In the following year Vasconcelos died, and the interim Captain, Juan de las Casas, recognised Prince Murat as regent in place of Charles IV., the Prince’s commissioners reaching La Guaira in July, 1808. The colonists, however, compelled him to swear allegiance to Prince Ferdinand as Ferdinand VII., then captive in Bayonne. In May of the following year Vicente Emparan arrived as new Captain-General, appointed by the Supreme Junta of Spain, but finding the people unwilling to acknowledge that authority, he was easily led by Madariaga, a Chilian, then canon of the cathedral of Carácas, to appeal to them as to whether they wished him to carry out his duties as Governor. It is said that Emparan came out on a balcony to put the question to the crowd, and Madariaga, behind him, signed to them to reply to him in the negative, “_No lo queremos_” (“We do not wish it”), in answer to which Emparan said, “_Yo tampoco quiero mandar_” (“Nor do I wish to command”), and so retired from the captaincy, which he was the last to fill. He was finally deposed by a local Junta formed to act in the name of Ferdinand VII. on April 19, 1810. While this new Government had sworn allegiance to the rightful occupant of the throne of Spain, it was inevitable, in view of the disturbed state of that country and the insecurity of the reigning dynasty, that sooner or later the colonies would break away completely. The Junta sent Simon Bolivar to England to appeal for protection and to ask the Government to urge Spain to avoid war with the colonists. Our statesmen, however, were not then able to resist the temptation to secure the utmost from Venezuela in return for such passive assistance as they might render, even to the point of asking for a monopoly of trade, and negotiations fell through. Spain declared Venezuela under blockade conditionally, and appointed Miyares, Governor of Maracaibo, to be Captain-General, an office which he never filled. Later Miranda returned from Europe, being sent by Bolivar, and was refused a landing by the Junta, in view of his avowed republican principles. The people of La Guaira, however, insisted on his landing and brought him ashore. In 1811 forty-four deputies were elected by the seven provinces which recognised the Junta (Carácas, Barinas, Barcelona, Cumaná, Margarita, Mérida, and Trujillo), and they met on March 2nd. The names of the first Congress of Venezuela (as it subsequently became) included, besides Miranda, the Marquis del Toro, Martin Tovar, Fernando de Peñalver, and many gentlemen of rank and standing in the colony. Miranda was elected President of the Junta, and the combined effect of the inaction of Miyares, a man of more vanity than talent, and such incidents as the massacre of persons of republican inclinations by royalists in Cabruta on April 2nd, led finally to the Declaration of Independence by the deputies on July 5, 1811.