Bolivar
talked with Paez in private, induced him to return to obedience and
submission, and promoted him to major general in command of the independent
cavalry. The Liberator then returned to install the national congress and
to make preparations for the liberation of Nueva Granada.
CHAPTER XI
_The Congress of Angostura. A Great Address. Campaigning in the Plains_
(1819)
Congress did not meet until February 15, 1819, on account of the late
arrival of some representatives. There again Bolivar spoke, and on this
occasion he excelled himself in expressing his ideas regarding freedom.[1]
[Footnote 1: Bolivar has been accused of verbosity. Of all the accusations,
this is one of the most stupid. Bolivar's style is the style of his epoch.
The Spanish and French writers of that period wrote exactly in the same
form, and if his words do not appear as modern and sober as we might wish
them at this time, we must remember that times alter customs, and styles
also, and that if a document of Bolivar's were judged with no knowledge of
the work realized by the great man of the South, it might appear bombastic;
when his life is known, his words seem altogether natural. He was proud,
and his words show it, but his pride was a collective pride rather than an
individual one. He praised the work of the liberators, while he was the
Liberator _par excellence_, with this title conferred upon him officially.
When he mentioned his own person and his own glory, he did not exceed the
language of men of his time, and employed words even inferior to his own
merits.
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