_, but it was immediately suppressed by the Viceroy Abascal. When the order arrived for the abolition of the Inquisition, the people went _en masse_ to the building in which the court had been held, and ransacked its rooms, breaking to pieces the instruments of torture and destroying the archives. Royalist troops had to be sent to Quito in 1809 to oppose the patriots, who had driven out the chief authority and had assumed the national government; and an army was also despatched, under command of General Goyeneche, to Alto Peru, where the revolutionists had imprisoned the president of the Audiencia. In both campaigns the struggle was so unequal that notwithstanding the heroism and determination of the colonists they were finally overcome. News of the defeat of the patriots at Guaqui, on the border of Lake Titicaca, reached Tacna when the army organized by the Limeño, Don Francisco Antonio Zela, was about to set out for Alto Peru; and, a detachment of royalist troops arriving soon afterward, Zela was captured by them and delivered to the authorities, who condemned him to exile in 1811. The following year, on the 13th of February, the Independence was proclaimed in Huánuco, but the ardent patriots who led the movement, Castilla, Araos, and Rodriguez, were supported only by raw recruits from the sierra and their campaign met with disaster, the chiefs being put to death. Cuzco made its proclamation of independence in 1814. The leader of the patriots was one of the Caciques who had joined the Bishop of Cuzco in repelling the forces of Tupac Amaru thirty years earlier. He was known as Mateo Garcia Pumacagua, a brave warrior and an honest patriot. With him were Mariano, Vicente and José Angulo, Gabriel Bejar, Hurtado de Mendoza, Padre Muñecas, Luis Astete, Pinelo, and others. Their armies were despatched in three divisions, one of which, under command of Pinelo and Muñecas, marched to La Paz, besieged it and took possession.