On June 24, 1821, Bolivar gained the crowning victory of Carabobo in Venezuela. The Spanish position in the Caribbean provinces became irretrievable, and the patriot general was thenceforth free to pursue his plans for the expulsion of the enemy from southern New Granada and Ecuador and their incorporation with Colombia. In the fall of that year General Sucre, who shares with San Martin the honor of being the greatest soldier of the patriot side, arrived at Guayaquil by sea, bringing with him seventeen hundred Colombian and Venezuelan veterans. Bolivar was to advance from Bogota, conquering Popayan and Pasto on his way to Quito, while Sucre came up from the south. The latter at once ascended the Andes to the plateau, but was badly defeated. Retreating to Guayaquil, he reorganised his army, incorporating with it a reinforcement of twelve hundred men sent by San Martin, and again climbed the Andes. By this time Bolivar was advancing from Popayan to Pasto and the Spaniards, thinking it best to concentrate their forces, abandoned Cuenca and the southern provinces and allowed Sucre to advance unopposed to the neighbourhood of Quito. There he outmanoeuvred them and gained a commanding position on the slopes of the great volcano, Pichincha, overlooking the city. His foes were forced to the alternative of giving battle at a disadvantage or permitting him to effect a junction with Bolivar, and overwhelming them by superior numbers. On the morning of the 24th of May, 1822, the battle decisive of Ecuador's fate was fought. The royal army suffered annihilation; four hundred dead lay on the mountainside and two hundred wounded; eleven hundred men and one hundred and sixty officers surrendered the following day. The only troops who escaped belonged to scattered detachments not present at the battle, who fled down the eastern slope of the Andes into the trackless forests and finally made their way down the Amazon to the Atlantic. CHAPTER IV THE FORMATION OF ECUADOR