Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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This Gentleman, Who Was Accused Of Having Given
Refuge To The Unfortunate Espana When A Fugitive On These Coasts In
1796, Was Arrested By Order Of The Audiencia, And Conveyed As A
Prisoner To Caracas.
The friendship of the governor of Cumana and the
remembrance of the services he had rendered to the rising commerce of
those countries contributed to procure his liberty.
We had endeavoured
to alleviate his captivity by visiting him in prison; and we had now
the satisfaction of finding him in the midst of his family. Illness
under which he was suffering had been aggravated by confinement; and
he sank into the grave without seeing the dawn of those days of
independence, which his friend Don Joseph Espana had predicted on the
scaffold prior to his execution. "I die," said that man, who was
formed for the accomplishment of grand projects, "I die an ignominious
death; but my fellow citizens will soon piously collect my ashes, and
my name will reappear with glory." These remarkable words were uttered
in the public square of Caracas, on the 8th of May, 1799.
In 1790 Nueva Barcelona contained scarcely ten thousand inhabitants,
and in 1800, its population was more than sixteen thousand. The town
was founded in 1637 by a Catalonian conquistador, named Juan Urpin. A
fruitless attempt was then made, to give the whole province the name
of New Catalonia. As our maps often mark two towns, Barcelona and
Cumanagoto, instead of one, and as the two names are considered as
synonymous, it may be well to explain the cause of this error.
Anciently, at the mouth of the Rio Neveri, there was an Indian town,
built in 1588 by Lucas Faxardo, and named San Cristoval de los
Cumanagotos.
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