It
snapped the chain which held Venezuela down, and the Spaniards, hemmed
in for two years longer at Puerto Cabello, which place they defended
with honorable pertinacity, were finally expelled from the free Republic
in November, 1823. The city was taken by storm on the 7th of that month,
and on the 9th the citadel surrendered. General Calzada, the commandant,
with all his officers, and four hundred men, was shortly afterwards
shipped for Spain.
Here the career of the Llanero closes. A new and still more brilliant
avenue to distinction opens before Paez. At this, however, we can
scarcely glance. Our business has been to study him in the saddle,
wielding lasso and sword and lance; nor have we left ourselves room
for adequate allusion to his subsequent life as President and private
citizen, deliverer of his country, and exile in these Northern States.
Yet the record could not be called complete, unless we passed briefly in
review the vicissitudes of the past thirty years.
After the taking of Puerto Cabello, Paez administered the affairs of
Venezuela as Provisional Chief of the State, and held that office under
the Congress of Colombia, until the two republics were dissevered in
1830, when he was elected first President of Venezuela. Only partially
disturbed by a military insurrection, headed by the turbulent General
Jose T. Monagas, which was soon suppressed, the administration of Paez
was such as surprised all lookers-on in America and Europe.
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