Note 81 — LORD BYRON: (continued 6)

The answer which Mr. Ellice returned was, as might be expected, strongly dissuasive of this design. The wholly disorganised state of the country and its institutions, which it would take ages, perhaps, to restore even to the degree of industry and prosperity which it had enjoyed under the Spaniards, rendered Columbia, in his opinion, one of the last places in the world to which a man desirous of peace and quiet, or of security for his person and property, should resort to as an asylum. As long as Bolivar lived and maintained his authority, every reliance, Mr. Ellice added, might be placed on his integrity and firmness; but with his death a new æra of struggle and confusion would be sure to arise.