He was dined and toasted by New York officials. He went to the City of Washington on his secret mission. He was granted private interviews by the President and Secretary of State. He talked much about his friends Catherine the Great of Russia and William Pitt of England. He seemed to know the secret plots and political intrigues of Europe.
Then he vanished as mysteriously as he had come.
A few weeks later, John Adams heard the astounding news. The stranger was no other than the celebrated South American Patriot, Don Francisco de Miranda. He had sailed away secretly from New York in a little ship laden with arms and ammunition. And, what was worse, he had taken with him a band of young American men, some of them mere boys; and he was sailing toward the Spanish main with the intention of freeing South America from Spanish rule.
He had taken with him young William Steuben Smith, John Adams’s grandson. Young Smith was a college boy, very bright and courageous, and thirsty for adventure.
“What do you think were my sensations and reflections?” wrote John Adams to a friend. “I shudder to this moment, at the recollection of them! I saw the ruin of my only daughter and her good-hearted, enthusiastic husband, and had no other hope or wish or prayer than that the ship, with my grandson in it, might be sunk in a storm in the Gulf Stream!”
For young William Steuben Smith’s father was surveyor of the port of New York, and had allowed Miranda’s ship to clear with arms and ammunition in its hold, to be used against Spain with whom we were at peace.
Then came to John Adams the terrible news, that Spanish armed vessels had captured some of the American boys. His grandson had been captured, and thrown into a dungeon in a dark, filthy fortress in Venezuela. He was to be tried as a pirate taken on the high seas, and without doubt he would be hanged.
The Spanish Ambassador, who had known John Adams in Europe, hastened to offer his services. He would intercede with Spain for the grandson, he said.
“No,” said John Adams to a friend; “he should share the fate of his colleagues, comrades, and fellow-prisoners.”
But happily it was all a great mistake. Young Smith was not hanged as a pirate. He had not been captured at all. Instead, he was sailing gayly on in Miranda’s Mystery Ship. He had been made aid-de-camp and lieutenant-colonel, and had donned Miranda’s brilliant uniform.