Page:The History of San Martin (1893).djvu/360

330 through jealousy of Bolívar, thinking that his fellow-countrymen would prefer him as a leader to a Venezuelan. But Torres did not hesitate, he chose Bolívar to command the Granadian contingent, conferred the rank of brigadier upon him, and ordered him at once to drive the Royalists out of the Provinces of Merida and Trujillo, after which he was to await instructions, which would be conveyed to him by commissioners from Congress, who would accompany him in all his future operations as those of the Convention accompanied the armies of Revolutionary France.

Bolívar had barely 600 men, while he was opposed by 6,000, who were so posted that wherever he attacked them they were always two to one. The first invasion of Bolívar along the western slopes of the eastern range of the Cordillera which crosses the territory of Venezuela, was a series of flashes of lightning which ended in a thunderbolt. On the 30th May he took Merida unopposed. The city raised a battalion of 500 infantry and a squadron of cavalry to reinforce his army. His vanguard, under Girardot, then occupied Trujillo, and a strong detachment under D'Eluyar forced Correa to take refuge in Maracaibo.

The garrison of Trujillo retreated to Carache, a town devoted to the Royalist cause, but were driven out by Girardot, who shot all the Spaniards who were taken prisoners, and the town was declared "infamous" by Bolívar in a proclamation. In fifty days there was not an enemy left in either province.

From this time Bolívar assumed a new attitude, as the independent representative of the Republic of Venezuela, and became a sort of Dictator. In contravention of the express orders of the Government of New Granada, he on the 15th June fulminated in a proclamation an order for the extermination of all Royalists, which he established by decree on the 6th September as a fundamental law of Venezuela. The atrocities committed by Monteverde and his myrmidons produced their natural effect.