Morillo never returned to New Granada. Before he arrived in Venezuela, Bolivar had temporarily retired, and the llaneros retreated to the vast solitudes in which they were unconquerable. Though the Spanish regulars won battle after battle their victories were fruitless, and Bolivar soon returned to Venezuela to be again placed at the head of the patriots and to wage unremitting warfare with cavalry from a secure base in the llanos, while he imported British mercenary infantry capable of making headway against the Spanish regulars. From 1816 to 1819 New Granada suffered hopelessly and silently the bloody despotism of the Spanish generals, while the tide of war rolled to and fro in Venezuela. In the early part of the latter year Samano sent a small expedition down the steep Cordillera slope against the guerrillas in the Casanare plains north-east of Bogota. This gave Bolivar a great strategical idea. He knew that the tableland of New Granada had been denuded of troops; but it was useless to try an attack from the direction of the provinces south of Maracaibo Bay because this well-travelled route and its populous towns were in secure possession of the enemy. Where Spaniards could go he could follow--so he reasoned--and determined to assault Bogota directly from the Orinoco plains, thus striking the centre of the Spanish line. With a mixed army of British mercenaries and hardy Venezuelans the Liberator mounted the difficult pass which leads from Casanare up to Tunja. Samano had only three thousand troops and these he sent under the command of General Barreiro to meet Bolivar. Though the patriots were somewhat inferior in numbers and arrived on the plateau fatigued, starving, and without horses, Barreiro, not knowing their real numbers, hesitated about attacking. Bolivar was given time to rest and remount his men, and then took a vigorous offensive. His rapid movements confused the Spanish commander, and the latter allowed the patriot army to get between him and Bogota. Thus cut off from his base, Barreiro made a desperate dash to reach the capital, but ran against the patriots posted directly across his path at Boyaca, on the 7th of August, 1819. The loyalists attacked at a disadvantage and without hope. After losing a hundred men they fled in disorder and the whole army dispersed or was captured. The way to Bogota lay open, and Samano had no forces to defend the city. Within three days Bolivar had traversed the hundred miles from the battlefield, and Samano fled in such precipitous haste that he left behind the government archives and even the money in the treasury. A month later the whole of New Granada, except the stubbornly loyalist Pasto and the fortress of Cartagena, was free. Bolivar had himself made president and military dictator, naming Santander vice-president, and giving each province two governors, one military and the other civil, responsible directly to Bogota. The municipal governments were