Here he had plunged himself into Latin classics
and the French philosophy, and his remarkable personality is said to
have created no small impression upon those with whom he came into
contact. Venezuela has every right to be proud of the fact that,
although the seeds of liberty had already been sown throughout the
Continent, and especially in the River Plate Provinces, they first
sprouted into material activity in Venezuela, for Bolivar, having been
born at Caracas, could claim Miranda as a fellow-countryman, or rather
as a neighbour, since theoretically, in the colonial days, all South
Americans were fellow-countrymen.
It is certain that during this early European tour of Bolivar's he had
already become strongly imbued with the idea of freeing his country and
Continent from the rule of Spain. At one period of his travels he was
at Rome, and he is said to have chosen the holy city as the spot in
which to swear a solemn oath to take his share in the liberation of his
native land--an oath which, as history proves, he fulfilled in generous
measure, since the first desperate fights in the north of the Continent
were conducted on the patriot side under his auspices and those of
Miranda.
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