When Bolivar himself reached the country he was received in a delirium of joy and gratitude, and the enthusiastic Bolivians acclaimed him father of their country. In a literal sense he deserved the title, for his intervention had conferred independence on Bolivia, and his decrees now fixed her boundaries. In general he followed the ancient limits of the audiencia of Charcas. Peru retained the seacoast directly to the west as well as all the Titicacan basin north and west of the lake, compelling Bolivian commerce to pass through foreign territory in order to reach the ocean. Far to the south Bolivia was conceded a little ribbon of coast, but the route thither lay over the bleak and barren Puna and was too long to be of any practical service. On the 11th of August, 1825, official proclamation was made that the new republic had begun its existence, taking the name "Bolivia," in honour of the liberator. Congress said in the act of independence that: "Upper Peru is the altar upon which the first blood was shed for liberty, and the land where the last tyrant perished. The barbarous burning of more than a hundred villages, the destruction of towns, the scaffolds raised everywhere for the partisans of liberty, the blood of thousands of victims that would make even Caribs shudder; the taxes and exactions, as arbitrary as inhuman; the insecurity of property, life, and of honour itself; an atrocious and merciless inquisitorial system; all have not been able to extinguish the sacred fire of liberty and the just hatred of Spanish power."