Read Online Bolivar: American Liberator by Marie Arana - Free Book Online

man-o’-war, built in the port city of Cartagena. It was originally part of a flotilla of six that had fought in many a Caribbean and Atlantic skirmish and would meet a bitter fate five years later at the Battle of Trafalgar. With seventy-four cannon and the capacity to transport six hundred, it was one of the finest battleships in the service of the Spanish crown. But traveling the seas in a ship built for combat was a perilous business. The last time the San Ildefonso had taken passengers from America to Cádiz, its twenty-six-ship convoy had run up against the English in the Battle of Cape St. Vincent. It was ameasure of Spain’s ruined economy that warships were now being employed to haul passengers and goods.
    The San Ildefonso was far from comfortable—the accommodations were cramped, the food substandard, the company rough and rude—but the boys were given special quarters and privileges above deck, far from the bilge and vermin. As they plied north, across the crystalline blue waters of the Caribbean, they grew accustomed to life at sea.
    From the start, theship’s commander was generous to his two young passengers. It’s safe to assume that they learned much under his tutelage: intelligence that Bolívar later would find vital to a revolution that spread well into the sea. But the captain’s munificence could not mask the hazards of their expedition or the nervousness of the time. The San Ildefonso was known to carry precious metals—it had shipped mercury and silver to Cádiz before—and so it was potential prey not only to the British enemy but to pirates who had terrorized Caribbean waters for centuries.
    The trip was dangerous for another reason: the fledgling United States Navy was locked in a fierce “quasi-war” with French privateers who preyed mercilessly on American trading ships. During the American Revolution, France and America had been allies, but the French Revolution and subsequent trade wars had soured the friendship. The jockeying at sea threatened to become a full-scale conflict. Indeed, allegiances were shifting constantly during this volatile period; it was hard to know whether an approaching ship was friend or foe. Spain, which only years before had allied with Portugal against France, was now allied with France against England. And, in the course of Simón Bolívar’s boyhood, the United States had gone from fighting a bitter revolution to becoming England’s major partner in trade.
    For all the attendant peril, the San Ildefonso arrived as scheduled in Veracruz, Mexico, on February 2, fourteen days after its departure from La Guaira.After loading seven million silver coins into the convoy’s holds, the captain had expected to lift anchor and head east for Cádiz via Havana, but he was informed that a British blockade had impeded all travel in that direction. The San Ildefonso remained docked in Veracruz for forty-six days.
    Simón took advantage of that numbing delay toborrow 400 pesos from a local merchant and travel by stagecoach to Mexico City. His uncle Pedro, the youngest of the Palacios brothers, had furnished him with a letter of introduction from the bishop of Caracas. As he rode into that splendid city—the jewel of New Spain, the pride of the Spanish colonial empire—he was struck by the sheer opulence of the city.“The city of Mexico reminds one of Berlin,” wrote Alexander von Humboldt, “but is more beautiful; its architecture is of a more restrained taste.” It was a time of general abundance in that bustling capital of the viceroyalty—a golden age in which each aristocrat’s palace was built to surpass its neighbor. The grand avenues, the extravagant homes, the spacious parks, the spirited commerce: these represented a pinnacle of grandeur that Mexico would never reach again, and Bolívar marveled at it.
    He spent a comfortable week in the magnificent home of the Marquis of Uluapa, a stay that was arranged by Mexico City’s chief justice, the oidor Don