The minds of students have sometimes been exercised as to who is the greatest Captain of history. Alexander subduing Asia in his short span of thirty-three years, Hannibal victoriously crossing the Alps and threatening Rome, Julius Caesar over-running the then known world, Charlemagne, Saladin, Ghengis-Khan, Tamerlane, Washington, Napoleon, all have their apologists.

The matter remains undetermined.

In military genius, in strategy, in constructive statesmanship Simon Bolivar was inferior to none of these. In patriotism, in disinterestedness, in Christian forbearance towards his enemies, in considerateness for all who depended on him he can have but few rivals.

From the moment that in Rome, on Mount Aventine, in 1804, he promised his former tutor and friend, Father Rodriguez, to devote himself whole-heartedly to the interests of his country, he never swerved from this determination. Despite his detractors there is no evidence of ambition or self-seeking in any of his acts; rather do they disprove it. A loyal and faithful son of Holy Church we find him ever pointing out and following the path of honour and of duty. He controlled for years the resources of the former Spanish colonies which hailed him as ‘el Liberador’ and as ‘Father of the country’; which voted him time and again large personal subsidies, always steadfastly declined; and he died without a shilling of public money in his possession. Nay, more, nine-tenths of his own splendid patrimony had been expended on public needs, though he was still comparatively young, forty-seven, and well aware of the sectaries plotting against him.