Anita Arnon

He cannot believe these are the guys who are in charge.

And he can feel that there's a political vacuum building up, that Spain's grip on its vast empire is weakening because the idiots are in charge.

They are looked on exactly the same way as plantation owners from Britain when they come back, which is we love the money, but we'll laugh at them behind their backs.

I mean, sort of just slightly, you know, to be tolerated for the money.

I mean, that is a trope.

Well, not always.

I mean, sometimes if you look at some of the literature of the day, and we've covered some of it on this podcast, these are sort of ruffians in silks, is what they're looked upon.

They don't know the courtly manners, they just ape the courtly manners because they're too far away and it's not the same where they are.

But it also, as we said, you know, sort of more a self-didact.

So he more going into, you know, the kind of conversations that you don't have at polite dinner parties in Spain.

Why would you be having these kind of, you know, enlightenment?

Enlightenment?

What are you talking about?

You know, this kind of thing.

He doesn't fit.

He does this certainly and he would have felt that he doesn't fit.

Yeah, unusual, I guess, maybe.

I don't know particularly whether there were others like him who picked up Rousseau and memorised it by heart.

But he did not quite fit, that's for sure.

But more importantly, he gets this realisation that the Spaniards don't deserve to rule.