istophe, who gathered about him a nobility garish
in color and taste--including their sable lordships, the "Duke of
Marmalade" and the "Count of Lemonade"; and who built the palace of
"Sans Souci" and the countryseats of "Queen's Delight" and "King's
Beautiful View," about which cluster tales of barbaric pleasure that
rival the grim legends clinging to the parapets and enshrouding the
dungeons of his mountain fortress of "La Ferriere." None of these black
or mulatto potentates, however, could expel French authority from
the eastern part of Santo Domingo. That task was taken in hand by the
inhabitants themselves, and in 1809 they succeeded in restoring the
control of Spain. Meanwhile events which had been occurring in South
America prepared the way for the movement that was ultimately to banish
the flags of both Spain and Portugal from the continents of the New
World. As the one country had fallen more or less tinder the influence
of France, so the other had become practically dependent upon Great
Britain. Interested in the expansion of its commerce and viewing the
outlying possessions of peoples who submitted to French guidance as
legitimate objects for seizure, Great Britain in 1797 wrested Trinidad
from the feeble grip of Spain and thus acquired a strategic position
very near South America itself. Haiti, Trinidad, and Jamaica, in fact,
all became Centers of revolutionary agitation and havens of refuge for.
Spanish American radicals in the troublous years to follow.

Foremost among the early conspirators was the Venezuelan, Francisco
de Miranda, known to his fellow Americans of Spanish stock as the
"Precursor." Napoleon once remarked of him: "He is a Don Quixote, with
this difference--he is not crazy.... The man has sacred fire in his
soul." An officer in the armies of Spain and of revolutionary France
and later a resident of London, Miranda devoted thirty years of his
adventurous life to the cause of independence for his countrymen. With
officials of the British Government he labored long and zealously,
eliciting from them vague promises of armed support and some financial
aid. It was in London, also, that he organized a group of sympathizers
into the secret society called the "Grand Lodge of America." With it,
or with its branches in France and Spain, many of the leaders of the
subsequent revolution came to be identified.

In 1806, availing himself of the negligence of the United States and
having the connivance of