The next time Sir Lambton Lorraine was in New York he was offered a reception, which he declined. He was presented, however, with a silver brick, on which were engraved the words: "Blood is thicker than water." A resolution of thanks to him was laid on the table in the House of Representatives and never passed.

American Demands for Vengeance.

When the news of all this reached the United States, public indignation rose rapidly. Mass-meetings were held demanding vengeance on Spain. President Grant sent special messages to Congress, and the state department began diplomatic negotiations. Hamilton Fish, secretary of state, declared that the Virginius, having been registered as an American vessel carrying official documents regular upon their face and bearing the United States flag, was entirely beyond the jurisdiction of any other power on the high seas in the time of peace; that if she had secured fraudulent entry or committed any other fraud against the laws of the United States it was for her to be turned over to the United States courts for punishment, and not for her to be captured and punished by some other power.

The Spanish minister of foreign affairs at that time was Admiral Polo de Bernabe, father of the new Spanish minister who succeeded Dupuy de Lome. He wanted to submit the matter to arbitration, and Secretary Fish replied to him that the "United States was ready to refer to arbitration all questions properly subjects for reference, but that the question of an indignity to the flag of the nation and the capture in time of peace on the high seas of a vessel bearing that flag and having also the register and papers of an American ship, is not deemed to be one referable to other powers to determine. A nation must be the judge and custodian of its own honor."

Most of the men were executed after protests to Madrid began to be made. Madrid mobs made a demonstration against the American minister, General Sickles. November 4, Secretary Fish cabled Sickles: "In case of refusal of satisfactory reparation within twelve days from this date close your legation and leave Madrid." Ten days later, when the executions were over, he telegraphed: "If Spain cannot redress these outrages, the United States will." Ten days after that he wired: "If no settlement is reached by the close of to-morrow, leave." Next day Spain became tractable and war was averted.

By his conduct in Madrid at that time General Sickles made many friends of those Americans who wanted to see energetic action, and many enemies among those who wanted peace at any price. It was alleged afterward that the latter influence became dominant, and that his recall from that post was the result of their work to punish him for his energy that was not always diplomatic in its forms.

Settlement of the Trouble.

The terms of settlement of the trouble were that the Virginius should be surrendered to an American warship, with the survivors of those who had been captured with her, and that on December 25 the United States flag should be saluted by the Tornado. The surrender was made in the obscure harbor of Bahia Honda, December 16, the Spanish having taken the Virginius there to avoid the humiliation of a surrender in Santiago or Havana, where it should have been made. Captain W. D. Whiting, the chief of staff of the North Atlantic Squadron, was appointed to receive the surrender of the Virginius, and the gunboat Dispatch was sent to Bahia Honda with him for that purpose. Lieut. Adolph Marix was the flag lieutenant of the Dispatch, the same who was afterwards the judge-advocate of the court of inquiry on the Maine disaster. The Virginius was delivered with the flag flying, but she was unseaworthy, and, struck by a storm off Cape Hatteras, was sunk on her way to New York. The salute to the flag that had been arranged was waived by the United States because the attorney-general gave an opinion that the Virginius had no right to fly the American flag when she was captured.

Major Moses P. Handy, afterwards famous as a journalist, was present at the surrender of the Virginius to the American men of war in the harbor of Bahia Honda, and gives a graphic account of the circumstances attending that ceremony. In concluding the tale he says: "The surrender of the surviving prisoners of the massacre took place in the course of time at Santiago, owing more to British insistence than to our feeble representation. As to the fifty-three who were killed, Spain never gave us any real satisfaction. For a long time the Madrid government unblushingly denied that there had been any killing, and when forced to acknowledge the fact they put us off with preposterous excuses. 'Butcher Borriel,' by whose orders the outrage was perpetrated. was considered at Madrid to have been justified by circumstances. It was pretended that orders to suspend the execution of Ryan and his

The operator has simply to grasp the handles, keep his finger upon the trigger, and swing the gun to and fro as a fireman handies the nozzle. He is able to pour upon the enemy a literal stream of bullets.

associates were 'unfortunately' received too late, owing to interruption of telegraph lines by the insurgents, to whose broad and bleeding shoulders an attempt was thus made to shift the responsibility.

"There was a nominal repudiation of Borriel's act and a promise was made to inflict punishment upon 'those who have offended,' but no punishment was inflicted upon anybody. The Spanish government, with characteristic double dealing, resorted to procrastination, prevarication and trickery, and thus gained time, until new issues effaced in the American mind the memory of old wrongs unavenged. Instead of being degraded, Borriel was promoted. Never to this day has there been any adequate atonement by Spain, much less an apology or expression of regret for the Virginius massacre."

The amount of money paid to the United States government for distribution among the families of American sufferers by this affair was $80,000. And that is the extent of the reparation made for the shocking crime.

The Virginius, although the most conspicuous, was not the only American victim of Spanish misgovernment in Cuba during the Ten Years' war. In 1877 the three whaling vessels, Rising Sun, Ellen Rizpah, and Edward Lee, while pursuing their legitimate business under the American flag, outside of Cuban waters, were fired upon and detained for days, with circumstances of peculiar hardship and brutality. The United States government investigated the outrage with care, and demanded of Spain an indemnity of $19,500. The demand, however, was not enforced, and the sum of $10,000 was accepted as a compromise settlement.