Page:The History of San Martin (1893).djvu/399

Rh Brion, who, becoming deeply interested both in him and in his designs, placed seven armed schooners at his orders, with 3,500 muskets, and offered his life and fortune in the same cause.

Bolívar commenced his preparations early in 1816, at the port of Cayos de San Luis, which has given its name to this famous expedition. There the refugees from Cartagena, and many officers from New Granada and Venezuela had collected. Among them were Piar, Mariño, Bermudez, Montilla, Soublette, the English Colonel MacGregor, who had served with Miranda, Doucoudray-Holstein, and Francisco Zea. There was anarchy among them; many of them refused to recognise the authority of Bolívar. Petion interposed his influence, and Brion declared that he would entrust his ships and armament to no one but to the Liberator. He was at length accepted as leader of the expedition, from which Montilla, who had challenged Bolívar, and Bermudez, who had led the opposition, were excluded.

Brion, with the title of Admiral of Venezuela, took command of the squadron, which sailed from Cayos on the 16th March, 1816. The expedition consisted of 300 men, whom Bolívar afterwards compared to the 300 Spartans of Leonidas, as he compared his reconquest of Venezuela to the redemption of Jerusalem by the Crusaders. They reached the island of Margarita early in May, finding there the Spanish brig Intrepido and the schooner Rita, which Brion boarded and captured, after a desperate resistance in which three-fourths of their crews were killed. The expedition then disembarked at the port of Juan Griego, the Royalists concentrating their forces at Pampatar and Porlamar.

Bolívar and Arismendi then conjointly convened a meeting of the officers of the Patriot army, and of the principal inhabitants, in the church at La Villa del Norte, in order to name the supreme ruler of the Republic they were about to restore. In accordance with his custom, Bolívar immediately renounced all pretensions to so