ed and deposed, and a congress convened to organize a new government. The talents and acquirements of Bolivar pointed him out as the best qualified person to be placed at the helm; but he disapproved of the system adopted by the congress, and refused a diplomatic mission to England. He even declined any connection with the government, though he continued a staunch friend to the cause of independence. But at length he consented to proceed to England, where he solicited the British cabinet in vain to espouse the cause of the revolution. Finding them resolved to maintain a strict neutrality, he returned to Caraccas after a short stay. In the mean time, the declaration of independence was boldly maintained by military force. Miranda was appointed commander-in-chief. Bolivar took the post of colonel in the army, and governor of Puerto Cabello, the strongest place in Venezuela.
Success attended the arms of the patriots till 1812, when a remarkable event caused them the most serious reverses. In March of that year a violent earthquake devastated the whole province, and among other places totally destroyed the city of Caraccas, with all its magazines and munitions of war. This dreadful calamity, in which twenty thousand persons perished, happened, by a most remarkable coincidence, on the anniversary of the very day in which the revolution had broken out, two years before. The priesthood, who, as a body, were devoted to the royal interest, eagerly seized upon this circumstance. In their hands, the earthquake became the token of the Divine wrath against the revolutionary party. The superstitious multitude were easily deluded and terrified with such representations and denunciations. Priests, monks, and friars, were stationed in the streets, vociferating in the midst of credulous throngs of people trembling with fear, while the royalist commanders improved the occasion by overrunning one district after another. Bolivar was compelled to evacuate Puerto Cabello. Miranda's conduct having become suspicious, he was arrested by the patriot leaders and delivered up to the Spanish commander, who sent him to Spain, where he died in a dungeon. Bolivar is supposed to have had a share in this transaction, in consequence of which he has been severely censured. There were some circumstances, however, which appeared to justify a suspicion that Miranda was engaged in a hostile plot with the British cabinet.
Bolivar was now entrusted with the command of an army of six thousand men, which he led across the mountains to the further extremity of New Granada. In the hostilities of this period, deeds of the most revolting ferocity were perpetrated by the royalist troops, and the whole country was reduced to a frightful state of misery. On the most trivial pretexts, old men, women and children, were arrested and massacred as rebels. Friars and military butchers reigned triumphant. One of the Spanish officers, named Suasola, cut off the ears of a great number of patriots, and had them stuck in the caps of his soldiers for cockades. Bolivar, who had hitherto conducted the war with great forbearance, was inflamed with indignation at these cruelties; he swore to avenge his countrymen, and declared that every royalist who fell into his hands should be consigned to the vengeance of his soldiery. But this spirit of inexorable justice and retaliation ill accorded with Bolivar's character, and it was exercised only on one occasion, when eight hundred Spaniards were shot. Afterwards it
