quite inferior in principle, was prepared by the congress, and on the 23d of December, presented to the people for their sanction. It provided for a senate and representatives, a judiciary and other branches of government, with an executive of three persons; abolished torture, the slave-trade, and the tribute of the Indians: and established the Catholic religion as that of the state. The town of Valencia was ceded to the federal government thus organized, and the first congress under the new constitution held its first session there in March, 1812. CHAPTER II. THE AFFAIRS OF NEW GRANADA.-EXPULSION OF THE SPAN- Out HAVING thus briefly sketched the progress of events in Venezuela, we come to those of New Granada, soon destined to be closely connected with its sister-province. In July, 1810, on receipt of unwelcome tidings from Spain, a junta had been formed at Santa Fe de Bogota, the capital of that state, which had arrested the viceroy and other royal officers, and had dispatched them home to Spain. of the twenty-two provinces of which this colony was composed, nine responded to the call for erecting a provisional government. Others espoused the royalist faction, and a civil war almost immediately broke out. Tacon, the royalist governor of Popayan, was defeated by the patriots; and the people of Quito, in August, soon after the massacre already mentioned, exasperated by the arrival of a Spanish commissioner, armed only with clubs and knives, attacked the troops with such fury as to compel them to leave the city. Toward the close of the year, the junta of Santa Fe entered into an alliance for mutual protection with that of Caraccas. The republican party of New Granada, disagreeing as to the form of government to be adopted, was soon involved in a disgraceful internal feud. The forces of the congress, in attempting to take by storm Santa Fe, where Narino, the president of Cundinamarca, was quartered, were repulsed with terrible loss, and the royalists, taking advantage of these dissensions, inflicted great atrocities on the defenceless country. In Cuenca, an army, raised and commanded by the royalist bishop, and officered in great part by priests, carried black standards, and assumed the terrible name of "The Army of Death." This force having defeated the troops of Quito, the Peruvian army, which had lately retreated from that city to Guayaquil, on the 6th of November, 1812, under the ferocious Montes, rëentered the city, and murdered one-fifth of the inhabitants who remained. The prisoners taken by the royalists in their successes were, with unsparing vengeance, put to death. Recalled to their senses by this dangerous movement, and the frightful scenes of massacre by which it was accompanied, the contending republicans at length saw the necessity of laying aside their feuds and providing for the common safety. Their forces, eight thousand in number, were accordingly united, and placed under the command of Narino, who marched against Samano, the successor of Montes in command, and defeated him at El Atto del Palace. The royalists, reinforced, again offered battle; and at Calivia, in Popayan, a most obstinate battle, contested with all the fury that disgraces civil warfare, resulted in their renewed discomfiture and retreat. Narino gained, though with severe loss, several other victories over the tyrannical faction, but finally, marching to Pastas, in pursuit of the enemy, being deprived, by an artful stratagem, of the support of his rear-division, was in turn defeated and made prisoner. Cabal, who succeeded him in the command, was compelled to retreat to Popayan, hotly pursued by the victorious royalists. Most of their prisoners were murdered by the successful party. (June, 1814.) These disasters, occurring at the same time that the bigoted Ferdinand was restored to the throne of Spain, threw an aspect of deep gloom over the cause of freedom in New Granada. Meanwhile, in Venezuela, the republican cause, at first so prosperous, by a strange accident of nature had been plunged into ruin and defeat. On Holy Thursday, the 26th of March, 1812, when the troops and people, throughout the state, were crowding into chapej and cathedral to participate in one of the most impressive ceremonies of the church, that terrible earthquake, one of the most fatal recorded in history, in a single minute laid waste the ill-fated province, and crushed the cause of liberty, for a time, to the earth. Caraccas, La Guira, Merida, and many other towns, were laid in almost complete ruin. Nearly twenty thousand souls perished-among them many soldiers, just prepared for encounter with the royalists. Arms and ammunition, in great quantity, were likewise destroyed; and the bigoted clergy, readily catching at a pretext for the revival of despotism, assured the people from their pulpits that this terrible calamity, occurring on an occasion so solemn, was a signal manifestation of the wrath of Heaven against the impiety of self-government. Korah and his troop were cited as an exact precedent, and the ignorant people, thoroughly unmanned by misfortune and superstition, lent a ready ear to the miserable assumption of their spiritual directors. Public credit rapidly depreciated, and the political prospect appeared so alarming that the congress, almost in despair, created Miranda dictator for the time, with full power, as in the old Roman commonwealth, in similar emergencies, "to see that the Republic took no injury." They then adjourned to serve in the army, or to traverse the provinces, reviving, by eloquent harangues, the fallen spirit of the people. With two thousand men, armed with muskets saved from the ruins, their general advanced to meet the enemy, who, on learning these disastrous tidings, had marched, under Monteverde, toward Caraccas, overcoming, by superior force, the inefficient attempts of the liberal forces to oppose them. Their ranks were continually reinforced from those of the superstitious provincials, who thought to avert the divine vengeance by enlisting under the banners of ancient oppression. In the defile of La Cabrera, a difficult pass on the road to Caraccas, Miranda had posted his force, to oppose the advance of the enemy; but the latter, winning their way across the mountain by a difficult foot-path, compelled him to retreat to Victoria, only fifty miles from the capital. The royalist army attacked the town with much spirit, but being bravely withstood, were repulsed with loss. Misfortunes, however, in the loss of Porto Cabello, desertion of troops, and reinforcement of the enemy, thickened so fast, that the dictator and executive despaired even of holding out in the ruins of Caraccas. A capitulation with Monteverde was accordingly agreed on, in the following terms: 1st. That the Constitution offered by the Cortes to the Spanish nation should be "2d. That no one was to suffer for former opinions. [established in Caraccas. "3d. That all private property was to be held sacred. "4th. That emigration was to be permitted to those who wished to leave Caraccas." VOL. III.-21 The Venezuelan capital and the slender remains of the liberal army thus surrendered, the Spanish rule was once more completely in the ascendent in that unfortunate state. Once rëestablished in power, the royalist government shamelessly broke through every article of the capitulation. Miranda and a thousand other patriots were thrown into dungeons, and numbers were condemned by the Spanish Cortes to perpetual imprisonment. Monteverde, who now had the complete authority in his hands, continued to push the work of oppression. At length, the whole liberal party of Venezuela was proscribed, and Caraccas and other cities were converted into mere prisons. Nearly the whole republican population, it is said, was under confinement. The ministry of Spain, unsatisfied with these severities, complained "of the indulgence which had been shown to the insurgents of Caraccas." The reaction caused by these acts of perfidy and cruelty, was not long in approaching. In Cumana, the young Marino, raising a force of liberals, renewed the war by seizing the town of Maturin; and two atttempts by the Spaniards to regain it, the last under Monteverde himself, proved fruitless. CHAPTER III. SIMON BOLIVAR.-HIS GENEROUS AND PATRIOTIC SPIRIT.HIS SUCCESSES AGAINST THE ROYALISTS.-ASSISTED BY NEW GRANADA. HE REENTERS CARACCAS.-"WAR TO THE DEATH."-THE SERVILE INSURRECTION AND THE ROYALISTS.-RENEWED PROSTRATION OF THE REPUBLICAN CAUSE. THE name most famous in the South American wars of independ. ence, is that of Simon Bolivar. He was a native of Caraccas, of wealth and of good family, and during his travels in Europe, while yet a youth, had enlarged his mind, enjoyed the friendship of eminent men, and attracted attention by his talents and learning. From familiarity with the comparatively free institutions of England and Switzerland, he had imbibed an ardent love for liberty in its poblest siguification-a love which, on his return to Venezuela, just at the commencement of the revolution, he displayed by emancipating more than a thousand slaves, which he had inherited, and by embarking his princely fortune in the republican cause. He had commanded the important post of Porto Cabello, which, at the triumph of the royalists, he had been compelled to surrender; but, disapproving of the capitulation, had betaken himself to the banks of the Magdalena, where, with a small force, in the latter part of 1812, he made an effective stand against the dominant party. On application to the republican congress of New Granada, that body supplied him with a levy of six hundred men, reinforced with which, he crossed the Andes, and gained successive victories over the royalists. The latter, by the savage policy of executing their prisoners, at last provoked reprisal; and Bolivar was compelled to announce that the same unsparing cruelty would be practiced in retaliation. The war thenceforward became, literally, what it was called-la guerra a muerte "war to the death." The people, their superstitious fears supplanted by irritation at the continued atrocities of the royal party, now rallied in great numbers around the standard of Bolivar-"the Liberator," as he was justly entitled. Having gained many victories, he advanced upon Caraccas, while Monteverde was compelled to retreat to Porto Cabello. The royal governor, Fierro, having signed a capitulation, collected all the property he could, and sailed for Spain, leaving at the mercy of the victor fifteen hundred Spaniards, who were unable to escape. On the 13th of August, 1813, Bolivar, to the intense joy of the longoppressed liberals, entered Caraccas. The scene was affecting in the extreme, and the dungeons being thrown open, the surviving captives were restored to liberty. Through the exertions of Marino in the eastern provinces, the royal yoke had also been thrown off there, and nearly all Venezuela was again republican, except Porto Cabello, where Monteverde still held out, and refused all terms of treaty. Reinforced by twelve hundred troops from Spain, he marched forth and attacked the patriot forces at Aguacaiente, but was defeated with terrible loss, nearly his whole force being killed or made prisoners. Being wounded, he was succeeded in the command by Saloman, and then by Istueta, who still held command of Porto Cabello, and inflicted great cruelties on the numerous prisoners confined in that fortress. By night they were kept in suffocating dungeons, where fifty of them, at one time, perished for want of air, and in the day were exposed before the batteries to deter the patriots from firing. |