against the Spaniards in Venezuela. At Les Cayes he met Brion and the other emigrants, and in a general meeting proposed himself as the chief of the new expedition, on the condition of uniting the civil and military power in his person until the assembling of a general congress. The majority accepting his terms, the expedition sailed April 16, 1816 to the coast of Venezuela, with him as its commander and Brion as its captain. On May 2, 1816 he won his first victory over Spanish warships, in the Battle of Los Frailes. On the day of the victory, Brion was named admiral by Bolívar. At Margarita Island the former succeeded in winning over Juan Bautista Arismendi, the commander of the island, in which he had reduced the Spaniards to the single spot of Pampatar. On Bolívar's formal promise to convoke a national congress at Venezuela, as soon as he should be master of the country, Arismendi summoned a junta in the cathedral of La Villa del Norte, and publicly proclaimed him the commander-in-chief of the republics of Venezuela and New Granada. On May 31, 1816, Bolívar and Brion landed at Carupano, but did not dare prevent generals Santiago Marino and Manuel Piar from separating from him, and carrying on a war against Cumana under their own auspices. Weakened by this separation, he set sail, on Brion's advice, for Ocumare de la Costa, where he arrived July 3, 1816, with 13 vessels, of which 7 only were armed. His army mustered but 650 men, swelled, by the enrolment of negroes whose emancipation he had proclaimed, to about 800. On his advance in the direction of Valencia he met, not far from Ocumare, the Spanish general Morales at the head of about 200 soldiers and 100 militia men. The skirmishers of Morales having dispersed his advanced guard, he lost, as an eyewitness records, On Brion's rebukes and admonitions, Bolívar again joined the other commanders on the coast of Cumana, but being harshly received, and threatened by Piar with trial before a court-martial as a deserter and a coward, he quickly retraced his steps to Les Cayes. After months of exertion, Brion at length succeeded in persuading a majority of the Venezuelan military chiefs, who felt the want of at least a nominal centre, to recall Bolívar as their general-in-chief, upon the express condition that he should assemble a congress, and not