Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 16, 2025
Cordova, tempted by ambition, and believing in the necessity for the separation of New Granada from Venezuela, claimed that, since Bolivar was getting old and had very few days to live, he should be deprived of the command. He tried to form a combination with Paez, Marino and others. Bolivar knew of his actions and talked to him in an attempt to win back his friendship.
We meanwhile got through, with our well-trained cavalry; and while the British, supported by the ferocious Sambos, charged with the bayonet into the thickest of the Spanish lines, we, led by Bermudez, sprang forward at headlong speed, with lances in rest; and Paez and his men again attacking the remaining part of the enemy's line, they now went down before us like chaff before the wind.
Bolívar commenced his passage through the defile on the morning of the 24th, and halted in dismay as he reached the outlet. It was too apparent that such a conflict as lay before him could not be braved. At this moment Paez learned that a narrow side-path existed, permitting the passage of a single file, which led, by a détour, to the plain.
In the prison he found about one hundred and fifty of his fellow rebels, among them his friend Garcia, an officer noted for strength and courage. On Garcia complaining to him of the weight of his irons and the miserable condition of the prisoners, Paez accused him of cowardice, and offered to exchange fetters with him.
All this however was insufficient to disguise the truth from many of the followers of Aldana, particularly Paëz de Sotomayor, his major-general, and Martin d'Olmos one of his captains; who, coming to a knowledge of the real state of affairs, entered into a resolution of putting D'Acosta to death.
In January, 1820, Bolivar again crossed the plains, where Paez was in command, and journeyed towards Bogota, with the object of publishing the law establishing the Republic of Colombia. It was proclaimed there with solemnity by Santander, who, on communicating the event to the President, praised the latter with the following words: "Colombia is the only child of the immortal Bolivar."
Those were certainly remarkable men who swam their horses into the river where the flotilla was anchored, and succeeded in this most extraordinary onslaught! Paez, whose strain was half Spanish and half Indian, was intensely practical in his views of government.
But though retired and unpretending in his exile, Paez was not neglected in New York; and the procession which followed him, but a few weeks since, to the steamer destined to bear him back to his native land, a procession saddened, it is true, by the feeble condition to which an accident had temporarily reduced the chieftain, showed that his solid worth was recognized and honored.
The brutal black, in order to exhibit his dislike to young Paez, compelled him more than once, on returning home after a hard day's labour, to bring a pail of water and wash his muddy feet an act which Paez did not forget.
Thus José Antonio Paez stands before us, on the banks of the Apure, in the twenty-fifth year of his age. He has perhaps been hitherto too much neglected by us, and we must look backwards in order to take up the thread of his career.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking