As early as May, 1847, Narcisso Lopez and a number of his associates who had planned an insurrection in the central part of the island, were pursued to the United States by Spanish agents, who had kept track of their conspiracy. The Lone Star Society was in close sympathy with these refugees, and to a certain extent the two were co-existent. Lopez, in 1849, organized a military expedition to invade Cuba. By the exertions of the officers of the United States government the sailing of the expedition was prevented. Notwithstanding the activity of the government, however, Lopez, in the following year, got together a force of 600 men outside of the United States, shipped arms and ammunition to them from this country, and on May 19, 1850, made a landing at Cardenas.

The United States authorities had put the Spanish government in Cuba on the alert for this expedition. President Taylor had issued a proclamation warning all citizens of the United States not to take part in such an expedition or to assist it in any way. The expedition was driven out to sea from Cardenas a few days after it landed, sailed for Key West, and there disbanded. Meantime there were a number of uprisings in the island between groups of unhappy natives who had not the wisdom to co-operate in the effort to resist the oppressive hand of the Spaniards.

In August of 1851, Lopez eluded the United States authorities at the port of New Orleans, and sailed out into the Gulf of Mexico with an expedition 450 strong. His lieutenant on this expedition was a Colonel Crittenden, a native of the State of Kentucky. They landed near Bahia Honda, about thirty miles west of Havana, and found the government forces waiting for them. Colonel Crittenden, with a subdivision of 150 men, was compelled to surrender, and the rest were scattered. Lopez, with fifty others, was captured, taken to Havana, and there executed.

The circumstances attending the Lopez failure, and several Spanish outrages against American citizens and vessels, aroused deep feeling in the United States, and the sentiment was growing rapidly that it was a national duty to our own peace, to do something that would make the troublesome neighbor a pleasant one. It was fifty years before action was taken, but, once begun, it was well done.

It was in 1848, prior to the Lopez invasion, that President Polk made the first approaches to the Spanish government with a suggestion to purchase the island for $100,000,000, but was refused with

scant consideration. A few years later came the succession of attacks on American merchant vessels by Spanish ships of war, on the pretext that the intercepted craft were in filibuster service. Some of these were fired on, and the American mail bags opened, the steamships Falcon and Crescent City being in this list. The most flagrant case was that of the Black Warrior, a large steamer in coasting trade between New York and Mobile. In February, 1850, while in the harbor of Havana, she was stopped, her cargo confiscated, and a fine of twice its value declared. Her captain hauled down the colors, and taking them with him, left the vessel as a Spanish capture. After five years of "diplomacy," Spain paid an indemnity of $300,000 for the outrage.

It was in 1852 that the governments of Great Britain and France tried to draw the United States into an agreement on the question of Cuba, which was happily refused on genuinely American grounds. It was suggested that all the parties should be bound not to acquire Cuba themselves, nor to permit any other power to do so. Our gov. ernment gave the proposal respectful consideration, but declined to enter into any such arrangement, on the ground that we prefer to avoid entangling foreign alliances, that it would be unwise, if not unconstitutional, to tie our hands for the future regardless of what might happen, and that on geographical grounds, while England and France were making very slight concessions, we were asked to make a very important one.

The United States came as near to the purchase of Cuba in 1854 as it ever was, but Spain gave the plan little encouragement. Three American ministers to European countries, Messrs. Buchanan, Mason and Soule, met at Ostend and formulated a plan for the purchase, signing and issuing what came to be known as the Ostend manifesto. They recommended the purchase of the island for $120,000,000, and that in no event should it be allowed to come under the power of any other European government than the one by which it was held. At this time, and afterward, while filibustering expeditions were frequent and disorder constantly threatening in Cuba, the subject of the acquisition of Cuba was discussed in Congress, but no headway was made in the matter. At last, conditions in the island became intolerable to the patriots there, and the Ten Years' war began.

It is necessary at this point to relate some of the causes of the frequent disorders and uprisings in the island of Cuba. Some of the

features of Spanish misgovernment in the colony have been named, but the catalogue is far from complete.

The most judicial writers, however bitterly they condemn Spain, admit that that peninsular kingdom has itself suffered and that the people have suffered almost beyond endurance themselves. Cuba is not the only land with which we may share a little of our sympathy. But sympathy for Spain must come from other things than oppression from without. Her oppression is within her own borders, and her authorities have tried to shift the burden of it to the colonists across the sea. The debt of Spain has reached enormous proportions, and having fallen from her high estate as a commercial nation, it has become impossible for the great interest charges on her floating debt to be paid by ordinary and correct methods. Says one writer: "To pay the interest necessitates the most grinding oppression. The moving impulse is not malice, but the greed of the famishing; and oppressor and oppressed alike are the objects for sympathy."

The annual revenue raised in the island of Cuba had reached nearly $26,000,000 by the time of the outbreak of the Ten Years' war, and preparations were in progress for largely increasing the exac tions. The large revenue raised was expended in ways to irritate the Cubans or any one else who had to help pay it. The annual salary of the captain general was $50,000, when the president of the United States was getting only $25,000 a year. Each provincial governor in Cuba got a salary of $12,000, while the prime minister of Spain received only half that.

The bishop of Havana and the archbishop of Santiago de Cuba each received a salary of $18,000. All offices, civil, military and ecclesiastical, were productive of rich perquisites, except in those cases where stealing was simpler. Wholesale corruption in the custom houses was generally known and admitted by all. The thefts in the custom houses in Havana was estimated at forty per cent, and in Santiago at seventy per cent of the entire revenue. All offices except the very lowest, in church and state alike, were filled by men sent from Spain, with the frank understanding that as soon as he could, each new appointee could garner a fortune by fair means and foul combined, he should retire and let another be sent over to have a turn at the plunder. The result of this was that strangers were always in authority, men with no sympathy for local need, and no local reputa

tion to sustain. It is perfectly obvious what sort of a public service such conditions would create.

As might have been expected, the result was the growth of two parties, one the native-born Cubans, and called the insulares, the other of those from Spain, and their adherents, known as the peninsulares. The line between them has been sharply drawn for many years, and they are on opposite sides of everything. It is from the ranks of the continentals that the volunteer corps of Cuba has been drawn, one of the most aggravating and threatening of all influences against peace in Cuba.

Spain imposed differential duties in such a way as to virtually monopolize the trade of the island. At the same time the prices of all imports to Cuba were forced to an unnatural figure, to the great distress of the people. Petty oppression in postage and in baptismal fees multiplied, so that instead of petty it became great. The increase in taxation of Cuba for use in Spain in two years prior to the outbreak of the Ten Years' war was more than $14,000,000, and the next year it was proposed to increase it still more. The cities were hopelessly in debt and unable to make the most ordinary and most necessary public improvements. What few schools there had been were nearly all closed. Lacking insane asylums, the unfortunate of that class were kept in the jails. The people saw a country separated from them but by a narrow stretch of water, where freedom reigned. They saw that they were being heavily oppressed with taxation for the benefit of the people of Spain, and that, in addition, they were being robbed mercilessly for the benefit of the authorities who were placed over them temporarily. If the money collected from them had been expended for their benefit in the island, or had been expended honestly, the case might have been different. As it was, however, an intolerable condition had been endured too long, and they rose against it for the struggle known to history as the Ten Years' war.

CHAPTER XII.

OUTBREAK OF THE TEN YEARS' WAR.

Cuba Again Stirred to Turmoil-The Taxes of the Island Increased-A Declaration of Independence-Civil Government Organized-Meeting of the Legislature, and Election of Officers-The Edict of a Tyrant.

Before the outbreak of the Ten Years' War, the reform party in Cuba, which included all the most enlightened, wealthy and influential citizens of the island, had exhausted all the resources at their command to induce Spain to establish a more just and equitable administration of affairs, but all to no avail.

It was proposed that Cuba receive an autonomist constitution. The abolition of the supreme power of the Captain General, the freedom of the press, the right of petition, the regulation of the chief frauds by which elections were so arranged that no Cuban could hold government office, the right of assembly, representation in the Cortes, and complete local self-government were among the reforms asked for. The plans were considered in Spain and were reconsidered, and considered again, and that was about all that ever came of them, except that in June, 1868, Captain General Lersundi was permitted to raise the direct taxes on the island ten per cent.

Finally, driven to a point where they could endure it no longer, they made the start for freedom, and began to fight for it, as brave men should do and have done through the history of the world.

Several months before the revolution in Spain and the abdication of Isabella, measures had been taken to prepare for the effort to achieve independence. At last matters progressed so rapidly in the mother country that the Cubans dared not wait for the completion of their plans, but on October 10, 1868, began the hostilities. On that day, Carlos M. de Cespedes, a lawyer of Bayamo, took the initiative with 128 poorly armed men, and issued a declaration of independence at Yara. This declaration justified itself by referring in the following terms to the grievances that have been outlined:

"In arming ourselves against the tyrannical government of Spain, we must, according to precedent in all civilized countries, proclaim