we waited for reinforcements before storming
their position. Not a man, however, came to
help us, and after an hour passed in this manner
our ammunition failed. It then really seemed
to be all over with us. We tried, as best we
could, to make signals of our distress; the men
kept springing their ramrods, and Colonel
Thomas Ferrier, our commanding officer,
apprised General Paez of our situation, and called
on him to get up a supply of cartridges. It
came at last; but by this time many of our
officers and men had fallen, and among them
Colonel Ferrier. You may imagine we were not
long in breaking open the ammunition-boxes;
the men numbered off anew, and after delivering
a couple of volleys we prepared to charge.
At this moment our cavalry, passing as before
by our right flank, charged, with General Paez at
their head. They went on very gallantly, but
soon came galloping back and passed again to
our rear, without having done any execution on
the enemy, while they had themselves suffered
considerably.

"Why Bolivar at this time, and indeed during
the period since our first advance, sent us no
support, I have never been able to guess. Whatever
the motive, it is certain that the second
and third divisions of the army quietly looked
on while we were being slaughtered, and made
no attempt to help us. The curses of our men
were loud and deep, but seeing that they must
not expect any help, they made up their minds
to carry the enemy's position, or perish. Out
of nine hundred men we had not above six
hundred left; Captain Scott, who succeeded
Colonel Ferrier, had fallen, and had bequeathed
the command to Captain Minchin; and the
colours of the regiment had seven times changed
hands, and had been literally cut to ribands,
and dyed with the blood of the gallant fellows
who carried them. But, in spite of all this, the
word was passed to charge with the bayonet,
and on we went, keeping our line as steadily as
on a parade day, and with a loud hurrah we
were upon them. I must do the Spaniards
the justice to say they met us gallantly,
and the struggle was for a brief time fierce,
and the event doubtful. But the bayonet in
the hands of British soldiers, more especially
such a forlorn hope as we were, is
irresistible. The Spaniards, five to one as they
were, began to give ground, and at last broke
and fled.

"Then it was, and not till then, that two
companies of the Tiradores came up to our
help, and our cavalry, hitherto of little use,
fiercely pursued the retreating enemy. What
followed I tell you on hearsay from others, for
I was now stretched on the field with two balls
through my body. I know, however, that the
famous battalion of royalists called 'Valence,'
under their gallant colonel Don Tomas
Garcia, covered the enemy's retreat, and was
never broken. Again and again this noble
regiment turned sullenly on its pursuers,
and successfully repulsed the attacks of the
cavalry and infantry of the third division
of our army, which now for the first time
left their secure position and pursued the
Spaniards.

"It was at this period of the battle that
General Cedeño, stung by a rebuke from
Bolivar, quitted the third division, which he
was commanding, and at the head of a small
body of followers charged the regiment
'Valence,' and found, with all his comrades,
the honourable death they sought. So fell
'the bravest of the brave of Columbia.' Plaza
also, who commanded the second division, was
killed, and also Mellao, another famous hero
of the patriots. As for our regiment, it had
been too severely handled to join in the pursuit
with much vigour. Two men out of every
three were killed or wounded. Besides Colonel
Ferrier, Lieutenant-Colonel Davy, Captain
Scott, Lieutenants Church, Houston, Newel,
Stanley, and several others, whose names I
forget, were killed; and Captains Minchin and
Smith, Lieutenants Hubble, Matthew, Hand,
Talbot, and others, were wounded. The
remains of the corps passed before the Liberator
with trailed arms at double-quick, and received
with a cheer, but without halting, his words,
'Salvadores de mi patria!'—Saviours of my
country.

"On getting across the bridge you see there,
the enemy made an effort to retrieve the day,
and opened fire with the guns still left to
them. Our men then charged, took one
of the guns, and got across the bridge, when
they had to form square to repel some
squadrons of cavalry that attacked them. Our well-
directed fire soon broke them, and the rout now
became general. The battalion 'Valence'
alone maintained the order of its ranks all the
way to Valencia, baffling for eighteen miles the
unceasing attacks of our cavalry. Under the
walls of Valencia itself it was, for the last time,
charged by the rifles and the grenadiers of
Bolivar's Guard, mounted on horseback by order of
the Liberator. In this final conflict the gallant
Spaniards continued unbroken, and were no
further molested, but reaching at ten P.M. the
foot of the mountains, they made good their
retreat to Puerto Cabello to the number of nine
hundred men.

"All the rest of the Spanish army was
completely dissolved, and Carácas, the capital, La
Guaira, and the other towns still in the hands
of the royalists, at once surrendered. In short,
the independence of Columbia was achieved
by the battle of Carabobo; and that the
victory was entirely owing to the English is
proved by the fact that they lost six
hundred men out of nine hundred, while all
the rest of Bolivar's army, amounting to
more than six thousand men, lost but two
hundred!"

The old general here concluded his harangue.
We then ascended the hill on which the Spanish
guns were planted, examined the deep ravine
through which the English had passed to the
attack, and the slope on which the Spaniards
had been drawn up, and returned to Valencia