The war maker

by Horace Herbert Smith

I told him I earnestly hoped he would extend the time limit and left him, backing out, if you please. I went direct to the Minister of War, who made out a memorandum covering a large consignment of fighting materials and said he would send the official order to my hotel, which he did. Soon after my return to the hotel I was introduced to Freeman Halstead, the correspondent of a great New York newspaper, who had been in Hayti for some time. I had noticed him talking with the proprietor that morning, when Hippolyte’s aide came to the hotel in search of me. In the interval he had cabled his paper that I was in Hayti and had received reply, he said, to “stick to Boynton until further orders.” I told him I had no news and did not expect to make any, but he declared that he would stand by to see what happened. He said he was on an intimate footing with Hippolyte and suggested that he might be able to help me.

During the evening I received a call from an old German acquaintance, named Hefferman, and at his invitation I accompanied him to his home. His wife necessarily was a native negress for, on account of the stringent anti-foreign law, all of his property stood in her name. He confided to me the fact that he was the agent for Gen. Mannigat, another would-be revolutionary leader who was in exile at Jamaica, and that with the aid of a French woman, known as Natalie, of whom Hippolyte was greatly enamoured, he had just formulated a plan to kidnap the President. His scheme was to have Natalie give Hippolyte some drugged wine and, while he was unconscious, put him in a box and bundle him off to a waiting sailing ship which would proceed to Jamaica, where the deposed and dopey President would be turned over to Mannigat, who could make such terms with him as he desired. To the mind of my German friend this would establish a new standard in revolutions and he wanted me to share in his glory, in return for my assistance. I complimented him on his idea of stealing a President, which, under such conditions as he described, might be accomplished, but pointed out that to make his coup successful he must have Mannigat on the ground with a force sufficiently large to seize and hold the government when Hippolyte was removed; that unless this was done both of them would be frozen out by some cockaded criminal who was waiting for just such an opportunity. I told him if the conditions which I had stipulated could be complied with I would be glad to finance and equip the revolt, subject to satisfactory guarantees, but that as it stood I could have nothing to do with it.

It was late when we finished our talk and I made the mistake of spending the night with Hefferman who, as it turned out, was vaguely suspected of being disloyal to Hippolyte, or at least out of sympathy with him, though there was no notion that he was Mannigat’s confidential agent. As a result of my long visit to the German, the mistaken suspicion was created that I had come to Hayti to plot against the President and was trying to draw Hefferman into my plans. This suspicion soon became apparent. Halstead and Belford told me there was no doubt, from what they had heard at the palace and elsewhere, that Hippolyte thought I had lied to him and believed I was there to make trouble for him. On the sixth day after my arrival Belford told me he was to take me on the “Toussaint” the next day, ostensibly to convey me to Santo Domingo, but that he had secret orders, from Hippolyte himself, to see to it that I “fell overboard” well out at sea and was not rescued. He begged me to get out of the country that day, as he would have to obey orders or “walk the plank” himself. Halstead brought me word that I was to be arrested the next day and he was positive that I was to be “shot while attempting to escape” or put out of the way in some such fashion. That made it look as though the old scoundrel meant business and I concluded to give him the slip. Halstead declared he was going with me and as I knew I could rely on him I let him arrange the details of our departure. Pretending that he was going to Jacmel he sent his trunk and mine, both marked as his own, on board a Dutch steamship which had come into port that morning and was to leave the next day.

Against the protests of both Halstead and Belford I paid Hippolyte a parting call that afternoon. I thanked him for his courtesy and the order for arms and told him I would be ready to sail the next morning on the “Toussaint,” which I expected would be waiting for me. The old villain was in his happiest mood and even joked with me about latter day conditions in Hayti as compared with those which had existed when I was there before. If I had not known what was in his mind I might have thought he was simply glad I was going away without having stirred up any trouble for him, but, knowing his murderous plans, I appreciated that he was gloating over me. The strange situation amused me so that I laughed immoderately at his jokes and, as all of his gloating was to be in anticipation, I let him enjoy himself to his fill.

“Good-bye, my friend,” he said as I was leaving. “I wish you a quiet and peaceful trip to-morrow.”

He chuckled over his irony and I smiled back at him, with my thanks. That evening, after Halstead had loudly announced in the hotel office that he expected a visitor at eleven o’clock and wished him sent directly to his room, he and I slipped out by a back way, went to a lonely spot on the beach where he had a boat in waiting, and rowed out to the Dutch ship. On account of his newspaper connection Halstead had much influence with the captain and when the ship was searched for me the next morning, on the pretence that I was a political prisoner who was attempting to escape, I was not found.

We went to Jamaica, where Halstead formerly had lived, and there I got in touch with General Mannigat, and went over his plans against Hippolyte. He impressed me as a fighter and reasonably honest and he convinced me that he had a considerable following in Hayti. He was positive that if he had enough arms he could capture the country, so I arranged with him that the International Export & Trading Co., my concern for promoting revolutions, would ship him twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth of munitions of war on the receipt of three thousand dollars in cash and in the further consideration on his part of a pledge that thirty-three per cent of the customs receipts at Port au Prince would be turned over to us, until we had been paid two hundred and twenty thousand dollars, which was at the rate of ten dollars for every one dollar that we risked. I drew up a contract to this effect, which he signed, and sent the order for the arms to New York, with instructions to fill it when Mannigat sent the three thousand dollars. The money never was sent, but I still hold the contract, as a souvenir.

Mannigat was in doubt as to how soon the requisite amount of cash could be raised, so it was arranged that I should be advised when it was forwarded to New York, in order that I might return and take an active part in his operations, and I went on to the Isthmus of Panama, then a part of Colombia. I stopped at the International Hotel, probably so named because it was the worst in the world, at Colon, and made no secret of my business there, or anywhere else; in fact I rather boasted of it, because of the novelty of being engaged in legitimate commerce, even though I was filibustering on the side when the inducements were attractive. Within a few days I was approached by a young Colombian who had been educated in New Jersey and was a good deal of an American in his ideas. Without telling me what they were for, but giving me grounds for drawing my own conclusions, he ordered three thousand Winchester rifles and the same number of revolvers, with a large quantity of ammunition. He said he would give me New York exchange in part payment of the bill the following day, and that the balance would be paid when they were delivered, at a point to be designated later.

During the night that came on the heels of this conversation I heard a few pistol shots but paid no attention to them, as there seemed to be no resultant excitement. In the morning I discovered that two hundred alleged revolutionary plotters, of whom my young customer of the day before was one of the chiefs, had been arrested between darkness and dawn and rounded up in a big yard, surrounded by a high fence, directly back of the hotel. At breakfast I was looked at curiously and I soon heard talk that I was also to be taken into custody. A fat and officious English butcher, who was employed by the Governor of Panama to spy on all English-speaking visitors, had reported my meeting with the supposed rebel leader and had advised that I be arrested on the ground that I was fomenting internal disorder. I knew, of course, that I could establish my innocence, but the administration of the law in Latin America is such a fearful and wonderful thing that it might take me weeks or months to do it, and, besides that, I had no desire for a clash with the Colombian Government and the notoriety which would result from it. Therefore, when trouble appeared certain I took refuge with the British consul, who was just then the acting American consul. I explained the situation to him and, while maintaining that my business was perfectly legitimate, denied that I had sold the young patriot any arms, which was technically true as the deal had not been closed, or that I knew he was involved in any proposed revolution. The consul sympathized with me, in compliance with the most important of the unwritten rules of the consular service, but, after satisfying himself that the Governor had been prejudiced against me, he advised that the easiest and quickest way out of the difficulty was the best. The steamship “Ferdinand de Lesseps” was leaving the next day for the Spanish Main, which was where I wanted to go, and I went on board of her, under escort of the consul. I was running into more trouble on this trip than I had ever before encountered in ten times the same length of time and it began to look as though I had brought a hoodoo on myself by forsaking the intricate paths of adventure for the broad, not the straight and narrow, way of ordinary trade.

Not wishing to take any further chances with Colombia I did not even go ashore at Savanilla or Cartagena but went on to Venezuela, where Gen. Joachim Crespo was now in command. The rule of President Palacio, whose supporters had betrayed my old friend Guzman Blanco, had lasted but two years and was followed in rapid succession by a series of revolutions. The betrayal of Guzman seemed to have put a curse on the country, for there was disorder all through the Palacio regime and immediately following it there were three dictatorships in one year. Finally, in October, 1892, General Crespo entered Caracas and restored peace so completely that shortly before my arrival he was elected Constitutional President. I recalled that when Crespo was a young staff officer I had recommended him to Guzman for his loyalty and intelligence, and, if he knew of this incident, I thought it might now prove of advantage to me in my new occupation.