no foreign nation will condescend to conquer us, and we shall be governed by petty tyrants." The Venezuelan federalists had not waited for Bolivar's death to complete the formal separation from Colombia. In May, 1830, a constituent congress assembled which named Paez dictator and notified Bogota that the country regarded itself as absolutely independent. But Bolivar had partisans and the ruling clique enemies. The eastern provinces refused to recognise Paez's authority and the whole country was soon under arms. But Bolivar's death and the virtual recognition of Venezuela's independence by New Granada brought about a treaty between Paez and Monagas, the chief of the insurrection. The Creole aristocracy came to a working understanding with the generals, and little cliques in each city supported the central government as long as they were recognised as dominant in their own localities. Naturally the ignored outsiders were dissatisfied and plotted to overthrow these oligarchies. In May, 1831, a revolution broke out in Caracas which menaced nothing less than the extermination of the property-holding classes, but it was suppressed and its leaders executed. On paper the form of government was most liberal, congress abolishing the tobacco monopoly and many odious taxes inherited from Spanish times, proclaiming religious freedom, and adopting a Constitution very similar to that of the United States. But in practice the conservative cliques had things their own way. Though ambitious chiefs headed insurrections from time to time, they were all bought off or defeated, and Paez continued president until 1835, leaving the country in a condition of comparative order and prosperity.