ing him of a desire to
imitate the career of Napoleon. In the meanwhile all parties looked
anxiously to the convention of Ocana, which was to assemble in March
1828, for a decided expression of the national will. The republicans
hoped that the issue of its deliberations would be favourable to their
views; whilst the military, on the other hand, did not conceal their
conviction that a stronger and more permanent form of government was
essential to the public welfare. The latter view seems to have
prevailed. In virtue of a decree, dated Bogota, the 27th of August 1828,
Bolivar assumed the supreme power in Colombia, and continued to exercise
it until his death, which took place at San Pedro, near Santa Marta, on
the 17th of December 1830.

Bolivar spent nine-tenths of a splendid patrimony in the service of his
country; and although he had for a considerable period unlimited control
over the revenues of three countries--Colombia, Peru and Bolivia--he
died without a shilling of public money in his possession. He achieved
the independence of three states, and called forth a new spirit in the
southern portion of the New World. He purified the administration of
justice; he encouraged the arts and sciences; he fostered national
interests, and he induced other countries to recognize that independence
which was in a great measure the fruit of his own exertions. His remains
were removed in 1842 to Caracas, where a monument was erected to his
memory; a statue was put up in Bogota in 1846; in 1858 the Peruvians
followed the example by erecting an equestrian statue of the liberator
in Lima; and in 1884 a statue was erected in Central Park, New York.

Twenty-two volumes of official documents bearing on Bolivar's career
were officially published at Caracas in 1826-1833. There are lives by
Larrazabal (New York, 1866); Rojas (Madrid, 1883); and
Ducoudray-Holstein (Paris, 1831). Two volumes of his correspondence
were published in New York in 1866.

BOLIVAR, till 1908 a department of Colombia, bounded N. and W. by the
Caribbean Sea, E. by the departments of Magdalena and Santander, S. by
Antioquia and S.W. by Cauca. It has an area of 27,028 sq. m., composed
in great part of low, alluvial plains, densely wooded, but slightly
cultivated and unsuited for north European labour. The population,
estimated at 323,097 in 1899, is composed largely of mixed races; in
some localities the inhabitants of mixed race are estimated to
co