meddle with the civil administration. December 31, 1816, he arrived at Barcelona with the arms, munitions of war, and provisions supplied by President Pétion. Joined on January 2, 1817, by Arismendi, Brion proclaimed on the 4th martial law and the union of all powers in his single person; but 5 days later, when Arismendi had fallen into an ambush laid by the Spaniards, the dictator fled to Barcelona. The troops rallied at the latter place, whither Brion sent him also guns and reinforcements, so that he soon mustered a new corps of 1,100 men. On April 5, the Spaniards took possession of the town of Barcelona, and the patriot troops retreated toward the charity-house, a building isolated from Barcelona, and entrenched on Bolívar's order, but unfit to shelter a garrison of 1,000 men from a serious attack. He left the post in the night of April 5, informing Colonel Freites, to whom he transferred his command, that he was going in search of more troops, and would soon return. Trusting this promise, Freites declined the offer of a capitulation, and, after the assault, was slaughtered with the whole garrison by the Spaniards. General Manuel Piar, a mulatto native of Curaçao, conceived and executed the conquest of Guayana Province with Admiral Brion supporting that enterprise with his gun-boats. In January 1817 Brión established the Admiralty and the Marine Corps. On August 3, 1817 he sailed up the Orinoco River with a squadron, fighting the Battle of Cabrián. In this battle he captured 14 of the 28 Spanish ships and took 1,500 prisoners. He liberated Guayana on November 5, 1817, and was named president of the Council of Government. On July 20, the whole of the provinces being evacuated by the Spaniards, Piar, Brion, Zea, Marino, Arismendi, and others, assembled a provincial congress at Angostura, and put at the head of the executive a triumvirate, of which Brion, hating Piar and deeply interested in Bolívar, in whose success he had invested his large private fortune, contrived that the latter should be appointed a member, notwithstanding his absence. Upon these tidings Bolívar left his retreat for Angostura, where, emboldened by Brion, he dissolved the congress and the triumvirate, to replace them by a "supreme council of the nation", with himself as the chief, Brion and Francisco Antonio Zea as the directors, the former of the military, the latter of the political section. However,