224 



1793-^1796 only, we have for the exports 3,060,000 piastres, 

 while the years of war, comprehended between 1796 and 

 1800, furnish an average of only 1,610,000 piastres. (Depons, 

 Vol. ii, p. 439.) In the year 1809, and consequently only a 

 short time before the revolution of Caraceas *, the balance of 

 trade at La Guayra ought to have been little different from 

 what it was in 1796. 1 discovered in a journal of Santa Fe 

 de Bogota (Semanario, Vol. ii, p, 324), an official extract of 

 the registers of the custom-house, for the first six months of 



* The following are the principal epochas of that revolu- 

 tion. The supreme Junta of Venezuela, who declared they 

 would maintain the rights of Ferdinand VII, and who ba" 

 nished the captain-general and the members of the Audiencia, 

 assembled 19th April, 1810. The congress which succeeded 

 the supreme Junta, 2d March, 1811, declared the indepen- 

 dance of Venezuela, 5th July, 1811. The congress held its 

 sittings at Valencia, in the vallies of Aragua, in March, 1812. 

 The earthquake that destroyed the greater part of the town 

 of Caraceas, on the 26th March, 1812 (Vol. iv, p. 12), ren- 

 dered the Spaniards again masters of the country in August, 

 1812. General Simon Bolivar retook Caraceas, and entered 

 it in triumph, August 16th, 1813. The royalists became 

 masters of Venezuela in July, 1814, and of Bogota, in June, 

 1816. In the same year, General Bolivar disembarked at 

 the island of Marguerita, at Carupano, and at Ocumare. 

 The second congress of Venezuela was installed at Angos- 

 tura, February 15th, 1819. The fundamental law that unites 

 Venezuela to New Grenada, by the name of the republic of 

 Columbia, was proclaimed December 17th, 1819. The ar- 

 mistice, concluded between the Generals Bolivar and Morillo, 

 is dated November 25th, 1820. The constitution of the Re- 

 public of Columbia dates August 30th, 1321. The govern- 

 ment of the United States recognized that Republic, March 

 8th, 1822. 



