On the 23rd of July we entered the town of Nueva Barcelona, less affected by the heat on the llanos than by the sand wind that painfully chapped our skin. We were well received at the house of Don Pedro Lavié, a wealthy French merchant. He had been accused of hiding the unfortunate Espaìa (133) on the run in 1796. He was arrested by order of the audiencia. But his friendship with the Cumanà governor, and his services as a merchant, got him released. We had visited him in prison before and now found him back with his family, but very ill. He died without seeing the independence of America that his friend Don José Espaìa had predicted just before his execution.