While the troops of the viceroy were occupied in all parts of the colonial dominion, the patriots of the capital, led by Francisco de Paula Quiroz, a graduate of the University of Huamanga, took advantage of the momentary weakness of the garrison in Lima to prepare an attack, which, however, was frustrated by the arrival at Callao of the peninsular regiment of Talavera. The plot was discovered, and Count de la Vega, who commanded the garrison, was arrested on suspicion of complicity with the patriots, and imprisoned. Quiroz died in a duel. The government forces were victorious in all parts of the viceroyalty, news being received from Chile in 1814 that the patriots had been overthrown by the army of General Osorio, sent by Abascal to the relief of the royalists. But that which appeared to be a final triumph of the monarchy, was but a check in the advance of the patriotic cause, during which its leaders were able to reorganize their forces and, profiting by the experience they had gained, to make a better fight than ever, snatching victory from defeat in one of the most glorious campaigns that illustrate the annals of modern history. When the Viceroy Abascal retired to Spain, leaving the government to his successor, Don José Joaquin de la Pezuela, in 1816, Buenos Aires was the only stronghold of the patriot party. General La Serna was given command of the army in Alto Peru, and General Ramirez was made president of Quito. General Pezuela was the last of the viceroys. Though he arrived at a moment when nearly all Spanish-America acknowledged the authority of the Crown, which had been restored to King Ferdinand VII., yet the astute warrior was in nowise deceived as to the actual condition of affairs and the strength of the revolution which seemed to have been dominated by the king’s armies. It was true that the Argentine patriots had retired from Alto Peru, leaving that country to fight its own battles under the _guerrilleros_; Chile’s patriotic army had withdrawn across the Andes; Quito had been subjugated; New Granada had succumbed to the superior strength of the royalist armies; the cause of independence had been apparently suffocated in Venezuela, its remaining defenders having taken refuge in flight; but, though all these facts apparently signified absolute victory for the government, they really indicated only the ominous calm preceding the tempest, and it was not long before the darkness of gathering clouds enveloped the monarchy, bringing confusion to its ranks, that were to be utterly overwhelmed by the full force of the storm as it broke over them on the field of Ayacucho a few years later. [Illustration: CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES, LIMA.]