of his fellow-scoundrels. Unfortunately, the reception accorded to their countrymen by the friars of Chichirivichi made them appear privy to the plot against the Indians, and they, too, fell victims to the vengeance of Maraguey. The Audiencia Real of Hispaniola, by way of brazening out the crimes of the Cubaguans, now dispatched Gonzalez de Ocampo with an armed force to settle the country. The leader of the expedition appears to have been temperate and wise in his dealings, and succeeded in establishing peace, founding a city where Cumaná now stands under the name of Nueva Toledo (1520). Shortly afterwards, Bartolomé de las Casas, a noble figure in the history of the period, reached these shores, and discovering for himself the true history of what had been described as unprovoked attacks by the Indians, suggested that a fortress should be built opposite New Toledo, with a garrison under such control that it should protect the Indians from the lawless gangs of Cubagua, and keep in check any unprovoked manifestation of hostility on the part of the natives towards well-intentioned Spaniards. As might be expected, the Cubaguans were extremely hostile to such a project, and so hampered Las Casas that he resolved to return to Hispaniola and thence to Spain, to lay before the authorities a true account of the condition of affairs in the west. Francisco de Soto was left in charge of affairs in New Toledo, and no sooner was the good influence of Las Casas withdrawn than he recommenced the slave traffic, which had been the cause of all the previous trouble, and now resulted in the destruction of the new city after the massacre of inhabitants and missionaries and an invasion of Cubagua by the Indians of the mainland. A second semi-military expedition from Hispaniola in 1521, under the leadership of Jacome Castellon, built the castle of Araya in spite of the Cubaguans, and founded the city of _la gloriosa Santa Ines de Nueva Córdoba_, the modern Cumaná. The fortress was reduced to ruins by an earthquake in 1530. In the meantime, orders had been received from Spain to name the already existing city on Cubagua, Nueva Cadiz, and three years later, in 1524, La Asunción was founded on the island of Margarita, while in 1527 the inhabitants of New Cadiz received the right to elect annually an alcalde, the Emperor giving 500 pesos for rebuilding the church there. Thus we have three cities founded in Venezuela territory within the first twenty-five years of the sixteenth century. With the year 1527 the history of Venezuela as a colony, or rather a group of colonies, under Spanish dominion, may be said to commence. We have already seen a form of government established in Cubagua, which for a time appears to have existed more or less irregularly apart from the other provinces into which Venezuela, with Trinidad, was shortly divided, namely, Nueva Andalusia in the east, Venezuela or Coro in the west, and Trinidad and the Orinoco in the south.