Cortabarria recruited 1,000 men in Puerto Rico and sent them, under Cajigal, to reinforce the Royalists of the Western Provinces, where the reaction gained ground every day.
Popular leaders rose up on every side in defence of the cause of Spain; their successes served to display the strength of the country itself, and to prepare weapons for the revolution when its principles were understood and adopted by the people.
In February, 1812, a small detachment of 230 men, under a naval officer named Monteverde, marched from Coro, raised all the country as far as Barquisimeto, and at Carora defeated a Patriot force of 700 men. The town of Carora was sacked, and many Patriots were shot without trial.
In the east of Venezuela, Spanish Guayana had declared against the revolution. Colonel Moreno marched with 1,400 men to rescue the Province from the Royalists, and being joined by various scattered detachments of the Patriots, collected a flotilla of twenty-eight gunboats on the Orinoco, and threatened the town of Angostura, which stands on the northern bank near to the mouth of that river.
On the 25th March, 1812, the Royalists, with nine schooners and eight gunboats, attacked the Patriot flotilla in the bay of Lorondo, and after two days’ fighting completely destroyed it. Moreno retreated, and eventually fled, while the remnant of his force capitulated at the town of Maturin.
On the 26th March, 1812, in the afternoon of a calm day, a great roar was heard under the hills of Mérida. The ground commenced to rock to and fro in violent oscillations. In less than a minute the cities of Mérida, Barquisimeto, San Felipe, La Guayra, and Caracas were nothing more than heaps of ruins, under which 20,000 people lay entombed. In the capital almost all the garrison perished. At Barquisimeto the greater part of a division of 1,000 men which was on the march to arrest the progress of Monteverde, with a large amount of military stores, were buried. Under these ruins the first Republic of Venezuela found a grave.
This earthquake was felt only in territory occupied by the revolutionists; the Provinces of Coro, Maracaibo, and Guayana, which were faithful to the King, suffered nothing. The clergy, who were for the most part Royalists, made use of the fact, pointing to it as a chastisement of Heaven upon impious men and upon rebels. Fear entered into the hearts of the people, and dismay into those of the Patriots.
Monteverde dug seven guns and much war material from beneath the ruins of Barquisimeto, armed the people, and raised his force to 1,000 men. At San José a division of 1,300 raw recruits sallied out to meet him; one squadron passed over to him, the rest were cut to pieces. The prisoners were butchered, and the neighbouring town of San Carlos was sacked and burned. The cities of Mérida and Trujillo declared for the King. The common people, and deserters from the Patriot armies, flocked to Monteverde; he marched upon Valencia. Forty-five days after his departure from Coro he entered the Federal capital in triumph.
Affairs were now in so critical a state that Miranda was appointed Dictator. He established his head-quarters at Victoria, between Valencia and Caracas, and advanced with 4,000 men against the former city. During a skirmish between outposts an entire company passed over to the Royalists, and Miranda retreated to a position which he strengthened with field-works. The hero of Valmy and Jemappes, whose name is inscribed on the Triumphal Arch at the Barrière d’Etoile, seems to have disappeared under the cloak of the Dictator, and the irresolute General of Maestrich and Nerwinde reappeared on a new scene.
Colonel Antoñanzas, detached by Monteverde to the plains of Caracas, took the town of Calabozo by assault, and put the garrison to the sword. Then being joined by a Spaniard named Tomas Boves, he attacked San Juan de los Morros, where not only the fighting men, but the old men, women, and children, were butchered.