Bolivar: American Liberator (79 page)

an engraved ring:
du Villars to SB, Paris, April 6, 1826, ibid., 135.

she would try to borrow money, etc.:
du Villars to SB, ibid.

scores of pleading letters:
du Villars to SB, Paris, May 14, 1826, ibid., 140.

Take this copy of my likeness:
SB to Leandro Palacios, Cartagena, Aug. 14, 1830 (the portrait was delivered by Señor Lesca), Palacios to SB, Paris, Nov. 20, 1830, O’L, IX, 396. Also Boulton,
El rostro de Bolívar
, p. 70.

under the name of Mr. George Martin:
Racine, 155.

a textile factory and a bakery:
Ibid., 2.

including Juan Vicente de Bolívar:
As mentioned, there is some doubt about this letter. It is part of Miranda’s archives and is signed by Juan Vicente Bolívar, Martín Tovar Blanco, and Juan Nicolás de Ponte, but Racine suspects Miranda himself may have forged it. Ibid., 28.

“a mulatto, a government henchman”:
Ibid., 6.

a position his father bought:
Ibid., 11.

visiting whorehouses:
José Amor y Vázquez, “Palabras preliminares al XXVIII Congreso del Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana,” in Julio Ortega,
Conquista y Contraconquista
(Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1994), 19.

documents describing Spain’s fortifications:
Racine, 106.

sharing their wardrobes and:
Ibid., 75.

a brigadier general:
André-Jean Libourel y Edgardo Mondolfi, eds., “Brevet de Maréchal de Camp,” in
Francisco de Miranda en Francia
(Caracas: Monte Avila, 1997), 42.

“traveled to great advantage”:
Racine, 91.

one of the Revolution’s heroes:
Ibid., 116–30.

“What a country!”:
Ibid., 129.

“We have before our eyes”:
Miranda to Gual, London, Dec. 31, 1799,
Archivo del General Miranda
, XV, 404.

left New York harbor:
Lloyd,
The Trials of William S. Smith and Samuel G. Ogden
, 2.

Among them was William Steuben Smith:
Ibid., 22.

ill-prepared and badly equipped:
Racine, 160–70.

as many as four thousand:
Ibid., 163.

total of eleven days:
Ibid., 164.

“On August 10th, this officer”:
Madariaga, 95.

the talk of New York:
Lloyd, 215.

“He’ll only do harm”:
SB to Alexandre Déhollain, Paris, June 23, 1806, SBO, I, 28.

2,400 francs:
Madariaga, 97.

had arrived in Paris sometime before:
Mijares, on the other hand, claims that Anacleto traveled with SB in 1803, but gives no source for this. There are no letters, nor is there a mention by du Villars, Rodríguez, or Tristan to confirm it. Lecuna says SB may have brought Anacleto to Paris in 1803, but definitely left Hamburg with him in 1806. SB to Anacleto Clemente, Lima, May 29, 1826, SBC, V, 319; Lecuna,
Catálogo
, I, 167.

Napoleon’s hussars:
J. T. Headley,
The Imperial Guard of Napoleon
(New York: Scribner, 1852), 57.

Germany through Holland:
Lecuna,
Catálogo
, I, 165.

Charleston in January of 1807:
Déhollain to SB, London, Aug. 20, 1820, Polanco Alcántara, p. 92.

Mr. M. Cormic of Charleston:
Manning,
Independence
, II, 1322.

by June he was home:
Proceso de Briceño contra Bolívar, BANH, no. 52, 605.

slavery was the most profitable:
Wood,
Empire of Liberty
, 3.

one of the most highly commercialized nations:
Ibid., 2.

business and profit more glorified:
Ibid.

the most evangelically Christian nation:
Ibid., 3.

“During my short visit”:
Pérez Vila,
La formación intelectual del Libertador
, 81.

the rancorous trial:
The charges against Smith were filed on April 1, 1806, and the case was closed with a not guilty verdict on July 26, 1806. See Lloyd, 215.

On the stand, Smith recounted:
Ibid., 118ff.

in clear violation of the Neutrality Act:
Ibid., 91.

“My fear”:
Jefferson to Archibald Stuart, Paris, Jan. 25, 1786, Paul Ford, ed.,
The Works of Thomas Jefferson
, IV, 188.

“agreeable to the United States”:
John Adams to John Jay, London, May 28, 1786, E. Taylor Parks,
Colombia and the United States: 1765–1934
(Durham: Duke University Press, 1935), 36.

“You might as well talk about”:
Whitaker,
The United States and the Independence
, 37.

“corrupt and effeminate”:
Ibid.

“It accords with our principles”:
Jefferson to Gouverneur Morris, 1792, in Ford, VI, 131.

Jefferson moved to make that clear:
Jefferson, “Proclamation on Spanish Territory,” Washington, Nov. 27, 1806, Multimedia Archive, Miller Center, University of Virginia.

Epigraph
“They say grand projects need to be built with calm!”:
SB, Speech to the Patriotic Society, July 3–4, 1811, SB,
Doctrina
, 7.

alongside his slaves:
Lynch,
Simón Bolívar
, 41.

battled his neighbor:
Proceso de Briceño contra Bolívar, 7.

in sparkling salons:
Larrazábal,
Vida
, I, 48; Lecuna,
Catálogo
, I, 180–81.

recited his translations of Voltaire:
Larrazábal,
Vida
, I, 31.

chanced upon some papers:
M. Lafuente,
Historia General de España
, IV (Barcelona: Montaner y Simón, 1879), 428.

the king wrote to Napoleon, etc.:
Ibid.

permission to march 25,000 troops:
Ibid., 389.

sent quadruple that number:
Ibid.

a secret plan to escape:
Restrepo, II, 98.

annual salary of 1.5 million pesos:
Ibid., 100.

Talleyrand would write:
Charles M. de Talleyrand-Périgord,
The Memoirs of Prince Talleyrand
(London: Griffith, Farran, Okeden, and Welsh, 1891), II, 24.

two old, dog-eared issues:
Amunátegui,
Vida de Don Andrés Bello
, 37–51.

The facts were confirmed:
Capt. Beaver to Sir Alexander Cochrane, HMS
Acasta
, La Guayra, July 19, 1808, in Larrazábal,
Vida
, I, 39–41.

Within days of arrival in Caracas:
Ibid.

a letter from Francisco Miranda:
Miranda to Marqués del Toro, Londres, Oct. 6, 1808, in Miranda,
América espera
, 382.

little patience for those who would take up:
Conjuración de 1808 en Caracas
, Instituto Panamericano de Geografía y Historia, Comisión de Historia, Comité de Orígenes de la Emancipación, 148–50.

dwarfed the sea that separated him:
Unamuno,
Simón Bolívar
, ix.

refused to compromise:
Conjuración de 1808
, 112.

On August 3, etc.:
Polanco Alcántara, 185.

“But I’m totally innocent!”:
BANH, no. 52, 616.

“For the first time”:
Díaz,
Recuerdos sobre la rebelión
, 73.

Tovar drew up a formal letter, etc.:
Recorded on Dec. 1, 1808, Lecuna,
Catalogo
, I, 175–79.

Napoleon had recommended him:
Napoleon Bonaparte,
Correspondance de Napoléon Ier
(New York: AMS Press, 1974), 212–13.

blessed by Napoleon’s bitterest enemy:
Polanco Alcántara, 199.

the escapes from servant quarters:
Gaceta de Caracas
, Oct. 24, 1808, and ff., quoted in Polanco Alcántara, 201.

Emparán had Bolívar taken aside:
Heredia,
Memorias
, 163.

Bolívar hurried down to La Guaira:
Díaz, 64.

at three in the morning on Maundy Thursday:
Ibid., 64–72, for this whole account, including testimony about the possible presence of the Bolívar brothers.

Whether Bolívar was there:
A number of biographers contend that SB may have been confined to his hacienda in Yare (e.g., Polanco Alcántara) or that he took off for San Mateo (e.g., Lynch, Parra-Pérez), but there appears to be no documentary evidence for this. His aide-de-camp, Daniel O’Leary, claims that SB was too much a friend of Emparán to be present at his ouster, although he dearly desired it; and that he was too much of an enemy of the crown to take part in a coup that was essentially monarchist. Larrazábal and Díaz, two of SB’s contemporaries, however, place him on the scene. SB himself never claimed to be present at city hall on April 19, 1810.

large crowd of activists in long capes:
Díaz, 67.

“To city hall, Governor!”:
Parra-Pérez,
Historia
, I, 383.

Cortés, swept grandly into the room:
Ibid.

“No! No! We don’t want it!” etc.:
Ibid., 384; also Gil Fortoul,
Historia
, I, 168.

recorded into the meeting’s minutes:
Masur,
Simón Bolívar
, 98.

Within two days, Emparán:
Mancini, II, 30.

junta was organizing diplomatic missions:
Parra-Pérez,
Historia
, I, 380

offered to pay all costs for the diplomatic mission:
O’LB, 21.

expressly by Lord Admiral Cochrane:
Cochrane to the Junta de Caracas, May 17, 1810, published in
Gaceta de Caracas
, II, no. 102 (June 8, 1810), 4.

twelve times the size of Venezuela:
Wayne Rasmussen, “Agricultural Colonization and Immigration in Venezuela, 1810–1860,”
Agricultural History
, 21, no. 3 (July 1947), 155.

Lord Wellesley had expressed:
Rich Wellesley’s letter to his brother Henry, ambassador to Cádiz, July 13, 1810, Foreign Office, Spain, 93, confidential dispatches, nos. 2 and 22, quoted in Mancini, 59.

a calculated scheme to force:
Ibid.

immense and resplendent lobby:
Apsley House
(London: English Heritage, 2005), 42–49.

His French was superb:
Polanco Alcántara, 229, fn. 11.

He gave Wellesley a spirited account, etc.:
Amunátegui, 49.

“eager to shake off”:
Minuta de la sesión, July 16, 1810,
Revista Bolívariana
, II, Nos. 20–21, Bogotá, 1830, 531.

When he was done, the minister looked up:
Mancini, 61.

Bolívar was speechless:
Ibid. Also Amunátegui, 89.

tempestuous French wife:
Richard Holmes,
Wellington: The Iron Duke
(London: Harper, 2003), 24. Hyacinthe Gabrielle Rolland was a French courtesan who lived with Wellesley and bore him several children before they were married. She had left him during this period because of his rampant womanizing.

an incorrigible voluptuary:
Ibid., 157.

“The events in Caracas”:
Lord Harrowby, minister without portfolio, in a report dated June 1810,
Bolívar y Europa
, Ediciones de la Presidencia de la República (Caracas, 1986), I, Doc. 86, 388. From a Spanish translation.

“Despite his age”:
Amunátegui, 93.

his house at 27 Grafton Street:
Today the house is 58 Grafton. A plaque on the front wall identifies it as Miranda’s house from 1803 to 1810, although his wife and son occupied it until the 1840s.
Survey of London
, vol. 21 (1949), 50–51,
http://www.britishhistory.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=65170
.

“The only person with whom we consulted”:
López Méndez to Venezuelan secretary of state, London, Oct. 3, 1810, quoted in Lynch,
Simón Bolívar
, 49.

the Foreign Office had been on the verge:
Mijares,
The Liberator
, 183.

the three preeminent figures:
Carnicelli,
La masonería en la independencia de América
, 76. Despite numerous South American histories that insist that Miranda’s lodge was, at one point or another, visited by San Martín, O’Higgins, and Bolívar, it’s worth mentioning here that William Spence Robertson says this is “hardly more than a legend” (Robertson,
Rise
, 53).

agents intercepted a letter:
The letter was dated Oct. 28, 1811, and was one of several from the Argentine Carlos Alvear to Rafael Mérida in Caracas. The letters—intercepted by Antonio Ignacio Cortavarría and reported to the viceroy of New Granada, Don Francisco de Montalvo—were on an English ship, sailing from London to Caracas. Archivo Histórico de Colombia en Bogotá, Sección Histórica, XIII, folios 00581–2, quoted in Carnicelli, 123.