Charged with this as a crime, no proof could be brought against him as no copy of the book could be found, tortures failing to extract information from suspects. He was banished to Africa, his property confiscated, and his original copy of the work was burnt by the public executioner. From the men of culture the new ideas filtered to the masses, transforming their minds by the creation of an ideal, which each one interpreted in accordance with his own talents, interests, or prejudices.
The Precursor of the Emancipation of South America.
During some years previously an ardent apostle of human liberty had wandered about the world. He was a dreamer with confused ideas and undisciplined attainments, a generous minded warrior, above all, a man of strong will. A soldier of Washington, a comrade of Lafayette, a general under Dumouriez,[1] a companion of Madame Roland in her prison, a confidant of Pitt in his schemes of insurrection in the colonies of Spanish America, distinguished by Catharine II. of Russia, whose favours he put aside in deference to his austere mission, looked upon by Napoleon as a lunatic with a spark of the sacred fire, Francisco Miranda, a native of Caracas, was the first to foresee the great destinies of republican America, and the first to raise the banner of freedom on the southern continent.
He it was who organised the revolutionary efforts of South Americans in Europe; establishing an understanding with the Creoles of the colonies. It was he who towards the close of the eighteenth century founded in
- ↑ Miranda served with great distinction in the campaigns of Valmy and Jemappes, and commanded the right wing of the Republican army at the disastrous affair of Neerwinden. He was afterwards imprisoned by the Directory on suspicion of being implicated in the defection of Dumouriez, whose treachery he had denounced, but escaped and fled to England.—Tr.
