Hispanic America USA
The Spanish Merchant
Juan de Miralles
Copyright (c), 1996-97, All Rights Reserved

Miralles a Spanish Merchant (observer) in the
American War with England.

General George Washington and Don Miralles met during a
Christmas visit Washington made to Philadelphia, Miralles made
a formal call on him for the purpose of presenting *Navarro's letter
of recommendation.

Washington received him courteously and responded by returning
a visit to Miralles' lodgings the following day.

The Spaniard then organized a New Year's Eve banquet in
Washington's honor, inviting some seventy guests to fete the
American commander and his wife. Since that affair conflicted with
an already scheduled function of the General Society of Dames,
a local ladies' organization, the Spanish merchant combined the
two events into a gala evening that the gazettes reported favorably
as a superior event of the holdiay season.

* (Note: Navarros' to the Congress, March 11, 1778
AGI, Cuba 1301. The American translation is in Papers of the
Continental Congress, item 78, XIV, 47, Nation Archives.) Excerts from
Spanish Observers in the American Revoluton by Cummins