Vidiadhar Naipaul - A Way in the World

His reputation now feeds on itself; his failures no longer matter. When he goes back to England he enters into serious negotiations with the British government. The negotiations drag on for years, and nothing happens. But when he goes to France they make him a general in their revolutionary army. That ends in a military disaster at the siege of Maastricht, his imprisonment and trial. That doesn’t do him any harm in England; in fact, he goes back, quite legitimately, as a general. For years, then, until he is fifty-five, British plans for the invasion or liberation of South America expand and contract and expand again around General Miranda. Once there is even a plan for a conquest of the continent with ten thousand sepoys from India.

Through these years of waiting and disappointment Miranda doesn’t dwindle. He grows; he becomes more and more educated. Experience, knowledge of the world, and the acquaintance of great men have taken him far from the contrabandist captain of twenty years before. He handles himself as the head of a government in waiting. At the beginning he might have talked moralistically of the broken promises of ministers who have kept him dangling. But now he knows that men are linked by interest and he knows what he has to offer. A British invasion without him would be resisted by the people of Spanish America. Someone like him is needed. And it is only when he fears that he will lose his role, when he sees himself useless in London in old age, that he commits himself to his absurd one-ship invasion.

THIS IS the man who comes to the Gulf in 1806, after the failure of his first invasion. He should be ridiculous, but he isn’t. There will be a new invasion soon, this time with the help of the British fleet in the Caribbean. The generals and admirals are all for Miranda. They want the great estates in South America that Miranda’s victory will bring.

A British warship brings him from Barbados to Port of Spain. This is partly to protect him from the mutinous American mercenaries on his own ship, the Leander . They haven’t been paid for the whole of the year, and they have no faith in Miranda’s leadership.

Miranda is welcomed on the pier by the Trinidad governor, General Hislop. Hislop is a man of jangled nerves. He is forty, and fading. His last military service was twenty years before, in Gibraltar. He has been ten years in the West Indies in semi-administrative posts and drinks too much. He has been governor of Trinidad for three years, and he hates the island and the people.

Hislop has just had to deal with what he thought was a slave rebellion. That gave him a fright, and now he is nervous about the legality of what was done then — the hangings and the mutilations — and what has been done in his name since he became governor. He feels that everything he has done or presided over can be challenged, because since the British conquest there has been no agreed system of law. No one knows whether Spanish law operates or English law, and there are no proper lawyers to give advice about either system.

Miranda is without power. He lives on subventions from merchants in London and now New York, and on uncertain grants from the British government. He depends now on British support for his second invasion attempt. Hislop is the representative of the British power. But at their meeting now Hislop is the suppliant, Miranda the man with the thing he can grant. Miranda recognizes that Hislop is a suppliant, and he knows that the request, when it comes, will be something like this: “General, should you have room in South America at some time for a military man, please do not hesitate to call on me.”

They drive up through the wretched little town. Away from the principal square, near the pier, many of the building plots are empty and overgrown. The streets of the Spanish-laid-out town have now been given British names, of royalty and military men: King, Queen, Prince, Duke, George, Charlotte, Frederick, St. Vincent, Abercromby. It is the rainy season, and the dirt roads are muddy and the air is warm and moist.

Government House, where Miranda is to stay as a guest of the governor, is to the north, at the foot of the hills.

The two men talk about the invasion force.

Hislop says, “We can’t give you any of our own troops, of course. But the Americans on your ship will have to go with you. Some of them are saying they will stay here, but I will let them know that they are allowed to be here only as members of your force. I have identified the ringleader among the Americans.”

“Biggs.”

“That’s it. We can deal with Biggs. The Spanish authorities are another matter. They have been spreading the word that the island will go back to Spain when the peace comes. This means that none of the Spaniards here will volunteer. They are also spreading the rumour that you will set all the slaves free. This is to discourage the French volunteers. Rouvray has got about a hundred and ninety French volunteers. They will want to hear from you that you will secure property rights in slaves. That’s what it always comes down to in this part of the world, as you know. Land and slaves. As governor of this place there are times when I feel I am just a jailer for the planters.”

Miranda says, “I asked for letters to be sent here.”

“You have quite a few. Some have been sent on from Tortola, some from the Leeward Islands station. And Mr. Turnbull has sent me boxes of leaflets and samples for you. You are to distribute them when you land in Venezuela. With your recommendations. Some people have a very simple idea of military operations.”

Government House is in need of repair. Hislop apologizes. He says the Treasury of the island is empty. The previous administrator had very grand ideas of the style in which he and his family and his secretaries should live. He stayed for only six months, but he left a hole. After that there was the expense of fortifications, some of them now abandoned. The few public works Negroes that are now employed about the Government House grounds — mud-stained, in ragged brown linen clothes: the standard slave wear: Miranda has seen it on Negroes during the drive through the town — have been bought from the dealers on credit.

“They are not carpenters or craftsmen,” Hislop says. “A carpenter would have cost a hundred pounds. These cost sixty. And they’re new Negroes. From Africa. No good for anything except in a field gang, and they don’t speak English or French. The story is that the trade is going to be stopped next year, so the merchants are bringing in as many new Negroes as they can now. That’s creating its own problems. If you stay here long enough, that’s all you start thinking about. Negroes and land.

“It will be no surprise to you, General, that you are in demand here. Miss McLurie wants to meet you. She’s one of our ladies. She came in 1802 and is suffering from the lack of society. She wears a transparency. That’s what she calls it. It shows her bosom. Apparently it’s the latest fashion. She wants to hear from your very own lips about Lady Hester Stanhope and Catherine the Great. These stories have preceded you. That’s the way it is with famous people, and you are the most famous man to have come here. Before you came, I suppose Commodore Samuel Hood was the most famous man we had here. Nelson’s second-in-command at the Battle of the Nile.”

Miranda says, “I met Hood before he came out here.”

“And Be’nard wants to see you. He has been very pressing in the last week.” Hislop pronounced the French name in an English way, making it sound like “Bennard.” “He is a planter, courtesy of de Gourville. He is married to de Gourville’s daughter. This makes him a relation by marriage of Baron de Montalembert. Be’nard doesn’t let you forget it. The baron is one of our biggest planters. He will be a good man to get on your side. He came here from Santo Domingo five or six years ago. His estate is just around the corner from here. Just after he came here he lost a hundred and twenty of his Negroes by poison. It is a famous story. I am sure Be’nard will tell it again. He is going to call very soon.”