Juan de Miralles was a Spanish arms dealer who became friends with George Washington during the American Revolutionary War. He supported the American cause financially, and served as a link between the colonists and the Spanish Crown.
Biography
Juan de Miralles was born in Preter/Petrel, Alacant/Alicante, Spain, on July 23, 1713. His parents were a Spanish infrantry officer and a French émigreé. Miralles came to Cuba at a young age, and became a merchant. Fluent in English, Miralles was one of the more active traders out of Havana doing business with the Thirteen Colonies. Due to the possible effect of the British Royal Navy on the Spanish colonies and maritime commerce, Spain took an officially neutral position in the American War of Independence. However, having lost Florida under the terms of the Treaty of Paris which ended the Seven Years' War, the American Revolution provided a potential opportunity to regain lost territory, or at least a measure of revenge. Don Diego Joseph Navarro García de Valladares, Governor of Cuba, sent Miralles as an observer to the Continentals in the then capital of Philadelphia. He arrived from Havana early in 1778, allegedly having been on his way to Spain when some problem with the ship forced him to put in at Charleston, South Carolina. Miralles met Washington at a Christmas party and presented a letter of introduction from Navarro. While in Philadelphia, Miralles became affiliated with the prominent shipping-banking firm of Willing, Morris & Co. During the Seven Years' War, France had ceded Spain its Louisiana territory west of the Mississippi under the Treaty of Fontainebleau. In 1779, the two countries signed the Treaty of Aranjuez by which Charles III of Spain agreed to assist his first cousin, Louis XVI of France in his conflict with the British. In September 1779, the Governor of Spanish Louisiana, Bernardo de Galvez launched a pre-emptive strike against the British and seized Fort Bute on the Bayou Manchac, thus opening a second front. In February 1780 Miralles notified Washington that the Spanish had taken Baton Rouge and Natchez. Washington assured Miralles that he would notify him of any British movements that might be "of interest to your court". Miralles fell ill with a fever while on a visit to Washington's camp in Morristown, New Jersey, where he died on April 28, 1780. He was initially buried in the Presbyterian cemetery in Morristown. The French Minister Plenipotentiary, Anne-César, Chevalier de la Luzerne arranged for a requiem Mass to be celebrated for Miralles at St. Mary's Church in Philadelphia on 8 May 1780. After the war, the remains were moved, probably to Cuba, where his wife lived.
Family
Miralles was uncle of Spanish merchant and politician Pedro Casanave, who was mayor of Georgetown, Washington, D.C. and directed the construction and buried the Cornerstone in what later became in the White House, in 1792.
