BOLIVAR BOLIVIA. 



595 



hands of the regular national executive, had peace- 

 ably submitted to general Ovando, who was sent, by 

 the constitutional authorities, for the purpose of taking 

 the command. B. meanwhile signified his consent to 

 be qualified as president, and proceeded, with this in- 

 tent, to Bogota, where he arrived, Sept. 10, took the 

 oaths prescribed by the constitution, and resumed the 

 functions belonging to his official station. To exter- 

 nal appearance, therefore, Colombia was restored to 

 tranquillity, under the rule of her constitutional ma- 

 gistrates. But the nation was divided between two 

 great parties, and agitated to its centre by their 

 opposite views of the political condition of the coun- 

 try. B. had regained the personal confidence of the 

 soldiers and officers of the third division, who express- 

 ed the deepest repentance for their distrust of his 

 character, and their entire devotion to his interests. 

 But the republican party, and the friends of the con- 

 stitution, with Santander at their head, continued to 

 regard his ascendency over the army, and his politi- 

 cal movements, with undisguised and not unfounded 

 apprehension, universally accusing or suspecting him 

 of a desire to emulate the career of Napoleon. They 

 looked to the convention of Ocana, which was to as- 

 semble in March, 1828, for a decided expression of 

 I lie will of the nation, in favour of the existing 

 republican forms. The military, on the other hand, 

 did not conceal their conviction that a stronger and 

 more permanent form of government was necessary 

 for the public welfare ; that the people were unpre- 

 pared for purely republican institutions, and that B. 

 ought to be intrusted with discretionary power to 

 administer the affairs of Colombia. 



In 1828, B. assumed the supreme power in Colom- 

 bia, by a decree, dated Bogota, Aug. 27, which gave 

 him authority to maintain peace at home, and to de- 

 fend the country against foreign invasions ; to have 

 the command of the land and sea forces ; to negoti- 

 ate with foreigu powers ; to make peace and declare 

 war ; to make treaties ; to appoint the civil and 

 military officers ; to pass decrees, and ordinances of 

 every description ; to regulate the administration of 

 justice, c. The decree provided, however, that he 

 was to be assisted in the exercise of executive 

 power by the council of ministers. 



Bolivar continued to exercise the chief authority 

 until May, 1830, when, dissatisfied with the aspect of 

 internal affairs, he resigned the presidency, and ex- 

 pressed a determination to leave the country. Vene- 

 zuela, under Paez, immediately declared herself inde- 

 pendent of the central government ; and the same 

 spirit of disaffection was manifested by the other pro- 

 vinces. Bolivar, living in retirement at his country 

 seat, refused to take any part in public events, until, 

 after six months of confusion, he was pressed to re- 

 sume the government, by those who had succeeded 

 him in the administration. He had finally yielded to 

 this urgency, and consented to take the chief com- 

 mand, until the new elections should be completed, 

 declaring it to be his firm resolution then to retire to 

 private life, when he died, at Carthagena, on the 17th 

 December, 1830. He met death with calmness and 

 resignation, performing, on the llth, the last act of 

 his public life, by dictating and signing an address to 

 the Colombian nation. From that time, he continued 

 delirious, with occasional lucid intervals, till the day 

 of his death, expressing no other anxiety than for his 

 country. " Union! union!" was his most frequent 

 exclamation. 



We extract the following summary of his character 

 from the American Annual Register for 1831 : " As 

 a general, Bolivar was distinguished, accomplishing 

 great ends with inadequate means, and confounding 

 his opponents by the rapidity of his movements, and 

 the vehemence of his attacks. Repeatedly defeated, 



his forces scattered, himself escaping in a remarkable 

 manner, when others despaired, he continued to act, 

 and, with energies irrepressible by adversity, fought 

 on in the great cause he had espoused, until he 

 had expelled the Spanish armies from the Ameri- 

 can continent, and liberated the new world from the 

 dominion of Spain. As a statesman, he was not so 

 eminent. His views were liberal, but they were often 

 too enlarged for the sphere in which he moved. See- 

 ing his country distracted by domestic dissensions, he 

 deemed it necessary to repress them by a strong exe- 

 cutive ; and he did not properly rate the danger of 

 subjecting the other branches of the government to 

 the will of an individual. He was, however, the true 

 friend of the independence of his country, and her 

 liberator from foreign domination. With a noble dis- 

 regard of money, he expended a large fortune in the 

 puolic service. His disapprobation of slavery was 

 evinced in the emancipation of nearly 1000 slaves 

 belonging to his patrimonial estate ; and his refusal 

 of a crown when tendered by general Paez, demon- 

 strated that, in his aspirations after power, he did not 

 seek to gratify his ambition through a monarchical 

 form of government." 



General Bolivar was forty-seven years of age at 

 the time of his death. In his person, he is described 

 as having been of ordinary stature ; ungraceful in his 

 air and movements ; thin and spare, but capable of 

 great endurance ; of an olive complexion, with black, 

 coarse hair, thin in front ; broad, bushy eye-brows, 

 overshadowing an eye somewhat sunken, but full of 

 fire and expression. His intellect was undoubtedly 

 of the highest order, and his general character of 

 that ardent, lofty cast, which civil commotions are apt 

 to form, and which qualifies its possessor to ride on 

 the tempest. His ordinary state papers do not be- 

 speak a very pure taste, nor an understanding ever 

 subjected to any well directed cultivation, and are 

 frequently conceived in language which even the 

 lofty idiom of his vernacular tongue will hardly 

 sanction. 



See Restrepo's Colombia, vols. 3 6 ; Columbia, vol. 

 2 ; Amer. An. Register, vols. 1 and 2. There has late- 

 ly appeared a work, entitled Memoirs of Simon Bolivar, 

 and of his principal Generals, with an Introduction, 

 &c., by general H. L. V. Ducoudray Holstein ; Bos- 

 ton, 1829. The book is a violent philippic against 

 B., and evidently coloured too highly to be a safe 

 authority. 



BOLIVIA ; the name of a country in South America. 

 It is bounded N. W. by Peru, N. E. and E. by Brazil, 

 S. by Buenos Ayres or the United Provinces of South 

 America, and W. by the Pacific ocean and Peru. It 

 is elevated and mountainous, giving rise to several 

 large tributaries, both of the Amazon and La Plata. 

 It includes lake Titicaca. It contains rich silver mines, 

 ot which those of Potosi, that were formerly very pro- 

 ductive, are the most celebrated. The town of Chu- 

 quisaca, or La Plata, is the capital. Some of the 

 other principal towns are Potosi, Charcas, Oro- 

 pesa, Oruro, La Paz, and Cochabamba. The popu- 

 lation has been recently estimated at 1,000,000 or 

 1,200,000. 



This republic dates its origin from the battle of 

 Ayacucho, fought Dec. 9, 1824, in which general 

 Antonio Jose de Sucre, at the head of the Colombian 

 forces, defeated the viceroy La Serna, and insured the 

 independence of the country. It consists of the pro- 

 vinces known under the Spanish government as Upper 

 Pent, and then governed as a dependency of the 

 viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres. Olaneta maintained a, 

 show of opposition for a short time after the battle of 

 Ayacuclio ; but Sucre quickly drove him into the 

 province of Salta, where his forces were dispersed by 

 the Buenos Ayrcnn authorities, in April, 1825. No 



