Meanwhile, Bolívar was endeavoring to keep enthusiasm alive in Caracas. He even intended to resist the advance of the enemy but, being convinced that the defense of the town would mean a useless sacrifice, he decided to leave it and went east to Barcelona. The inhabitants of Caracas, realizing the monster Boves was, decided to leave their homes, and a painful pilgrimage ensued. The emigration from Caracas is one of the saddest episodes of the War of Independence. Many emigrants met death on their way east, but they preferred it to the tortures that Boves knew very well how to inflict upon the life and honor of the population of the cities he took. He entered the capital on the 16th of July, and the crimes started. Cagigal, who was a real soldier and a man of honor, saw his authority ignored by Boves. In giving an account of this fact to the government of Spain, the only answer he obtained was that Boves' conduct was approved by Madrid with a vote of thanks for his important services and his great valor. Leaving his lieutenant, Quero, in command of the city, Boves followed Bolívar. Quero was a native American and was so bad that Boves' rule was preferable to his. With the few men obtained in Caracas, Bolívar organized a small army with which he protected the emigrants. From Barcelona he intended to send diplomatic representatives to Europe, thus showing his unshaken confidence in the ultimate triumph of his cause. With no more than 3,000 men, he faced an army of from 8,000 to 10,000 at Aragua, commanded by Morales, and was defeated (August 18, 1814). A battalion composed of the best elements of the youth of Caracas was entirely destroyed. Bolívar retreated to Barcelona, and Morales entered the town of Aragua, where he massacred more than 3,500 men, women and children, for the sole crime of being Americans. Realizing that he could not hold the city of Barcelona, Bolívar went to the city of Cumaná with generals Ribas and Manuel Piar, the latter famous for his military skill, his daring, his restlessness and his ultimate sad death, of which we shall speak later. From there Bolívar went with Mariño to Carúpano, and then sailed for Cartagena, having lost his reputation and having been insulted by his own officers and friends, among them Piar and Ribas, himself. Before leaving Venezuela, the Liberator issued a proclamation, for he never neglected an opportunity to speak to his fellow-countrymen and to the world in order to build up favorable public opinion, by which he hoped to win a final victory. In that document Bolívar emphasized the fact that the Spaniards themselves had done very little harm in the fields of battle to the cause of independence, and that defeats were due mainly to the native royalists. This assertion was intended to produce a change of mind on the part of the native population.