Part One: The Con Artist Who Invented A Country

Robert is joined by Laci Mosley to discuss conman, Gregor MacGregor.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
M did theoria that's a disease, and I'm Robert Evans,
and this is Behind the Bastards, a podcast that's not
about diseases. It's about the worst people in all the
history who are kind of a disease on the human condition.
I couldn't think of anything else to shout at the
start of the episode, so I went with diphtheria. Anyway,

(00:20):
the show has begun. My guests today are one of
our very best guests, the wonderful, the incomparable Lazy Mobery.
I'm so happy to be here. I haven't seen you
in so long, Robert, yet it has been a minute.
It has been a minute. How have How are you
doing in in this year of plague and also general

(00:41):
uprisings and also a political election and also an economic collapse.
Um I was in the beginning, in the beginning of this,
I know when you say it all together, when you
talk about what's been happening, it sounds very bad because
the new cycle is so crazy. Like that the one
week where Malaia was like, Chris, I can't do her voice,
but she's like and then taxes came out the same week.

(01:06):
Also he got COVID. It was like so many things happened,
and we were like, oh, this is just Tuesday. Okay,
I'm doing a lot better. In the beginning. I'm a
like an introvert. People don't know that about me because
I do a lot of this ship, but like, I
am alone a lot and I like it. So I
was like, oh, putting up on TV's Netflix movies, honey.

(01:26):
And then when we got into June, it was like, okay,
Black Liberation and that kind of kept me busy. And
then I took a real dump like after that of
like closing my blackout curtains. Like I was like a shutting,
bedridden pregnant woman in the eighteen hundreds and just like
laying in the dark for a few days. But now
I'm back, I'm going working out every day and you know,

(01:47):
I just trying to keep myself safe. You know how
they used to be like Google, gott I had a
king's baby, so get your aunts in bed and closed
these curtains. Yes, So that was me except for no baby,
no quarantine baby. Thank god, I have not had a
quarantine baby either. Um. I did adopt a riot son,

(02:10):
but but but no quarantine baby. Um lazy, How do
you feel about but I do. I really love them.
It's a complicated relationship though, because I don't love when
people are victimized. I hate to see it happened. Actually
this morning, my little sister got scammed. Oh no, what
kind of scam I was doing with the family crisis

(02:32):
before nine am? Chair because they two hours ahead of me.
And so basically, my sister met this girl and they've
been hanging out through a mutual friend for three months.
And the girl was like talking about how she needed
to move out from her parents house and how during
quarantine things have just got so bad, you know, side story,
side story, honey. So she's like, I'm selling my art

(02:52):
online and I don't want to put the money in
my bank account because I don't want my parents to
know that I'm saving up to leave. So she asked
my little sister, is she could put the money in
her bank account cut to some man named Clad or
some ship emailing my sister four checks for eight hundred dollars.
Why my sister didn't think? I was like you, I
literally the first thing I text, because she was like,

(03:13):
don't tell my mom dad. I was like, first of all,
I have to Second of all, I know this is petty,
but I was like, I run a show called scam Guys.
I was like, y'all support your sister and listen to
her show, because girl, i'n't talked about this scam like
eleven times. I'm trying to help you seventeen so all

(03:35):
enough to know about her. It's like it's like if
your job was to give out flu vaccines and then like,
your sister gets the flu and she's like, well I
didn't know there was a vaccine, Like what the funk
are you? Like? Right, I'm like, I spent a whole
section of my life just talking about scams. You ain't
think nothing, thought like let me text my older sister
before I make a devilas and nothing. So she said,

(03:56):
up the hundred dollars because they cleared it automatically, which
is there, so we're dealing with them. But it was
total and so the bank of course did a charge
back and then that coin flew right out of her
account and she was like, well, my friend didn't know.
I was like, your friend did no, Okay, she scammed
and she got your friend and don't talk to her again.
And also I will pull up to whatever slide whatever

(04:19):
swing set. I need to to be her ass uh.
I will fight children. Um yeah, if you're five one,
you can fight kids. Mostly I will fight children. Have one.
It's a fair fight. Okay? He is her friends seventeen two? Yeah,
I think they're around the same A. Yeah, but a

(04:41):
surprise bastard. Yeah, surprise. I didn't expect to talk about
this one. Sorry, it was on my heart. You know
who else would fight children? Probably probably the subject of
today's podcast, I assume based on everything else he did so, Lacy,

(05:01):
you and I are both are both connoisseurs of con men.
You know, we love we love us some connors right,
like it's it's there's something just you gotta you love
a grifter like they're they're monsters, but they're fascinating. And
most of the grifters, at least that I talk about,
I know, you cover kind of a different branch of them.
Most of the ones I talk about are either like
hawking some sort of miracle medical treatment, or like a

(05:21):
path to easy riches. I guess that that's basically all
of them, right. Um. There are like, you know, a
couple though, who rise above the rest. There's people like
oh Ron Hubbard, right, who like drifted a whole religion
and it's like, you know, and today's grifter is that
level of grifter. Um, he didn't make a religion. But
the guy we're talking about today, Sir Gregor McGregor, count

(05:44):
people into believing he had a whole country. And that's
pretty ambitious. It is good, you know travel. He's like, no,
you don't have to come, just no, oh no, he
he convinced them to come. Now, this was a different
era we're talking about. Out the eighteen hundreds, um, and spoiler,
a lot of them died. Um. This is a high

(06:06):
body count scammer. Um. But our first episode is going
to be about the rest of his back because like
every grifter, he had to like build up, you know,
just start by faking a country, right, Like you gotta
that's like, that's like the marathon of grift ing and
like you gotta do some tin ks, some twenty k's
like before you can you know, before you can get
that ship. So. Gregor McGregor was born in Sterlingshire, Scotland,

(06:31):
on Christmas Eve, seventeen eight six. His family were somewhat
famous among the contentious peoples of Scotland. One of his
ancestors was a guy named rob Roy McGregor, a cattle
wrestler and a bandit who basically charged people not to
steal their ship. He was a gangster Um. He controlled
a large group of raiders who would like steal cows
and then ransom them back to their customers or just

(06:52):
like get money from them not to steal their cows
in the first place. The origin, yeah, yeah, he was.
He was kind of like a towing company, but an
a legal towing company. Um, we're like some guy with
a gun comes out and said, oh, you want your
fucking car back, Like, yeah, I have definitely had my
car toad, but it was unfortunately legal, although I felt

(07:14):
as if it was not, and if it were a
bandit perhaps that would have been nicer. Um because there
were cops involved anyway, So he piste off a local
noble by stealing stealing his cows eventually, and that got
the McGregor clan kicked off. There's like a roster of
official Scottish clans. It's like a it's like a whole deal.
And so the McGregor family got kicked off for like
decades um and rob Roy's family got like tossed out

(07:37):
of their home in the dead of winter. Um, and
he was he was really it seems like just a criminal,
like just like not a good criminal either, Like you know,
I'm not judgmental of criminals, but he's just like stealing
people's ship. But because of like for whatever reason, it's complicated.
He's still he turned into a folk hero in Scotland
and he's kind of you now is the Scottish Robin Hood.
So this is Gregor McGregor's like famous ancestor, and he's

(07:59):
he's only born like sixty years before Gregor's birth, but
like you know, back in the seventeen hundreds, that's like
a billion years, you know. Yeah. So by the time
Gregor McGregor comes into the world, his family, his clan
had been re estate and stated to the roles, and
he's got like this famous tradition of like we're we're
we're we're both warriors and and freedom fighters, YadA, YadA, YadA.

(08:21):
His family weren't rich, but they were really very comfortable
local aristocrats, like upper middle class. They were eating every day,
yeah yeah, yeah, and they were eating well. Um, he
would have grown up hearing tales of like his ancestors glory,
YadA YadA. Uh. We don't know any details about Gregor's
education or his early life because people didn't keep great
notes in the seventeen hundreds about folks who weren't like

(08:42):
super rich. But we know that his father worked for
the British East India Company and would have been absent
all the time doing you know, genocides and stuff. Uh.
It's likely that Gregor was raised by his mom and
his aunts and showered with attention because he was the
only boy in the family and I think most people
know what that kind of does to you. He was
like the original influencer of the seventeen hundred. It sounds

(09:04):
like he would have had like, maybe like eighty four
Instagram followers. Yeah, it's weird how quickly you've picked up
on where this story is going lazy. Um so. Yeah.
His His modern biographer, a guy named David Sinclair, posits,
based on his later life he was probably showered with
attention and grew used to getting whatever he wanted, like

(09:25):
he was he was the special boy of the family, right.
Um So, he probably left school at about age fifteen
because that's when Scottish boys became adults, which is interesting
to me because like pretty much everywhere else in Urope,
it was like age fourteen. So I guess the Scots
you get an extra year of being a kid. That's nice. Yeah,
they're progressive. Uh. The next year, at age sixteen, he
enlisted in the British Army. Uh. Sixteen was the earliest

(09:48):
age at which this was allowed. And before you get
all judge, you should know that seventeen year olds joined
the U s Army all the time, so things aren't
changed all that much. Like we added a year. We're
the Scotsman of the modern era. So um, yeah, Gregor
joins the army and uh. He would claim later that
he spent the year between graduation and joining the university

(10:09):
and joining the army at the University of Edinburgh, But
everything he ever said was a lie, so don't put
too much stock in that. There's no evidence that he
ever attended college. Now. Back in those days, as a
result of changes made by King Charles the Second, young
men with money could buy their way into the British Army,
and it's almost certain that Gregor's father paid for him
to be commissioned as an incident, which was like the
lowest officer rank at the period and cost about four

(10:32):
hundred and fifty pounds, which was equivalent to around twenty
five dollars in modern money. So like this was expensive,
it was also the normal way that officers got promoted, right,
you could either wait years to earn a promotion or
you could pay for it. Um. Poorman had to settle
for being promoted the old fashioned way through like hard
work and courage, and so the you know that took
a long time. Um. Until fairly late in the eighteen hundreds,

(10:54):
every officer rank in the British Army worked this way
up to the rank of lieutenant colonel. UM. So the
people who are at least qualified. It's interesting because it
did work very badly a lot of the time, and
that's why it was eventually stopped. UM. And obviously, like
the thing that you'd imagine did happen, a bunch of
idiots got to command the lives of thousands thanks to

(11:15):
their rich dad's UM. And you can look at ship
like the famous charge of the Light Brigade during the
Crimean War, and even the I mean they'd stopped that process,
but still a lot of the officers in charge during
that war had paid to become officers Um, and even
the British loss of North America is like maybe partial
consequences of the fact that the system work this way. Um,

(11:36):
but it wasn't like it wasn't all bad actually, And
this is the I found like a really interesting letter
to the editor in an eighteen sixty issue of The
New York Times, Um, We're like a British military veteran
explained why the system wasn't quite as as simple as
people thought it was. And one of the points he
made is that it allowed people who were good leaders

(11:57):
to speed up their rise to through the ranks and
then thus spend more time commanding armies in the prime
of their lives. And there's actually at least one really
good example of this. The Duke of Wellington paid for
all of the seven biable promotions he could possibly have paid.
And like, by the time he was a lieutenant colonel,
he'd never seen combat, had no functional experience, and he
went on to beat Napoleon at Waterloo. So like, sometimes

(12:19):
it worked sometimes, Yeah, he was a strategist, he was Yeah,
he was good at what he like. Sometimes this worked out, um,
And like one of the one of the famous defenses
when people would talk about canceling this system in the
late eighteen hundreds, was that, like, well then we'd have
to pay all these officers back for the money they
paid to like get their promotions, and that would cost

(12:39):
way too much money. Um, so let's just let's just
keep having idiots and charity. It was a very silly
thing for the most part. Now. The unit Gregor's dad
bought his son into was the fifty seventh Foot, a
Scottish regiment famous for the fact that almost everyone in
it was a criminal. Their name their nickname was the
Steelbacks because were flogged with whips so many times for

(13:02):
their disobedience. So it said that like you had to
have a strong back to survive because they'd regularly get
like nine lashes and ship for like all of the
crimes they committed. Now, is that pre army or during
the army? That's during the army. I feel like they
shouldn't beating all people that you need to fight. The
British Army did that all the time. There was in fact,

(13:23):
there was like a saying that like the British Navy
was kept in order by rum, sodomy and the lash. Yeah,
so like they're drunk, they get to funk each other
and we beat them when they step out of line.
And that's why there's the there's also a great Pogues
album called Rum Sodomy and the Lash wonderful. That's a
good time. Some people would like it, like there are

(13:46):
some stores I've been to in San Francisco that specifically
catered to that set of things. But these were not
fun lashes, you know, like these would do real damage
to you. Um. The commander of the fifty seven foot
once nicknamed them the fighting Villains, um, because again, they're
all criminals. So McGregor did well there at first. He

(14:09):
actually earned a promotion from instant to lieutenant without having
to pay for it. Um. So he had like promise
he there was a chance he could have lived a
legitimate life at one point. Is what I want you
to keep. They're always there. Yeah. Yeah. There was that
moment where John McAfee had to choose to murder a
bunch of people in the jungle, and when he chose Crack,

(14:30):
his choice was paid for him to do. The Crack
stepped into the Crack entered the chat and it's like
one of those Jesus take the wheel posters, but Crack
John McAfee closed his eyes and let crack take the wheel.
Do take the wheel, y'all. Ever, so at this point

(14:55):
in history, the British were real scared about Napoleon because
Napoleon was, you know, be pretty good at war. Uh
And yeah, Gregor spent the bulk of his military career
being sent around a different islands as forts and forts
is part of like a big chess game between the
Empire and Napoleon. The British were terrified the French were
going to invade you know, England, so like they were
just always moving soldiers and fleets around. It was so

(15:18):
he spends he doesn't actually fight, He spends all of
his time like moving from post to post. And his
favorite part of life in the military was all the
fancy parties because all of these fortresses and posts are
near like towns and cities, and they all of these
big social lives, and of course the visiting young officers
are the you know, the biggest thing in town whenever
they come in. And he was a very handsome guy.

(15:39):
He was meticulous about his uniform. He wore every decoration
he possibly good on it um and he he you know,
he stood out at these parties, and as a result
of standing out when he was still like a teenager,
he met a lady. Her name was Maria bowater Um
and her father had been an admiral, and so their
family had fuck you money. They get married and yeah,

(16:00):
you know, and in those days, you get married to
a girl and she comes with money, right, yeah, yeah,
you get like yeah, said handsome question mark. I just
google searched. The standards were lower in those days. Everybody.
Everybody's got the typhoid he has, he has, I just
farted face. Yeah, but he didn't. He's not actively shifting

(16:22):
himself to death. So like that's that's kind of the
standard is like, oh, you're not You're not having fatal diarrhea.
What a handsome man. You don't have both ears. It
was a rough time, so uh yeah. They get married

(16:43):
and her dowry is like huge. So Gregor has fuck
you money too, at least for a while. Um. And
unfortunately this has a bad effect on him. Number one,
it swells his head because immediately he's like, oh, now
I'm like a fucking rich officer guy. But also like
he marries into this family that has this tradition of
like being very powerful people and he's just a lieutenant

(17:05):
and they don't. That does not impress them. So to
earn their respect, he uses some of the money that
he their money that he got to buy himself a
promotion to captain. He's got douche face. I'm looking at
his face, but he's it was good looking for the day. No,
it's not. You know, I could see him being a
baddie back in the day. I'm just saying he's got
that douchey face of like everything I want. Like, it's

(17:25):
just he's no, No, he would have. He would have
been in a fraternity and he would have been one
of those guys that there were unfortunate stories about because yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's this guy. Um, not that he actually does anything
like that, I'm just assuming because of other things he does.
So I'm gonna quote next from David Sinclair's The Land
That Never Was, which is a biography of Gregor McGregor. Quote,

(17:49):
the young captain's progress should have been assured. Using his
newfound wealth, McGregor could have bought himself the rank of
regimental major, which could take anything between six and seventeen years,
on the basis of promotion, and then with war with certainty,
could have either counted on distinguishing himself sufficiently to move
up to lieutenant colonel, or else paid again for the
highest purchasable rank in the army. There appeared to be
no reason why, in due course he should not become

(18:10):
a general, as his wife's uncle had and as her
brother subsequently would. By this time, however, certain traits in
the young man's character were beginning to turn him into
his own worst enemy. One of his later military comrades,
if that is the right term for a man who
disliked him intensely, observed McGregor was spoiled by prosperity, and
his versatility and haughtiness of disposition soon overturned his flattering prospects.

(18:31):
So he gets a big ass head. That's a fancy
way of saying he gets a big head. Yeah, and
this guy's a hater. Whoever this comrade is is definitely
a hater. He's probably like had to work his way up.
Yeah exactly. Yeah, he's like he's he's actually gotta do ship.
Um so. One of his other comrades later noted that
he began to show a growing fascination with extreme affectation

(18:55):
of dress and fashion and an overpowering fondness for the
nicest distinctions of rank and the over or in the
imposing spectacle of honorary badges and tangible tokens of merit.
And this means like he would. You know, there's all
sorts of bullshit awards you get in the military for
like showing up and not doing anything, and most like
most like grunts, the people who actually fight, like don't
don't wear that ship. And he like he would, he

(19:16):
would wear that ship because, like he always he wanted
to have everything he possibly could on him. It was
about like looking good. Right, he's like a rapper. He's
showing up to these cities like he's Travis Scott and
you know, showing off for the bitches. He said, there's
a party in every town, and I gotta have my
gold chains. And his health chains were purple hearts and
medals of freedom. Yeah exactly. Yeah, that's why the like,

(19:39):
that's the fucking you know. I grew up like really conservative.
I talked about this a lot, and like the discourse
around rappers when I was a kid was like, oh,
look at how like look at how look at how
like shameful This culture is because of like these men
with their like big golden chains bragging about like you
know what, like the stuff that rappers brag about, and
it's like money, car, fucking Yeah, it's the same thing

(20:01):
rich white people brag about. It's just different money, different cars,
different women. Like there's nothing different about it. It's just
what men do, like grossmen do at least, like it's
just a thing. Yeah, So I don't see, but I
get it that it's like if you're really doing work
and you're in the military and you're looking at this
guy and people are dying all around you, and you're
on the battlefield and you have phone boy who doesn't

(20:23):
even have to touch the soil, and he's like dripped
down with every medal and accomplishment, and I were talking
cash it at all these functions and being a douche Yeah,
because at least, like you know, it's like like if
you've got a fucking gold chain or whatever, you probably
had to earn that gold chain. You had to fucking hustle,
Like he just married some lady and then took her money, uh,

(20:44):
and then bought a promotion. I'm looking at a picture
of him pose with a sword like he is my sword,
and I'm like, has he ever had to swing the
sword on anybody? Or is he just posted up like
this is how rappers pose with guns and music videos.
He does eventually swing his sword, not at this point. Not.
And at this point he's never done anything. He's wearing
all the medals and he's he's forcing all of the

(21:06):
men under his command to never show up outside of
their rooms unless they're wearing a full dress uniform with
a handsome walking cane. Okay, so he was swaggy, he
was had the Swag Brigade. Yeah, he wanted, he wanted,
and yeah, and that that frustrates the men around him. Yeah.
So and like these guys don't want to be the
Swag Battalion, their criminals like they want to they want

(21:31):
to get drunk and fight. Um, they don't want to
wear walk around with canes. So in the winter of
eighteen oh seven, France invades Portugal. In Spain, the British
counter invade, and although Gregor and his unit were nearby,
they didn't take any part in the fighting until like
eighteen o nine, when they're sent to Portugal to fight
under the Duke of Wellington. After deploying to Portugal. The
fifty seven fought heroically at the Battle of Albuera, which

(21:53):
was this horribly bloody, grinding affair that killed like ten
thousand people and was like a hugely famous battle of time.
And it has now been forgotten by everybody but war nerds,
because that's what happens when you sacrifice yourself in hugely
famous battles, is everybody but nerds forgets you. Um, And
I wish that that wasn't the case, because yeah, absolutely,
now we should remember all the battles. Obviously we're still

(22:15):
in Afghanistan, like we should remember all the ship that's
still going on. But it's more interesting to me sometimes
the olden time battles because he's just gotta be in
good shape. I gotta be out here stabbing you. That's
a lot of work. And I have that multiple people,
like I gotta be out here. How long are you?
How many hours are you outside stabbing? I know, everybody's
gotta be out of breath, just like and they're all

(22:38):
wearing like these thick cotton uniforms like now ship breeds
right like right now we got breed material. They have
to dress like they're about to go to a kaya
West fans hat certain pounds, like yeah, it's it sucks,
it sounds terrible. I have to take a break. Is
there a point in the fight where we both just
like hold on, listen, just take yo. Yeah, I mean

(22:58):
they're actually we're so time. Everybody stretched. We don't know
we're gonna keep the battle going. We just saw me
so like yeah. They So his unit fights in this
very famous battle, um and they earned the nickname the
die Hards because like they're they're such good of fighters.
And Gregor would spend the rest of his life bragging
about the fact that he served with the die Hards
and he fought in this battle, and he didn't. It's

(23:21):
a total lie because when it happened, he was actually
back in England, because months before the fighting happened, he
got into like what was probably a fistfight with a
superior officer and then got kicked out of his unit
and eventually the entire British Army um um. And we
don't know exactly what happened, but one of his comrades

(23:41):
did write that he was much addicted to the pleasures
of the table gambling and was frequently intemperate, drunk to
excess Um so he was probably got wasted and got
into a dumb fight with somebody he shouldn't have been
fucking with, and he got kicked out of the army. Wow,
I love how classy it sounds back then like he
loved the table bowl, the table. Yeah. Now it's like,

(24:02):
but you're sitting at a slot machine for sixteen hours.
It's called the table. It's if you smoke a cigar
and we're white gloves while you do it. It's classy
and not. It's a very depressing problem. Oh goodness, this guy.
So he just came to war for the turn up.
He said, it's gonna be cute. The girls are gonna
be a statue. I'm gonna give you fashion, I'm gonna

(24:23):
give you decoration, decorative warrior. And then he gets kicked
out before the fighting starts. But that's perfect. Yeah. And
the thing about the eighteen hundreds is like he just
went on claiming, oh no, I served with this unit
at that famous battle, like I'm one of them, like
I'm and he had like the regimental badges and there's
no internet, like nobody gets like nobody can check up

(24:44):
on this ship. Um so he just it's the perfect
situation for him. He's like, because of his comrades fought
and died bravely and earned a name for themselves, he
gets to use that name. But he also got to
be hanging out back in fucking Edinburgh sorry not Lyne
Edinburgh at the time. Like it's great situation for It's like,
how are we going to tweet that he got headed
out the army before the fild, Like there's no way

(25:05):
to do that? Yeah, exactly, yea heat it out the
r I like. So his first biographer, who was a
soldier who served with him, Colonel Rafter, And we'll talk
about this guy a little bit later. Um, who hated him,
by the way, wrote that quote. McGregor now appeared to
enjoy the free, his freedom with little foresight and less reflection.

(25:27):
So he's very happy to be kicked out of the army.
Um yeah, I will be Yeah, fuck it. I mean
it seems like a bad thing to be in. And
he got everything he needed. He got the drip and
he got the rep and he had to go to war.
That's the perfect recipe. It is perfect. And like it
was a dumb Like there's been like three wars ever
that like we're worth it to fight in, and like

(25:48):
the fucking Napoleonic Wars were not one of them. Um.
So yeah, rafter goes on to write, quote, having honored
the city of Edinburgh with his residence for some time,
he there assumed the title of colonel. He was not
actually a colonel. He's just one of these guys in
the eight hundreds who's like, I'm gonna call myself a
fucking colonel. Um. He decorated his heels with guilt spurs,

(26:09):
that's like golden spurs, and his breast with the badge
of a Portuguese Order of Knighthood, which he had not
earned either. His lady foreign contessa his footman were dressed
in a fairy, whimsical livery, and the panels of his
chariot were highly emblasmed and shown with all the blushing
honolds honors of a coronet, which as they could. So
he's he's just lying, and he's got the money to

(26:31):
buy all of the fancy things to claim that he's
a colonel, and like his wife is royalty. And and again,
the only way to know somebody was fancy back then
was whether or not they could afford to pretend they
had honors and nobody is able to check up on ship,
so he's got the money. So it's true. It works
out great for him. Well, actually it doesn't. It doesn't

(26:51):
work out great quite at this point because he's a
Scotsman and all of the people around him or Scotsman
and Scottish people don't give a shit about this because
there's scott it right, Like, they don't like, they don't
they like, oh, you're covered in golden ship, like we
all spend all of our time getting into naked fist
fight fist fights in the wood woods were fucking Scottish Like,
They're like, yeah, your your medals are cute, but we

(27:12):
don't care. Yeah we don't care. Yeah, they do not.
He will later figure out how to trick his native people,
but at this point his native people are like, so
what the fuck, Like, who cares if you're if you're
a colonel and you married a rich lady like go
go likes piss up a rope buddy, Um uh so
yeah they Gregor decides to leave Scotland forever and he

(27:34):
moves to the Isle of Wight with all of his
fancy stuff because the Isle of Wight, as you might
have guessed by the name was filled with a lot
of dumb, rich white people who through ostentatious parties, and
all of these people believe his lies as long as
he dresses well. So like this is the place for him.
I'm glad he finally found his scammera paradise. He get
his great gats beyond who's the great gass the military,

(27:55):
and I love it. Yeah, yeah, he's doing it. He's
doing it right. Um. As Rafter wrote, quote, he there
represented himself as an heir to the to a Highland
baronet and to a castle with an estate in the Highlands.
His gay disposition, handsel and figure and good address procured
him ready admission to all circles, and the assemblies of
the isle were considered devoid of their principal attraction unless

(28:16):
graced by the presence of the lively Scotsman. So it
becomes like the biggest name on the island. He's like,
he's he's he does have that like thing. He would
have been a good like reality star or something at
the time. He's good at self. Yeah, yeah, and everybody
everybody on this island charismatic, specifically to rich people, like
he's really good at impressing rich people. Um, right, and

(28:40):
everyone's board, especially if you're rich, you actually have people
to do the day to day ship that you had
to do that Ben, if you don't have to plush
your own hand cart and make your own damn food,
then you probably need some entertainment. Yeah. Why would you
care if somebody's lying through their teeth at you? As
long as they tell a good story. Like that's literally
the only thing that matters. Because you're so bored you
want to die all the time. Time. But you know

(29:01):
who's not so bored, they want to die all the time. Lacy,
the products and services that support this podcast we have returned.
That was a little more energy than that deserved. I
was trying to be like Gregor McGregor and like and
do the hype you know. Yeah, yeah it works for me.

(29:24):
Thank you, Lacy, thank you, thank you for keeping my
confidence high. As a confidence man, I um, maybe one day.
So yeah, he dominates the social scene in the Isle
of Wight. Um, but he gets bored because like he's
he's one. Like it's kind of like he beat that
level and he's the big fish and the alo whites

(29:45):
kind of a small pond. So he decides he wants
to go somewhere bigger and fancier and like take yeah, exactly.
Never satisfied, so he goes to London, um, which is
the fanciest place in the world then and maybe now,
I guess it's it's still pretty fancy, still pretty fancy, um.
But you know, London is kind of like a different

(30:06):
fucking ballpark than the Isle of White and he's gonna
need more than just like fake credentials to make a
mark there because there's a lot of colonels and fucking
barons and ship like there's kings and ship it's fucking
it's London. So thankfully for him, his dad had just
died um. And even though his dad wasn't the clan chieftain,
Gregor was able to start lying and pretend that he'd
inherited the position as the chief of Clan McGregor. So

(30:27):
he starts calling himself Sir Gregor McGregor. And again, no Internet,
so nobody gets to check this ship. And for a
while it worked, largely because Gregor burned through his wife's
dowry at an extraordinary pace, bribing his way into high
society and buying all the expensive uniforms and a kouchrama
that he needed to look like the man he was
pretending to beat all of this eight through you know,
the money that he had. And then in eighteen eleven,

(30:48):
tragedy struck. His wife Maria died. Now, this was not
a tragedy because he cared anything about her. This was
a you know fucker. Um, this was a tragedy because
it severs his ties with her rich family, and he
was starting to run low on cash and he didn't
make no babies with her. Come on, oh, scam a McGregor.
You didn't make you about one seed with Honestly, you

(31:09):
have a little connection. He's not taking a hit. I
love how angry that you are with him that he
did not pregnant impregnate his wife before she died tragically. Um,
because it's bad, it's bad. Uh, it's bad craft. You
know you gotta make a baby right? Also, like if
you're gonna run through your coins, like are you just
looking for affirmation, sweetheart? Like you gotta be trying to

(31:31):
have Like there has to be some kind of en goal.
Are you trying to make more money? Are you gonna
rope people into your new pyramid scheme? McGregor McGregor LLC
co of Riches, Like, what's the end goal here? Yeah,
that's the thing about at this point he doesn't really
have an end goal. He's just kind of he just
kind of wants to feel fancy. Um. He doesn't seem
to have a plan in this period that will come later.

(31:52):
He grows. He this is a growth story, lazy um.
But at this point, yeah, he's so. I'm actually gonna
quote from it right up in the Rothchild archive about him. Quote.
McGregor could not face the prospect of returning to his
family farm in Scotland. His only real experience was military,
and his interest was aroused by the colonial revolts against
Spanish rule in Latin America, particularly Venezuela. The Venezuelan revolutionary

(32:16):
general Francisco de Miranda had been fedted in London during
a recent visit, and McGregor had formed the idea that
exotic adventures in the New World might earn him similar celebrity.
He sold the small Scottish estate he had inherited and
sailed for South America via Jamaica in the early eighteen twelve. Now,
this guy, General Francisco de Miranda, is is a really
interesting dude. So like this period. We'll talk about this

(32:37):
a little later, but like everybody's fucking the South. America
is full of revolutions, and this guy, Francisco de Miranda
is like a revolutionary, like a very successful general who's
won a bunch of battles and like he just travels
around Europe when he's not fighting and fox absolutely everybody.
Um So, he rules. He's like, he's like he's like
a cool figure, like he's the soldier of fortune, this

(33:00):
like fighter for liberty. And he's also just like he's
like James Bond, just like sleeping with everybody in every
city he can. Um So, he's like McGregor sees this
guy and he's like, that's the fucking life I warrant um. Yeah,
he goes to Jamaica. It's supposed to just be a stopover,
but he falls in love with Jamaica as soon as
he lands there, and he tries briefly to make a life.

(33:21):
But for McGregor, making a life somewhere meant hanging out
at rich people's parties and pretending to be a war hero.
And in those days, traveling dandies had to carry letters
from other rich and famous people who knew the rich
and famous people in the area they'd travel to and
that was how you'd get introduced to high society. And
he didn't have any of that, so nobody would let
him into their parties. Dang, he didn't think he just
makes some letters up. Yeah, that's what's surprising to me,

(33:44):
because he's not above it. I guess he just didn't
He wasn't confident that he could. Maybe he didn't know
who to fake the letter from. Right right, right right.
You do need that information, you need to you need
to have a name, and he probably didn't have that.
And again he's he's he's a baby scammer at this point,
you know, he's he's he's not good yet. So he
was waiting outside the club and he couldn't get in. Yeah,
he could not get in. Nobody's letting him through the rope.

(34:06):
So in spring of eighteen twelve, he continues on to
Venezuela and he lands in Caracas two weeks after much
of the city had been destroyed by an earthquake that
killed like thirty people. Um horrible, horrible earthquake. So he
introduces himself as Sir Gregor to anyone who'd listened, and
he starts talking to representatives of the Republican Army uh
and claiming that he's a colonel and a knight in

(34:27):
the Portuguese or Order of Christ and all of his
old lives. Now at that point, Venezuela's in the middle
of a revolution against Spanish authority. And this was part
of a broad trend across South America, like all like
all of these places in South America are erupting into
like liberation struggles, um and as times of chaos and
political change tend to do. This period opened up the
door to Charlottean's and Conman. It's real easy to like

(34:49):
work on a grift in a in a in a
situation like I mean, look at COVID. You know many COVID,
Yes there all right, and we haven't even had our
evolution yet, like like thirty days away or so. Literally
it's like a few days away from the revolution, not far. Yeah,
I need to get my revolution scams together. What am

(35:10):
I going to be selling out here on the streets.
I think Colonel Moseley has actually a nice ring to it.
Could be a colonel, yeah, I think so. Yeah, you
just gotta pick a militia that's not actually going to
fight to be a colonel of because you don't want to.
You don't want to get tested on that ship. Right, No,
I gotta go somewhere on people like Tooth, like like
New Guinea, like very small. Yeah. So all these con

(35:34):
men and stuff start popping up in Venezuela, and not
just conmon but all of these Like it's just like
there's a big vacuum of power and a bunch of
dudes who want power kind of flooded. Yeah. I'm gonna
quote from a write up by the Bulletin of Latin
American Research to kind of discuss this period. Quote. The
end of Spanish rule in the Americas is generally seen

(35:55):
by scholars as a period in which a power vacuum
came to be filled by Cardillos. These were popular leaders,
strongmen competing on the basis of their charisma. There's strong
social constituencies i e. Them in from their land economic
basis and political projects, and the absence of a state
monopoly of violence. Physical force was rarely irrelevant to explanations
of their rise to power on these criteria. Despite his

(36:16):
foreignness and Scottish birth, but Gregor certainly had the capacity
to become a successful cutty Low, even though the quintessential
cutty Low was a local figure whose ability to function
as a leader rested primarily on local support and resources.
So this is like, these kinds of guys are are
writing into this gap and gaining power for themselves, and
he's got the potential to be one of them. Right.

(36:36):
He has the skills, um, which is that he's charismatic
and good at getting people to to follow him. So yeah,
and if people have no leadership, then that's when you
pull up with the leadership when everything Yeah, hey, look
I just happened to be here and you do now
I'm a leader. Does he speaks Spanish? Are you all

(36:57):
willing to die for me? Oh? Yeah? It's been taken
over by Spade yet yeah no, no, no no, yeah,
they're they're fighting for freedom from Spain. But like so
they're fighting a war like as He lands and Caracas
has liberated, but like there's Spanish troops all over the place,
like there's a and the war is not going very well. Um,
and yeah he has to he learns at some point,

(37:19):
you know, he started he grew up speaking Gaelic, I
think so he had to learn English, like he's good
at acquiring languages, as a lot of people tended to
be in that era. So the Venezuelan Republicans were desperate
for men, and they were desperate particularly for seasoned military leaders. Um.
And the British armies like the most powerful army in
the world at the time. They're the guys who beat Napoleon.
So like, if you come in saying like, oh, I

(37:40):
I was a British military officer to like this group
of people trying to raise an army from nothing, like
they're gonna be like, oh, ship, can you can you
help us out? Like we really we could use some
help here. So obviously he inflates his record. He lies
and says that he's that he commanded the infamous fifty
seven foot regiment the die Hards and turned them into
the elite unit that held the Lion at the Battle

(38:02):
of Albuera that he had not been at. But he yeah,
I fought Napoleon. Yeah yeah. The Venezuelans had no way
to know that he was lying because he was far
away then, uh, and he owned a nice uniform, so
they assumed he was telling the truth. Um, and he's
you know, a convincing guy. So Gregor also made a
good call by going directly to the commander in chief

(38:25):
of the nascent Venezuelan state, General Miranda. That guy was
just talking about at this point, he's basically the dictator
of Venezuela because like they're trying to win a war
and they do this thing that you see a lot
of republics do in times of strife, where they're like, here,
have all the power for a limited time, if you can,
like if you can win this thing for us and all.

(38:45):
But what's what's crazier is what's crazy isn't that like
that happened and people usually wound up living under a
dictator for the rest of the lives. What's crazy, Like
sometimes those dictators actually did give back the power. It's
the weird story. Yeah, yeah, it happened in Rome a
couple of times. That's where you know Cincinnati, like the
city of Cincinnati. It's named after a Roman leader named

(39:08):
Cincinnatis who was this He was like a military leader
who became the dictator of Rome during like this horrible
like war that like threatened the life of the republic
and they made him a dictator for like a temporary
period of time, and he won the war and then
he like gave up everything, all of his power and
went back to being a farmer. And he was he

(39:28):
was a chill dude. Yeah. Um yeah, that's why Cincinnati
is called Cincinnati. Um. There there you go a little
bit of extra history for you. So uh yeah, back
to back to Gregor McGregor. So yeah, he goes straight
to General Miranda, and David Sinclair's biographer notes that Miranda
was like, yeah, the man that Gregor dreams of being. Um.
But I also think that maybe because Gregor idolized this

(39:51):
guy and had studied him so much he had he
gained a really deep understanding of like what Miranda needed
and wanted. Because he basically turns himself into the person
that this guy needs and becomes his right hand man. Um,
because like the war is not going well, Miranda needs
a guy that he can trust to like train a
lot of his troops and like he needs like a

(40:12):
because Miranda is an old guy too, he needs a
strong right hand and Gregor kind of becomes that. He
gets immediately made a colonel for real this time. So
he's actually he faked his way into being a colonel.
So that's nice. Uh, And he gets a unit of
cavalry um and he's sent straight into battle, this time
near a town called mary Kay that was under deadly
siege by the Spanish forces who were attempting to retake

(40:33):
Venezuela for their king. For weeks, Venezuelan and Spanish soldiers
clashed at various points along along front line. Gregor finally
saw combat, and, as David Sinclair writes, he actually was
really good at fighting. Like he he does the thing finally. Yeah,
he was a liar at first, but like when it
comes down to actually going into battle, he's good at it.
We love to see a good fake it till you

(40:54):
make it story. Yeah, he faked his way into being
a war hero until he made his way into being
a war hero. I'm gonna quote from David Sinclair here.
Colonel McGregor stirred Republican spirits when he led his cavalry
into the route of a of a royal force near
Sarah Gordo between mary Kay and Valencia. But it was
something of a peripheral action and could not be developed
into a general offensive by Miranda's troops. So he earns

(41:16):
a promotion through his heroics, but they don't really affect
the battle, and the fact that he gets a lot
of attention for being brave spurs him on to do
another like super brave dangerous cavalry charged during another battle
at a place called Los Guios, and this time it
gets most of his men killed and horribly maimed. Um
too much your chip always yeah, yeah, but General McGregor

(41:38):
survives and uh, his scheme works to the extent that
his bravery again, like it impresses all of the other officers,
who of course don't care that he got a bunch
of guys killed. They care that, like he showed bravery
and stuff, um, because that's the way war was at
that point. Um, So yeah, that's that's cool. And getting
his you know, getting his men massacred convey the other

(42:00):
European soldiers in the serving in the Venezuelan cause that
Gregor was a real war hero. So they like they
all believe him now because he he leads this incredibly
bad idea. Well of course, then also he can tell
the story because he's the one, you know, one of
the few who lived. He can be like, yeah, yeah,
it was crazy, it's not now it's not an error
in judgment. It's like, oh, the opposing side. But I'll

(42:22):
tell you what, I would not be in Gregor's battalion
if they're like, oh Gregor, I'm no, no, no, no no,
because his men die for sure, they die and dye
in I want a chance in life. No, my men
absolutely weren't cursing my name as they bled to death
on the sands. You can ask them, well, you can't
because they're dead. But like I'll tell you, I was there.
They were happy about dying. They actually were like, this

(42:43):
is great, thanks for getting us a chance to die.
Greg It was so easy to be a military scammer
back then. So another dude who was running around in
the same circles of this period was fighting on the
same side, was a guy named Simone Boudivar, who was
at that time considered to be one of the brightest
minds in the Venezuela military. And he was a colonel. Yeah, yeah,

(43:06):
Simone Boulevard, very famous guy. He went on to become
the Liberator, a nickname he earned like he really really
earned by freeing modern day Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru,
and Panama from Spanish rule. So like, yeah, the girls
knew they were about to be free. Yeah yeah, so

(43:29):
yeah I like that. Um. And he's a fascinating dude.
And it is also like everyone who gets a bunch
of statues kind of a piece of ship too. Um.
But for our purposes today, you just need to know
that he was like a popular officer when Gregor started
fucking his young cousin. Um. And I'm gonna quote from

(43:50):
of course. Hell yeah, man, it goes okay, it actually
goes pretty well for Gregor. Um. The scene that he
was he seems to have actually been in love with
this woman because they stayed together for like twenty something
years until she dies. Why don't they just keep is
he killing them? They? I mean, you know she did
have kids, and like that wasn't a good idea back then,

(44:12):
but with what with the deaths, that's why birthdays are
a thing now, because he was like, oh, your kid
made it, your kid made it, and you made it. Yeah.
I'm gonna quote from Colonel Rafter's biography here, and this
is like after he starts fucking this girl. Um, I
think Josepha is her name. Yeah, the mother of this

(44:33):
lady finding that reports president, prejudicial to her daughter's reputation
had obtained circulation in consequence of McGregor's intimacy with her,
appealed to General Miranda, who, acquainting McGregor with the circumstance,
recommended him strongly to marry her, to which he answered,
with all that apathy for which she is remarkable, with
all my heart, I have no objection. So he starts

(44:54):
sucking this girl, but like not not in an official way,
and like you're not supposed to do that at this point.
And this girl's mom finds out and she's like, the
hell do you think you're doing? And she goes to
General Miranda because she's like, this is a high society
woman that he's like fucking and he's not. He's not
getting hitched to. And so Miranda basically sits him down
and says like, hey, if you don't marry this girl,

(45:15):
bad things will happen to you. Because this is a
dictatorship and I have that power and his responses, I
have no objection to marrying her. So yeah, he doesn't
even say that, he's just like I don't hate her,
Yeah fine, yeah, yeah, no, ringer here, what do y'all
want to do it whatever. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, this

(45:37):
is this is basically a shotgun wedding um and it
would it would be one of General Miranda's last orders
because the war very quickly went to ship for the
Republican side. And to make a long story short, Miranda
was again an old man and kind of losing it,
and as his chances shout A soured, he retreated into fantasy.
And like he and he, he promotes McGregor to a
general and they would spend all of their time and

(45:57):
his like mansion in the hills away from the front line,
have big parties and they're actually having like a giant
fancy party on July twelve when the entire Venezuelan lion
collapses under a renewed Spanish assault, and obviously the guy
being the McGregor is he's very happy to be having
a party rather than like fighting at the front line
when things are actually bad. What a party spoiler though,

(46:19):
you know, someone coming in and be like, hey, hey,
everybody died, everybody's dead. We don't really have an army anymore.
It looks like we lost this one. Is that a
coop for Champagne? I know I will thank you so
the whole defeat happened in part because Simone Boulevard, who
was not yet the Liberator, kind of abandoned his post.

(46:41):
Because Boulevard is one of these guys was a real
sense of his own destiny and he's like, oh, we're
gonna lose. I don't I don't want to be around
for this ship. So he's not a loser. General Miranda
returns to Caracas to try to organize a defense, and
Boulevard gathers a bunch of his allies and comes back

(47:01):
and arrests the general and hands him over to Spain,
and as a result, Bolivar is able to kind of escape,
and it's it's a very shady thing that happens, but
it seems to be mostly his desire to save his
own ass and like the fact that the war was
clearly lost. So they yeah, so Boulevard like runs the
funk away to Jamaica basically uh. And Gregor McGregor does
the same thing. While a lot of brave Republicans die

(47:24):
fighting the Spanish. Gregor's like, oh no, no, no, no no,
and he got I am not a causes guy. Yeah,
and he he very pointedly gets on the boat with
all of the Republican sides money, like all of their
gold that they're taking away so that they can continue
the revolution. Like he makes sure he's on the money.

(47:44):
But yeah, he's watching the money. That's what he's there
to do. And they go back to sorry, the Jamaica,
to curus ou Um. Yeah, you know, the Bahamas, Like
that's that's that's that's that's where you go run to
when you lose a war in South America. Then and
now wind up in the Bahamas. When I lose my
war in South America, I'm planning to go to a
beautiful yeah now refugees, a strong yeah yeah, no, yeah,

(48:13):
I was a freedom fighter. Yeah. So Bolivar winds up
there too. In the defeated revolutionaries immediately start planning their comeback.
But like Gregor is not really interested in that. The
reputation he had earned during the war, Like he kind
of liked being a cardillo and he liked he liked
he was a man people would follow. He had like
a name in South America. Now he was he was
kind of famous for being on the size of liberation,

(48:35):
and he figures that kind of leaning into this is
going to be his best chance to make a shipload
of money. So he travels to New Granada, which is
a Spanish colony on the border Venezuela that was fighting
like hell to not be a Spanish colony anymore. It
had a leader who was a general named Narinho who
had been given dictatorial power again and the hope that
he would beat Spain. Same kind of deal, and and
McGregor does the same thing. He like gets in good

(48:56):
with this guy. He gets given like an army by
this guy, and high too like hired to train them basically,
and he was not good at training armies um and
they he tended to mainly focus on making them look
fancy and march around a lot which they like gowns
beautiful downs can fight without a gown. Where's you want

(49:19):
to die in this war? So his subordinates complained that
he was basically a little dictator himself. Uh, but before
you know that can come to a head. General Narinho
loses a major battle and the Spanish army basically wins,
and seeing the advancing Spanish forces, Gregor runs like funk
again and he winds up retreating to the public to

(49:39):
the Republic of Cartagena in a in modern Columbia UM.
So we all know Cartagena uh for different things these days.
At that point it was like a little independent republic.
So this is a very complicated and messy period in
Latin American history. I'm the furthest thing in the world
from an expert from it. There's all these different figures.
Bol Far comes back and fights again and loses again

(50:02):
and runs away again, and like all this ship's happening,
Like it's just a fucking constantly revolution revolutions and rebellions
and fight and fight happening. It sounds like, yeah, everything
is just like it's very very confusing time to try
to understand. Gregor exhibited a great skill in latching himself
to whatever soldiers and whatever soldiers were hanging around him

(50:24):
to like whatever cause seemed like the best bet at
the time, and he was not always good at judging that,
which is why he wound up trapped in the city
of Cartagena while a massive Spanish army blasted the walls
away with big guns. He yeah, he managed to survive
the siege, just barely, and he characteristically got out because
he volunteered to organize the retreat after helping to convince

(50:49):
that's what I volunted there before. There in the room,
they're like, Okay, who's gonna do the charge? Who? You
know what, I got the retreat. I'm actually very good
at organizing. I majored in retreated college. I can take
care of this. You guys die holding them off, which
is what happens, like the bravest men die holding them off,

(51:09):
and Gregor organizes the retreat. Uh. And of course he
winds up taking another boat back to Jamaica, and this
time he's welcomed by the island's British high society types
because now he's a famous freedom fighter. Because the British,
they don't they like that all of these places are
freeing themselves from Spain, because every country that frees itself
from Spain is another place the British can set up

(51:30):
shopping and sell stuff to right themselves. Yeah, but they're
kind of colonization. So the British thought that Spanish colonialism
was barbarous because they murder all these people, they enslave
all these people, as opposed to the British kind of colonization,
where the countries are independent, we just bring in corporations

(51:53):
that force people to labor forests and in conditions that
are basically slavery, right, Jeff bay selves murder and college. Yeah, Okay,
it's cute over here like people that, but we at
leastwork and we get to talk, yeah, and we get
to talk a good game about supporting liberation in freedom right, um,
and so like these high society types are all for

(52:15):
the freedom of these nations from Spain. And McGregor is
now a famous freedom fighter and he's the best kind
of he's the best kind of Latin American freedom fighter.
A white guy, right, he's not Latin American. Yeah. So
and also like honestly, like a lot of the Latin
American freedom fighters who were natives, we were basically white.
Like we're white guys because like people, so uh quote.

(52:38):
McGregor was delighted to find himself welcomed as a hero
among the British community of Jamaica, and enthralled many a
dinner party there with heavily embellished accounts of his part
in the siege of Cartagena. Some of those listening received
the impression that McGregor had taken personal charge of the
defense of the city, with one of them recorded as
leaping to his feet and proposing an enthusiastic toast to
the Hannibal of modern Carthage. One of the names McGregor

(53:00):
made was that he had lost two children during the
Terrible Siege. This was almost certainly a lie, probably designed
further to dramatize McGregor sacrifices in the car fake kid
death scamp. Hell, yeah he did. That's the best kind
of death to fake. You get so much. I fake that.
I faked my children's deaths all the time. But did
he bring the kids that he had with the Spanish

(53:21):
woman with him or is he just a debbie dad
who was like, yeah, and then they killed my kids
for sure? He never had kids. Oh I thought the
homegrown got pregnant before she died. The second wife, Uh no, no,
she's dead as hell. I don't think she had any kids.
The second wife didn't have kids either, Okay, no, no, no,
the second wife no, sorry, the second wife is still alive,
but they haven't had kids. Okay, he just made up

(53:43):
some kids. He was like, yeah, I missed le Jr. M. McGregor,
Gregor Gregor and us Stephanie. Those are my kids so weird. Yeah, yeah,
my my child fake too for s own in my chad. Anyway,

(54:05):
they're dead now, horrible, real, sad, real, sad? Can I
have more wine? Yeah? Uh, that is my My advice
to all of you is pretend that your children are
dead if you want to be famous. It helps you
know what, won't fake the deaths of your children. Wait, anyway,
here's ads. We're back, and Sophie's being mean to me

(54:30):
because I don't understand pop culture. And you know that's
the kind of bigger tree that I faced daily. So
I mean, it's not my fault that you don't know.
As my kids died in the siege of Cartagena. I'm
so sorry for you. A lot kids have been dead
longer than he's been alive. By the time McGregor wound

(54:51):
up back in Jamaica again, as I said, Boulivard had
attempted deliberate Venezuela again and it hadn't worked out. Um,
And this is like he's a boulevard is like a
fucking committ a dude, Like he does believe in what
he's doing. He's just you know, he's the kind of
guy who's able to get it done, which is the
kind of guy who's willing to like time for me
to abandon this army. The same kind of work out.
You gotta know when to cut your losses, my losses,

(55:12):
I mean people. Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, that's what
we're talking about. Like you gotta know when to hold them,
when to walk away, and when to run from them
and lave them to die at the hands of the
Spanish army. That's what um. Yeah. So the two meet
up again on the island uh, and this time Bolivar
offers to make McGregor a general again. And it was
eighteen sixteen by this point. Um. In short order, both

(55:34):
men managed to rally together another army. I don't know
how they do it, but they're always able to keep
making armies. And they invade Venezuela again, and this one
goes better. At first, Bolivar's forces win a major victory,
but then Spain counter attacks and a bunch of people die,
and Bolivar finds himself retreating to a town called Sharoni,
where his trust trustworthy friend, General Gregor McGregor was waiting
with a fresh force of men. By the time he

(55:56):
got there, though, Gregor was long gone because as soon
as he heard that Bolivar had law he retreated. Look
that's said, and he's give Hi credit this. He's incredible
at retreating UM and this is the moment. This is
his real moment of heroism, like the one that we're getting.
This is like the one legitimate moment of heroism that
he really has. UM. Also, like Bolivar feels to me

(56:19):
just like McGregor. Word's like, okay, we usually third times
the charm, but the third time we still didn't defeat
the Spanish army. Like bro, let's just pack it up, okay,
Like I'm not fighting an award for boulevard. Are you
gonna die? The thing that differentiates them is that Bolivard
really does believe in liberation, and that's why he keeps
doing this right, like he's just willing to kind of

(56:39):
like he's not. He believes so much in his destiny
that he's not willing to like die because he he
has to make the cause happen. Gregor doesn't believe in
anything um, but he's really good at retreating UM. So
he's got this army which is mostly made up of
freed slaves who didn't really know they had any option
but to fight for a bunch of indigenous people. Um.

(57:01):
But to his credit, he didn't like abandon them. He
he leads them on this retreat and it's like the
most herobic moment in his life because it's it's a
horrible like situation to be in, because like they're fleeing
through these heavy like woodland areas and they're they're being
pursued constantly by all of these Spanish armies and they
keep getting into like these battles that they keep winning.

(57:21):
Like he's actually really good at this. He keeps getting
attacked while he's fleeing and like beating these Spanish armies
that are trying to capture him as he's trying to
link up with his other allies further north. And like
by day nine of this, their ammunitions almost spent and
like their their clothing is in tatters and they're just
they've just been like murdering their way through this this

(57:42):
incredibly rugged terrain. Um. It's like it's it's actually a
really impressive military feat that he's able to keep this
army together and winning. But he owes a lot of
it to his wife because like kind of when they're
at the end of their rope and exhausted and ammunition,
and out of ammunition, they wind up running into like
get an their Spanish army, and they don't really like

(58:02):
they don't have the ammo to fight them in the
traditional way, and so his wife picks up a lance
and leads the army on her horse into like this
desperate suicidal charge against the Spanish lines, and they break
the Spanish army against all odds and win. It's like
this this fucking wild thing that happens. UM, And so
General McGregor and his victorious army limp into the city

(58:23):
of Barcelona after thirty four days of constant fighting and fleeing,
and it's like it's it's it's seen as like a
miracle basically that they'd survived Um and this incredible feat
and it makes him like a legendary figure within South America. UM,
And it is an act of like really like it's sucking.
It was a crazy thing that he was able to
like succeed at Um so simone Bolivar sin sem a

(58:44):
letter hailing him as one of the great military geniuses
of the era, and like he kind of deserved it
at that point. Um And if he'd stayed with the
Venezuelan cause, he would have had a guaranteed place of
honor and privilege when they eventually won their war. But
he gets into another big fight with a guy in
charge of him, and when that guy like won't take
the advice that McGregor gives him, McGregor just abandons, like

(59:07):
the Venezuelan army and leaves. He was like, Okay, enough liberation. Yeah,
I got into an argument with a guy. Fuck it, Like,
I don't believe in this anymore, so he he fucks off.
Bolivar like writes him a series of letters, desperate to
try to get this guy to come back, but there
was no getting McGregor back because he had fallen in
love with a new dream, Lacey, the dream of every

(59:29):
red blooded man and woman invading and conquering Florida. So
he travels to Haiti and he hand picks a group
of mercenaries for this endeavor, and he finds like a
hundred and five guys, but they all abandoned him as
soon as it's time to leave for the United States,
so he winds up sailing to Philadelphia with just his wife,

(59:51):
and he immediately sets to work recruiting get another army
to invade Florida, which at that point belonged to Spain.
Um yeah, and I'll so at that point it was
a time in the world where you could just kind
of like show up in an American city and been like,
who has a gun and wants to do some war
with me, Let's go to Florida, And like people would be, oh, yeah,
I want to do that to Jethro about the war,

(01:00:16):
let's go. Have you been to philadel It doesn't get nicer,
Like we might as well go to war. So yeah,
um he gets some yeses. And I'm gonna quote again
from the land that never was here. He claimed that
he had received a commission from the government of the
United States, together with a considerable sum of money, to
take possession of Florida on behalf of the Republican movement

(01:00:38):
to New Granada, with a tacit agreement of the Spanish government.
He had, he said, attended daily meetings in March eighteen
seventeen with the American Secretary of State and the Spanish
ambassador in Washington, and they had agreed that he should
take a small force to occupy Amelia Island off the
east coast of Florida, which he would subsequently hand over
to the Americans. Spain would not attempt any military interventions
so long as McGregor was seen to be acting in

(01:01:00):
the interests of New Granada and was willing to see
it Amelia to the Americans, but could not do so
directly for political reasons, mainly that any display of willingness
to give up its American possessions would serve to spread
and encourage revolution. Now this was all a lie, like
Spain did not agree to give up any part of Florida.
Uh and the Secretary of State, who McGregor claims that
he had worked with to set up this plan was

(01:01:20):
not even in the United States at the time. He
was in like France or something. But McGregor, nonetheless, somehow,
somehow still walked away with a State Department mandate authorizing
him to take control of Amelia Island and East and
West Florida. Now, the paper was not signed by the
Secretary of State, but it was signed by representatives of
several Latin American liberation movements. And like some random dude

(01:01:40):
who worked in the Secretary in the Department of State
or in the State Department, and as best I can tell,
he basically convinced these South American liberation leaders who were
in Washington, d c. To like support their cause, that
he was going to conquer Florida for them. And then
he used their clout to score a meeting with some
random State Department functionary who wrote down what he told him,

(01:02:00):
and that gave McGregor the most important thing in the
world in the eighteen hundreds, which was a fancy piece
of paper with nice stamps on hit that he could
use to convince dumb soldiers of fortune that he was legitimate.
So like that's what he does. Like he needs the papers.
He gets the papers, and so he starts trawling around
New York and South Carolina and Georgia, calling himself Brigadier
General of all the forces both naval and military, destined

(01:02:23):
to affect the independence of the Florida's Look at my papers.
I kind of want to steal that one someday when
I invade Florida. I mean, someone needs to invade Florida,
so I can use a Colonel Lazy. It could be you,
just you. You just show up tall, and it's my

(01:02:45):
job to raise the army and never get close to Florida.
Someone else actually has to try invading it and stuff.
I'm just here to raise a bunch of money and
then take it and run. See, that's why I want
to be I don't want to be the president doing
the work of liberating Florida. No, No, nobody deliberate Florida.
That's why it's still the way it is. So. Uh.

(01:03:05):
He gathers an army of several hundred men, which is
enough to cut Like a couple hundred guys, you could
conquer a Florida. Back in those days things were easier. Uh.
To fund his journey, he did the only thing he
knew how to do besides fight, and he hatched an
elaborate scheme. I'm gonna quote here from Colonel Rafters book.
The Americans had long been looking with eyes of desire
on the fertile and extensive tracts of East Florida, and

(01:03:25):
now gladly embraced the opportunity which seemed to offer itself
of gratifying their long cherished wishes. McGregor saw and took
advantage of the public feeling. He issued and issued papers
which he called scripts, which he engaged to convey to
every person advancing one thousand dollars or to the holder
of the script, which was transferable two thousand acres of
land in Florida or to repay the sum advanced with interest.

(01:03:46):
The world was is at all times the dupe of
some hubble or another. And although it is scarcely credible,
yet it is a certain fact that McGregor obtained by
this means a hundred sixty thousand dollars. So he's like, yeah,
give me a thousand bucks and I'll give you a
land in Florida. And people do it and he makes
a lot of money. How you don't, Oh, I love it.

(01:04:08):
That's what That's what all great con men do, though,
is sell land they don't own. That's the great con
our president kind of. Yeah, I mean it's still happening.
You have to be careful if you're renting a house
or something because there's so many people out here. We're
still renting homes to that they don't own too people.
So I love it. Yeah, it is. He is doing
an Airbnb, right, Like the Airbnb is just like a

(01:04:29):
dressed up like they're selling Florida to Yeah. No, you
got this lang out so you see right there? Yeah,
have you have you ever been there? No, I'll sell
it to you. No, it's nice. You don't love it,
You're gonna you're gonna love it. Florida, great weather, no snakes.

(01:04:50):
So most con men would have just taken the money
and run, but Gregor actually used it to equip an
army and charter a boat, which he used to take
sixty hand picked men to Amelia Island, which is that
that point, just kind of a lawless island for haven
for pirates and prostitutes. He defeats the tiny Spanish garrison
and then like conquers the island, and he delivers this

(01:05:10):
baffling speech to his soldiers, who again are all like
drunk mercenaries, promising, the children of South America will resound
your names and their songs, your deeds will be handed
down to succeeding generations, and will cover yourselves and your
latest posterity with a never fading wreath of glory. So
he really he's talking. He's talking this up like the

(01:05:30):
girls are gonna know you. Okay, everyone's gonna know your name.
They're gonna singing songs about you. Tom, Tom oh Tom.
He he fought real good. He's so good at fighting. Yeah.
So McGregor calls for reinforcements, but rather than invade Florida

(01:05:52):
is promised, he's set to work trying to turn Amelia
Island into like an independent nation. And not because anyone
had asked him to do us, but because he just
kind of he was just kind of thought it was
a neat So he like he builds a seal. He
like designs a seal for the Amelian government. He puts
himself at its head. Uh, he like and he like

(01:06:12):
I'm gonna quote here from from David Sinclair talking about
like what he kind of gets up to in this period.
The main purpose of his administration seems to have been
to raise money for One of the first acts of
Citizen McGregor, which is the title he gives himself, was
to establish what he described as an admiralty court that
would officially value the booty brought back to the island
by its resident privateers and pirates. For the service, the

(01:06:32):
court would demand a fee of sixteen and a half
percent of the gross value of the treasure. Whether any
of the island's maritime entrepreneurs ever he took advantage of
the offer is not recorded, but to encourage them further
in their brutal trade, McGregor issued so called letters of mark,
which were officially government licenses for buccaneers. So again he
probably no one it. It's not anyone took like him
up on this. But he decides, like, I'm gonna start

(01:06:54):
at government so that I can get pirates to pay
me for being pirates, like what comes to interstate con Yeah,
and he issues banknotes. He starts having money printed and
he just signs it with his last name McGregor, which
is a flex. I'll give him that it is. I
would like some McGregor's. Yeah. Yeah. So he spends the

(01:07:16):
next few months just kind of drinking and fucking and partying,
celebrating the fact that he's in charge of a country,
and ignoring the fact that he had promised a lot
of people he was going to conquer Florida. Um, yeah,
it's on the back burner. I'll ask for him. Spain
realizes eventually that he's conquered their island and they don't
like this, so they send an army to take it back,

(01:07:36):
and the instant McGregor realizes that there's a Spanish army coming.
He abandons all of his soldiers in country and he
flees by boat with his wife, his script. That's his script,
and ironically, the guys he leaves behind actually beat the
Spanish invasion. They beat two of them. Um, and then
Mexico sends in troops and like takes over the island

(01:07:58):
and it becomes a part of Mexico briefly. But then
the United States invades and like kills all the Mexican
soldiers and annexes Amelia from Mexico, and President Monroe justifies
this by saying, like, well, hey, Mexico stole it from Spain,
or Mexico stole it from these random mercenaries who stole
it from Spain, so like it's on the open market now. Yeah,

(01:08:21):
we just came in and ticket, like what are you?
What are you complaining about? Pirates can take it, but
we can't. Fuck you. Yeah, we're America. Baby. The manifest
my favorite scam manifest Destiny, which is like God told
us to steal his land. So yeah, that's how it.
The United States gets its first piece of Florida. WoT

(01:08:42):
fun had to involve a con man at some point,
So on November nine, eighteen seventeen, Josepha McGregor, his wife
gives birth to a son and they're still on board
a boat at this point that they're using to flee
to North America with all flee North America with all
the money they'd grifted because he stilled like fifty grand
from his army money. Uh. So gregor makes a medallion
to commemorate his son's birth, which is the kind of

(01:09:03):
guy he is. He's like, he's he's he has a kid,
and he's like, I gotta get an award for this ship.
I gotta give myself an award for him. My wife
who's having a baby in olden times on a boat.
What did she do? What did she do? Tell me that.
So this medallion he makes has an engraving of the
flag of the Florida's and two phrases written in Latin
on it Amelia I came, I saw I conquered, and

(01:09:27):
liberty for the Florida's Under the leadership of McGregor, neither
of these things happened. Like you didn't want to fun
like nothing, nothing, the baby, like okay, it's not about
the baby. The baby is an excuse to have a medallion.
The girls are gonna love this at the next party. Okay,
Oh yeah. So McGregor was now a rich guy, but

(01:09:50):
not as rich as he wanted to be. Fifty grand
you could retire on in those fucking days, um, but
he wanted, he wanted to be fuck you rich and
it was not quite that much. Yeah. So he regarded
the con and then lost of a loss of Amelia
Island as a big success because he'd made a bunch
of money off of it, and it convinced him that
being a freebooter, basically a pirate, you know, but on
the national scale was kind of the way to go.

(01:10:10):
Uh And I'm gonna quote now from a rite up
in the Rothschild archive. He then oversaw two calamitous operations
in New Granada during eighteen nineteen that each ended with
his abandoning British volunteer troops under his command. McGregor conferred
and invented decorations and titles on his officers, fraudulently obtained
and squandered money, and generally and generally behaved abominably. And

(01:10:33):
during this period of time, I've been telling about this guy,
Colonel Rafter, who wrote this biography of him. The reason
Rafter is obsessed with McGregor is that his brother, who
is another Rafter, who was like an office. Was an
officer in McGregor's army, and McGregor abandoned him and he
was executed. The one thing you're gonna see of McGregor,

(01:10:54):
it's the back of his head, okay, because the girls
war better his face. Well, I got you all here.
My job is done. I feel like he doesn't even
announce when he's leaving. It's like the new Irish goodbye,
Just turn around, looks starting the wars, half the battle.

(01:11:14):
I figured y'all would do the rest. You go back
to have a meeting with him. They're like, no, his
tent is gone. Like his tent is gone, so is
all of our money. Who went out for battle? Actually
he started backing. It was very bizarre. He took all
of the gold and left us with the fake money
with his name on it. Right, y'all trying to pay

(01:11:34):
for beers with McGregor. So McGregor arrives at the court
of King George Frederick Augustus on the on the Mosquito
Coast after he loses these these two wars that he's
gotten involved with, and because of his like his fame
in the area, he's able to convince the King of
the Mosquito coast. Who's this this guy George Frederick to

(01:11:57):
sign a document giving him in his airs, like a
huge chunk of Mosquito territory in an area larger than Wales.
It's said that he does this in exchange for rum
and jewelry. There's some debate um and it's so he
gets this big he cons his way into like having
a bunch of land, but it's useless land from a
financial point of view, Like it's pretty, it's got a
lot of game on it, it's able to support like

(01:12:18):
an indigenous population, but like the soil is not great,
it's a bad place to grow crops, and there's like
it's in no way established or settled. He he has
this land that's not very useful. But what's more important
than that is that he has this land, and he
has a letter from this king telling him that he
owns a bunch of land in Latin America. And this

(01:12:41):
gives McGregor an idea because he's like, I've been trying.
I've been putting all this effort into trying to conquer
countries or conquered chunks of land and turn them into countries,
and like that's hard. What if I just pretend that
I already have a country and then make people buy it,
and then can vince people to buy it from me.

(01:13:01):
So he he gives a name to this territory that
he's he's kind of grifted, Poier, which he names after
the inhabitants of the highlands of the area. And yeah, Poier,
nice name. And this is this is where the story
of his great con begins, because McGregor didn't actually move
to the land he'd acquired, nor did he like do
anything with it, Like he's got this land, but he doesn't,

(01:13:24):
he doesn't use it. Instead, he takes the letters saying
it's his, and he sails back to Great Britain with
a scheme in mind. And over the way on the
like boat over to Great Britain, he starts calling himself
the Kazik, which he claimed meant prince in in the
local language. So he starts claiming that this tract of
land he's been given as like personal property is actually

(01:13:45):
an independent country and he's been made royalty in this
in this tribe, and so he's he's the Prince of Poier.
And when he gets back to Great Britain, he's going
to try to convince people to to buy into this
scheme with him. Um, and that's what we're gonna talk
about out in part two. Lazy Robbert, what would you

(01:14:05):
name your fake country? Oh, that's a great question. Oh gosh,
it needs to be something like, uh, maybe like oh,
I want to go with an L I don't know why.
It's like leaves. Oh you went with a fancy name. Yeah,
and go to La Bos. I don't think of something

(01:14:27):
that sounds good like in a Drake song, like and
popping bottles and La Bas. Yeah, l Bos. That's that's
my fake That's that does sound fancy. I was gonna
call it fuck Valley and just like like, yeah, everybody
gets laid in fun Valley, Like all these frat boys
pay me a hundred bucks, you get to go to
fuck Valley and then it's just a bunch of frat
boys stuck in a valley and then they all get dehydrated.

(01:14:49):
That fire festival, the fire festival is my plan. I
was about to say that sounds like your plan is
the fire festival. That's exactly what it was. It's a
great plan as long as you don't have the internet,
so people find out it's a con and you can
just take the money and run away to Norway or
some ship. Right. I wish I could have run scams

(01:15:10):
before there was Internet. I still think about old shadder
hands and like checking people's money. Oh to see it
was real? Oh yeah, Lacy Pluggables, Yeah sure, guys. As always,
you can find me a d I D A l
A c I deva Lacey on all platforms. And if
you like robbery and comedy, listen to my podcast Scam Goddess.

(01:15:33):
Enjoin Lacey's Army Comication. Yes, people liberating Florida. Maybe tea
next two days a good time? Look out? Look out
for that on Twitter with you. We're just gonna show
up and liberate Florida. Yeah yeah, you gotta live. I
mean to be honest, could you some liberating these days?