stations of Coro and Puerto Rico, his necessary supplies from which had hitherto been obliged to travel to him by a circuit of some hundred leagues across the interior of the country. This last misfortune utterly broke for a time the spirit of the Venezuelans, and Miranda found himself at last obliged to listen to the proposals of the successful general. A capitulation was signed between him and Monteverde, by which it was provided, that the sovereignty of the Spanish Cortes should be acknowledged; that a complete amnesty should be granted for all former opinions and actions; and finally, that liberty of emigrating from Venezuela should be conceded to all who might desire it. Immediately after the sign ing of the treaty, Monteverde enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing the authority of the Cortes established once more throughout the whole of Venezuela. The cruelty, however, with which he violated his own part of the treaty, was probably the chief cause of the brief endurance of his triumph. Miranda, and about a thousand of his friends, were thrown into dungeons at Puerto Cabello and La Guayra. The most important persons were sent to Cadiz, where there is every reason to suppose some of them still continue to languish in confinement, after no less then seven years have passed over their heads. These events occurred before the end of 1812.

About eighteen months had elapsed, when the entire appearance of things in Venezuela was once more changed. The inhabitants of Cumana, one of the provinces which had suffered least during the former commotions, rose of a sudden, in consequence of some bar. barities of the Spanish governor ; and the war was already renewed in those districts, when Monteverde received intelligence of a still more alarming nature from another. Simon Bolivar, (a remarkable man, des

tined, it would appear, to leave behind him the greatest reputation to which the South-American revolution has yet given birth), after his forced retreat from Puerto Cabello in the preceding year, finding his services no longer demanded by the expiring Junta of Venezuela, offered himself and the few soldiers he had with him to the more prosperous sister state of New Granada. After being employed for some time by his new masters in various important services, he at last demanded their permission to lead a small body of troops across the Andes, once more to attempt the liberation of his native provinces of Venezuela. This permission was granted, and Bolivar lost no time in making use of it. He penetrated the hills in the end of 1813, and being joined by the men of Cumana, and by great numbers of recruits from every part of the country, he soon found himself in condition to drive the forces of Monteverde everywhere before him. The last and greatest action of this campaign was decided in his favour by the defection of the whole of the Spanish cavalry, and this was immediately. followed by his making his triumphant entry into the capital city of Ca raccas. He was there received with all manner of joy and affection by the inhabitants. But his triumph had been attended with evil omens, and victory, stained as his was, might have been welcome indeed, but should scarcely have been joyful. The fault, however, at least the main fault, does not attach to Bolivar. The Spaniards having surrounded, in the course of his advance, a small detachment of his army, under the command of his friend Briceno, that officer was executed after his surrender by order of the royalist general Tiscar. Bolivar from this moment declared that all terms were at an end; whoever thenceforth fell into the possession of either party, demanded quarter in vain. The rules of

civilised warfare were entirely abandoned, and the war of death, the guerra a muerte, as it is called, begun. It is since this period that the true horrors of the revolution are to be dated. Henceforth the hostilities of the Caraccas have assumed a character to which European eyes, accustomed though they be to war, are totally and happily strangers.

In this terrible method of contest, the side of Bolivar had for some time a decided superiority; and in a few months, Monteverde, his reverse being as rapid as his success had been, found his authority confined to the single city of Puerto Cabello, whither he himself had retreated at the time when Bolivar obtained possession of the capital. The siege of this place was forthwith com-, menced with vigour by the republicans; but, in spite of the superiority of his enemy's forces, and in spite of the total failure of a sally, when he headed the elite of his own troops, and was severely wounded, the Spanish general persisted in the defence of his position with a pertinacity worthy of the best times of his nation. His pride and his cruelty were equal to his fortitude. He rejected with scorn every offer of treaty from Bolivar; he placed whatever prisoners he had in his power before his lines when the assault was given; and on one occasion he hanged four men of some distinction in front of the enemy's quarters. In all these brutalities he was followed, passibus équis indeed, but still only followed, by the insurgents. A diversion was attempted in favour of Monteverde by the royalists of Coro. But these, after penetrating into the territory of Caraccas, were met by Bolivar himself, and entirely cut off in three successive engagements, at Vigorima, Barbula, and Araure.

Upon this last disappointment, the royalists of Puerto Cabello had recourse to a measure, which, for a time indeed, turned the tide of war in their

favour, but which they, equally with their adversaries, will in the issue find abundant cause to repent. Monte. verde resolved to raise the slaves against their masters throughout the Venezuelan provinces, and, having once determined on this measure, he found no difficulty in procuring agents willing and well qualified to assist him in car. rying it into execution. The most active of his secret emissaries were Boves, Yanez, Puy, and Palomo-the last himself a negro, who had been outlawed several years before as a robber and an assassin. These savage agents soon found their way into the interior of the insurgents' country; and spreading, wherever they went, the seeds of wrath in the breasts of men in whom such wrath can scarcely be blamed, they succeeded in raising simultane ously, in different parts of the territory, armies sufficient to encounter with equality, if not superiority of numbers, any which Bolivar could even then bring into the field. The republican, however, separated his forces, and, after a succession of sanguinary actions, he obtained what he conceived at the time to be a final triumph over them at Carabobo, on the 28th of May, 1814. The ravages of these last enemies had been sufficient to throw even all the former atrocities of the war into the shade. From the mouth of the Oroonoko, where one of the main inroads had commenced, to the city of Caraccas itself, a space of four hundred leagues was laid entirely bare by fire, sword, and famine. Bolivar, understanding that these barbarians had assembled the relics of their strength in the territory of Los Llanos, which lies beyond the frontier of Venezuela, dispatched several of his best troops in pursuit of them; but having by this means too much subdivided his forces, he was himself surprised by an assault of Boves, at the head of a considerable

ther country is too weak to make any commanding exertion; and, however long the struggle may be protracted, there can be little doubt that, in the end, it will not be favourable for her.

We have hitherto attempted to follow the course of events in Venezuela. That province deserves parti. cular attention, not because it is the richest or the most important of the Spanish colonies, but because in it the war first commenced, and has been conducted with the most determined fury down to the time when we are writing. Its vicinity to some of our own islands, too, has rendered the events which have occurred there better known to us, than are those which have taken place in most of the other South American provinces. We shall now, however, attempt, so far as our information enables us, to bring down the history of the sister states to the same point.

The vice-royalty of New Granada is situated immediately adjoining to the provinces of Venezuela, and its inhabitants seem to have caught from thence, at the very moment of the revolution in 1810, the first spark of that enthusiasm for independence which has since distinguished them. Unfortunately, however, for New Granada, her various provinces, although all desirous of freedom, have never been united among themselves by a perfect harmony of views in regard either to the species of free government to be established, or on the mode in which its establishment might be effected. The great city of Santa Fe de Bogota, for example, resisted for several years every proposal of uniting itself to the General Congress of New Granada; and the province of Carthagena has preferred, during almost the whole period of the war, to conduct its affairs in the same independent manner.

The consequence of the foolish conduct of Santa Fe, was a minor civil war between it and the Congress, which terminated in its reduction by force of arms; and the capital of Carthagena has in like manner undergone a siege by the troops of the Congress. In the first years of the war, notwithstanding, distinguished success attended the general exertions of the insurgents. Their armies, headed by Narino, a man of high talents and dauntless resolution, repelled every attack of the royalists, and defeated them on one occasion in a great battle at El alto del Palace, with circumstances of heroism not inferior to any thing which has been displayed in Venezuela. The province of Popayan, alone, still held out for the royalists, and Narino marched against it in June 1814, with every prospect of success. The district, however, is rugged and mountainous; and Narino, having fallen into an ambush, was made prisoner, along with the greater part of his troops. Bolivar, the Venezuelan, during his last absence from his own country, supplied the place of this general. But, since the recommencement of hostilities in the Caraccas, it would seem that the Granadian army has been less fortunate in its commanders. In 1816, General Morillo sailed from Spain with a force of 12,000 men, and leaving 2000 at Puerto Cabello under the com mand of Morales, (whose proceedings we have already described,) he landed with the rest in New Granada, and commenced immediately the siege of Carthagena. He was repulsed* at first, but, in the end, he succeeded not only in taking this city, but in restoring the authority of King Ferdinand over almost the whole of the territory of the confederation. Morillo himself, however, seems to be well aware that the spirit of disaffec