Page:American Historical Review vol. 6.djvu/529

 Miranda and the Britisli Admiralty 5 1 9 IV. Captain John Wight to Captain John Poo Berkskord. ' Sir His Majesty's ship under my command on a cruize to the South- ward of the Island of Bermuda on the 19'!' January 1806 -' fell in with a vessel called the Leander under American colours with about 220 men on board, and mounted with twenty guns, cleared out for Jaquemelle Island of S; Domingo in possession of the blacks, having as a cargo, thirty pieces of cannon some thousand pikes, pistols, cutlasses, sadles, and all other sorts of warlike implements, printers, and printing presses the whole under the direction of General Miranda and a Major Armstrong of Col. Williamsons corps. ' As there may many doubts arise respecting the real destination of this vessel, I beg to acquaint you that I examined Miranda very closely and that he produced me letters, from Alexander Davidson, Esq. of SI James Square whose signature I knew who had mentioned his project to Sir Evean Nepean, * Sir Home Popham, M'. Vansitart, and that the said pro- ject was in the confidence of His Majesty's Minister, the Right Honble. William Pitt and that M' Vansitart's note to Miranda particularly men- tioned his conference with the minister on this subject advising Miranda to make his point of attack from the United States. Miranda also produced me his proclamation in the Spanish tongue, ^ which he was to present to the inhabitants of New Spain also their constitution [which?] as he said had undergone considerable alteration by the Ministers own hand, he also stated to me that he left England with about six thousand pounds and he produced me copies of bills drawn since his arrival at New York for the four different sums of five hundred pounds each on M' Vansitart, and from the private conversation of the General and myself he fully appeared to me to be a person in the confidence of the Ministry. I did deliberately consider the same and permitted the said vessel, troops, cannon, pikes, and men to pass unmolested, to proceed to Jacjuemell and from thence to Laquira [La Guaira] under the auspices of Miranda to revolutionize that district and the Caraccas under a promise to me that on the event of his success the ports of that country should be open to the commerce of Great Britain, from whence he had drawn his present sources of money. 'Admirals' Despatches, North America, Vol. 17 ; enclosure in Beresford's despatch of March 5, No. v., post. Captain Beresford, afterward admiral, acted as senior officer on the North American station after the death of Admiral Mitchell. 2 February 12 according to the preceding letters. Biggs, pp. 10-13, and Henry Inger- soU in this Review, III. 679. The Leamhr did not sail from New York till February 2. 'The corps which Colonel Adam Williamson, governor of Jamaica, formed for ser- vice in Santo Domingo. •Alexander Davison was a well-known government contractor, the prize-agent and confidential friend of Nelson, but convicted of peculation in 1S07. Sir Evan Nepean was from 1804 to 1806 one of the lords of the admiralty. ^ Antepara, pp. 202-205 ; John H. Sherman, General Aecoioit of Miranda' s E.xpedi- tion, pp. 35-39; Biggs, pp. 125-131 ; Aihentures and Sufferings of Moses Smil/i, Brook- lyn, 1812, p. 22.