The British merchant class in Jamaica that had shunned MacGregor on his first arrival in 1812 now welcomed him as a hero. The Scotsman entertained many dinner parties with embellished accounts of his part in the Cartagena siege, leading some to understand that he had personally headed the city's defence. One Englishman toasted the "Hannibal of modern Carthage". Around New Year 1816, MacGregor and his wife made their way to Santo Domingo (today the Dominican Republic), where Bolívar was raising a new army. Bolívar received MacGregor back into the Venezuelan Army with the rank of brigadier-general, and included him in an expeditionary force that left Aux Cayes (now Les Cayes) on 30 April 1816. MacGregor took part in the capture of the port town of Carúpano as second-in-command of Manuel Piar's column, but is not mentioned in the record of the battle prepared by Bolívar's staff. After the Spanish were driven from many central Venezuelan towns, MacGregor was sent to the coast west of Caracas to recruit native tribesmen in July 1816. On 18 July, eight days after the numerically superior royalists countered and broke Bolívar's main force at La Cabrera, MacGregor resolved to retreat hundreds of miles east to Barcelona.