volume 8, chapter 5).

"The provinces of New Granada and Venezuela, together with the Presidency of Quito, now sent delegates to the convention of Cucuta, in 1821, and there decreed the union of the three countries as a single state by the name of the Republic of Colombia. The first Colombian federal constitution was concocted by the united wisdom of the delegates; and the result might easily have been foreseen. It was a farrago of crude and heterogeneous ideas. Some of its features were imitated from the American political system, some from the English, some from the French. ... Bolivar of course became President: and the Republic had need of him. The task of liberation was not yet completed. Carthagena, and many other strong places, remained in Spanish hands. Bolivar reduced these one by one, and the second decisive victory of Carabobo, in 1822, finally secured Colombian freedom. The English claim the chief share in the battle of Carabobo: for the British legion alone carried the main Spanish position, losing in the feat two-thirds of its numbers. The war now fast drew to its close. The republic was able to contest with the invaders the dominion of the sea: General Padilla, on the 23rd of July, 1823, totally destroyed the Spanish fleet: and the Spanish commander finally capitulated at Puerto Cavello in December. {486} All these hard-won successes were mainly owing to the bravery and resolution of Bolivar. Bolivar deserves to the full the reputation of an able and patriotic soldier. He was now set free ... to render important services to the rest of South America: and among the heroes of independence perhaps his name will always stand first. But Bolivar the statesman was a man very different from Bolivar the general. He was alternately timid and arbitrary. He was indeed afraid to touch the problems of statesmanship which awaited him: but instead of leading the Colombian people through independence to liberty, he stubbornly set his face against all measures of political or social reform. His fall may be said to have begun with the moment when his military triumphs were complete. The disaffection to the constitution of the leading people in Venezuela and Ecuador [the new name given to the old province of Quito, indicating its position at the equator] in 1826 and 1827, was favoured by the Provincial governors, Paez and Mosquera; and Bolivar, instead of resisting the disintegration of the state, openly favoured the military dictatorships which Paez and Mosquera established. This policy foreshadowed the reign of absolutism in New Granada itself. Bolivar ... had now become not only the constitutional head of the Colombian federation, but also the military head of the Peruvian republics [see PERU: A. D. 1820-1826, 1825-1826, and 1826-1876]: and there can be no doubt that he intended the Colombian constitution to be reduced to the Peruvian model. As a first step towards reuniting all the South American nations under a military government, Paez, beyond reasonable doubt, with Bolivar's connivance, proclaimed the independence of Venezuela, April 30th, 1826. This practically broke up the Colombian federation: and the destruction of the constitution, so far as it regarded New Granada itself, soon followed. Bolivar had already resorted to the usual devices of military tyranny. The terrorism of Sbirri, arbitrary arrests, the assumption of additional executive powers, and, finally, the suppression of the vice-presidency, all pointed one way. ... At length, after the practical secession of Venezuela and Ecuador under their military rulers, Congress decreed a summons for a Convention, which met at Ocaña in March, 1828. ... The liberals, who were bent on electoral reform and decentralization, were paralyzed by the violent bearing of the Bolivian leaders: and Bolivar quartered himself in the neighbourhood, and threatened the Convention at the head of an army of 3,000 veterans. He did not, however, resort to open force. Instead of this, he ordered his party to recede from the Convention: and this left the Convention without the means of making a quorum. From this moment the designs of Bolivar were unmistakable. The dissolution of the Convention, and the appointment of Bolivar as Dictator, by a junta of notables, followed as a matter of course; and by the 'Organic decree' of August 1828, Bolivar assumed the absolute sovereignty of Colombia. A reign of brute force now followed: but the triumph of Bolivar was only ephemeral. ... The Federation was gone: and it became a question of securing military rule in the separate provinces. A portentous change now occurred in Ecuador. The democratic party under Flores triumphed over the Bolivians under Mosquera: and Paez assured his chief that no help was to be expected from Venezuela. At the Convention of Bogota, in 1830, though it was packed with Bolivar's nominees, it became clear that the liberator's star had set at last. ... This convention refused to vote him President. Bolivar now withdrew from public life: and a few months later, December 17, 1830, he died broken-hearted at San Pedro, near Santa Martha. Bolivar, though a patriot as regarded the struggle with Spain, was in the end a traitor to his fellow citizens. Recent discoveries leave little doubt that he intended to found a monarchy on the ruins of the Spanish dominion. England and France, both at this time strongly conservative powers, were in favour of such a scheme; and a Prince of the House of Bourbon had already been nominated to be Bolivar's successor."

_E. J. Payne, History of European Colonies, chapter 16._

"About one month before his death, General Bolivar, the so-called 'Liberator' of South America, wrote a letter to the late General Flores of Ecuador, in which the following remarkable passages occur, which have never before been published in the English language: 'I have been in power for nearly 20 years, from which I have gathered only a few definite results: 1. America, for us, is ungovernable. 2. He who dedicates his services to a revolution, plows the sea. 3. The only thing that can be done in America, is to emigrate. 4. This country will inevitably fall into the hands of the unbridled rabble, and little by little become a prey to petty tyrants of all colors and races.'"

_F. Hassaurek, Four Years among Spanish-Americans,