rother-in-law of Napoleon, and Toussaint l'Ouverture, the
negro chieftain. In the year 1801, Toussaint was asked to visit Leclerc
and discuss terms of peace. He received the solemn promise that he would
not be molested. He trusted his white adversaries, was put on board a
ship and shortly afterwards died in a French prison. But the negroes
gained their independence all the same and founded a Republic.
Incidentally they were of great help to the first great South American
patriot in his efforts to deliver his native country from the Spanish
yoke.

Simon Bolivar, a native of Caracas in Venezuela, born in the year 1783,
had been educated in Spain, had visited Paris where he had seen the
Revolutionary government at work, had lived for a while in the United
States and had returned to his native land where the widespread
discontent against Spain, the mother country, was beginning to take a
definite form. In the year 1811, Venezuela declared its independence and
Bolivar became one of the revolutionary generals. Within two months, the
rebels were defeated and Bolivar fled.

For the next five years he was the leader of an apparently lost cause.
He sacrificed all his wealth and he would not have been able to begin
his final and successful expedition without the support of the President
of Haiti. Thereafter the revolt spread all over South America and soon
it appeared that Spain was not able to suppress the rebellion unaided.
She asked for the support of the Holy Alliance.

This step greatly worried England. The British shippers had succeeded
the Dutch as the Common Carriers of the world and they expected to reap
heavy profits from a declaration of independence on the part of all
South America. They had hopes that the United States of America would
interfere but the Senate had no such plans and in the House, too, there
were many voices which declared that Spain ought to be given a free
hand.

Just then, there was a change of ministers in England. The Whigs went
out and the Tories came in. George Canning became secretary of State. He
dropped a hint that England would gladly back up the American government
with all the might of her fleet, if said government would declare
its disapproval of the plans of the Holy Alliance in regard to the
rebellious colonies of the southern continent. President Monroe
thereupon, on the 2nd of December of the year 1823, addressed Congress
and stated that: "America would consider any attempt on the