John D'Evereux

John D' Evereux, (1778- 1860)

Notorious smuggler, conman and smooth contraband artist during the Wars of Independence in South America.

It is known that as a youth, he participated in the 1798 uprising at New Ross, and then went to the US in voluntary exile. A man of fine appearance and glib tongue, he joined a merchant business firm in Baltimore. He once ran a cargo of coffee right through a British Blockage to France in 1812, during the Napoleonic Wars. Arriving in Cartagena, Colombia in 1815, from the US with a cargo of arms, just as Bolivar was going into exile to Jamaica, he made an offer to the patriots to obtain support for them in Britain where he alleged he had many friends in the Lords and the Commons. The offer was not accepted, though he untruthfully boasted that he was a General in the Irish Army, and that he had led the Irish Catholics in the fight for Emancipation.

After an abortive visit to Argentina where he tried to convince the Argentinians he could raise a loan of 3.5 million pesos backed by the US Government to help financially in their struggle for Independence, he arrived in Haiti to stay with Sutherland.

Sutherland fell for the scam, and in July 1817 forwarded to Bolivar General D'Evereux's offer, who picked up the letter on his return to Ireland towards the end of 1818, and started recruiting with Daniel O'Connell's support. He sold the commissions by forging a letter from Bolivar giving him the authority. During the middle of the summer of 1819 John D' Evereux began recruiting for the Irish Legion in Ireland. Although he did manage to send 5 ships to South America on the grounds they were «immigrants», the officers and soldiers that finally arrived in South America onboard his ships were a buck short and a day late, as they never saw service. As far as D'Evereux is concerned, he finally arrived in South America after all his Legion had dismembered, and neither did it have active service, nor saw military action whatsoever. Perhaps Simon Bolivar sensed the slithering deceit, as he had instructed Luis Ceferino Lopez Mendez, his agent in London to tell the parties being recruited, (or those acting on behalf of), they would only get paid once they arrived in South American soil.

During the days when the Congress of Colombia was held in Villa del Rosario de Cúcuta (May 1821), he was the protagonist of a scandal that confronted him bitterly against the President of the Congress, Antonio Nariño (1765-1823), then acting vice-President of the Republic (envested by Bolivar himself), with the result of being remitted prisoner to the general headquarters of the Liberator in Military Campaign in Venezuela (just before the battle of Carabobo took place). Simon Bolivar was busy at San Carlos, Cojedes in Venezuela, mustering and preparing the 6,400 men that would fight in that epic battle for the final liberation of Venezuela.

text by P.L. Baldo D. April 23rd, 2019