To bring aid to the revolutionists, he had sailed from London for Cartagena at his own expense, with 14,000 stand of arms and a great quantity of military stores.

Bolívar, meanwhile, had also departed from Kingston to Port-au-Prince, where, on his promise of emancipating the slaves, Alexandre Pétion, the president of Haiti, offered him large supplies for a new expedition against the Spaniards in Venezuela.

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.

The skirmishers of Morales having dispersed his advanced guard, he lost, as an eyewitness records, ...all presence of mind, spoke not a word, turned his horse quickly round, and fled in full speed toward Ocumare, passed the village at full gallop, arrived at the neighboring bay, jumped from his horse, got into a boat, and embarked on the Diana, ordering the whole squadron to follow him to the little island of Bonaire, and leaving all his companions without any means of assistance.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 meddle with the civil administration.

[2] General Manuel Piar, a mulatto native of Curaçao, conceived and executed the conquest of Guayana Province with Admiral Brion supporting that enterprise with his gun-boats.

On July 20, the whole of the provinces being evacuated by the Spaniards, Piar, Brion, Zea, Marino, Arismendi, and others, assembled a provincial congress at Angostura, and put at the head of the executive a triumvirate, of which Brion, hating Piar and deeply interested in Bolívar, in whose success he had invested his large private fortune, contrived that the latter should be appointed a member, notwithstanding his absence.

However, Piar, the conqueror of Guiana, who once before had threatened to try him before a court-martial as a deserter, was not sparing of his sarcasms against the "Napoleon of the retreat", and Bolívar consequently accepted a plan for getting rid of him.

On the false accusation of having conspired against the whites, plotted against Bolívar's life, and aspired to the supreme power, Piar was arraigned before a war council under the presidency of Brion, convicted, condemned to death, and shot, October 16, 1817.

Fully aware of loss when deprived of Piar, he, in an abject letter, publicly calumniated his murdered friend, deprecated his own attempts at rivalry with the liberator, and threw himself upon Bolívar's magnanimity.