that which is most free" and calling on Bolívar to encourage the development of democracy. In response, Bolívar wrote that the United States "seem destined by Providence to plague America with torments in the name of freedom", a sentiment that achieved fame in Latin America. Freehling indicates Harrison's missteps in Columbia were "bad and frequent", that he failed to properly maintain a position of neutrality in Columbian affairs, by publicly opposing Bolivar, and that Columbia sought his removal. Andrew Jackson took office in March 1829, and recalled Harrison in order to make his own appointment to the position. Biographer James Hall claims that Harrison found in Columbia a military despotism and that "his liberal opinions, his stern republican integrity, and the plain simplicity of his dress and manners, contrasted too strongly with the arbitrary opinions and ostentatious behaviour of the public officers, to allow him to be long a favourite with those who had usurped the power of that government. They feared that the people would perceive the difference between a real and a pretended patriot, and commenced a series of persecutions against our minister, which rendered his situation extremely irksome." A very similar sentiment of the situation is related by biographer Samuel Burr. Harrison, after leaving his post but while still in the country, wrote his roughly ten-page letter to Bolivar, which is reproduced in full in both the Hall and Burr biographies. It left the former struck by Harrison's "deeply imbued principles of liberty". Burr describes the letter as "replete with wisdom, goodness, and patriotism…and the purest of principles". Private citizen Harrison returned to the United States and his North Bend farm, living in relative privacy after nearly four decades of government service. He had accumulated no substantial wealth during his lifetime, and he lived on his savings, a small pension, and the income produced by his farm. Burr references M. Chavalier, who encountered Harrison in Cincinnati at this time, and described Harrison as "poor, with a numerous family, abandoned by the Federal government, yet vigorous with independent thinking". In May of 1817, Harrison served as one of the founding vestry members of the Episcopal congregation, Christ Church in downtown Cincinnati (now Christ Church Cathedral). Harrison went on to serve as a vestry member through 1819, and then again in 1824. Local supporters had come to Harrison's relief, by appointing him Clerk of Courts for Hamilton County, where