For the following ten years Peru enjoyed a period of peace, under the rule of General Don Ramon Castilla, an old Indian of Tarapaca, for the first six years, and afterwards of General Echenique. During this period the country advanced rapidly in material prosperity, but in 1854 it was again convulsed by a revolution, caused by the general discontent of the people at the gross malversations and unblushing robbery of Echenique's Government. Castilla placed himself at the head of this movement, and, with the aid of a large army, has retained his power up to the present day. The insurrection at Arequipa, and mutiny in the fleet, in 1857-58, were purely local, and did not affect the general tranquillity of the country. Towards the close of Peru's ten years of convulsion, a constitution was adopted, establishing a strictly centralising form of government, in 1839, in which immense power was placed in the hands of the executive. But during the ten years of peace which followed the election of Castilla in 1844, men's minds were strongly influenced by European travel and by more extended reading, extreme liberal views were very generally adopted, and the old constitution was felt to be out of date. In 1856, therefore, a new constitution was promulgated by a national assembly summoned for the purpose by General Castilla, in which abstract ideas of what is just and right were unhesitatingly and heedlessly adopted; and a strong tendency to federalism and local self-government was displayed.