was fairly prosperous as late as 1837. During a portion of this time Cuba was represented in the Spanish Cortes, and in the years 1834 to 1838 it enjoyed the great advantage of being governed by a disinterested and enlightened governor, named Miguel Tacón. The influence of these improved economic and political conditions, together with the power of the wealthy planters and the conservative fugitives from San Domingo and the continental colonies, kept alive the loyalty of the dominant classes, and led to the application to the island of the title "Cuba la sempre Fiel❞—Cuba the ever faithful.

Some one has said, "It is not so bad to be poor, as to be poorer." Undoubtedly it was the withdrawal of part of the earlier commercial and political privileges, the declining prosperity, and the irritation of the heavy taxes, coupled with higher ideals, wider education and a growing consciousness of nationality which made the history of Cuba from 1840 onward such a tumultuous one. The arrogance of the Spanish official class, and the great expense which their maintenance entailed, were separating the native Cubans from the resident Spaniards. Scarcely a year passed in which a large or a small body of insurgents was not in arms against the authorities.

In the meantime American statesmen had been viewing Cuban affairs with deep interest.

As early as 1809 Jefferson had considered the advisability of acquiring Cuba, and fourteen years later in a letter to President Monroe, he confessed that he looked upon Cuba as the most interesting addition which could be made to the territory of the United States. In the same year, 1823, John Quincy Adams expressed the opinion that before half a century had passed, the annexation of Cuba would be indispensable to the continuance and the integrity of the Union.

The movement toward annexation thus endorsed so heartily by the early fathers, has not yet reached its goal, and it is now questionable whether it will ever be attained.

One of the principal reasons for its failure has been the great and unexpected development of the country toward the West, which gave rise to a whole group of political and social questions apart from the extension of shipping and commerce into the West Indies. Another reason lay in those party animosities aroused by the slavery question and centring about the exclusion of slavery from the new western lands. Further, the extension of new means of communication between the Atlantic coast and the Mississippi Valley through railroads and canals, detracted considerably from the importance of the coastwise trade of the Atlantic seaports with the Gulf cities. Finally it was generally believed that Spain's tenure of Cuba was not harmful to the United States; that the country need not fear, as Calhoun said, so long as Cuba passed into no other hands.

After the Mexican War and the Compromise of 1850, the eyes of our statesmen were again directed to the Gulf of Mexico and Central America. This time, however, it was the slave party, which, turning from its contest with antislavery in the North, now hoped to recoup itself for the loss of California by the acquisition of Cuba. Spain's rule in Cuba was now described as oppressive upon the inhabitants and expensive to herself; nature and God had placed Cuba in a position which made the island a necessity to the North American republic; and southern slaveholders were aroused by the prediction that Cuba would be controlled by her own negroes if not by the United States, and that the establishment of a second San Domingo was the only alternative to an American occupation. The new aggressive policy was shown in many ways. It appeared in official instructions to our ministers abroad; it showed tooth and nail in the Ostend Manifesto when, in 1854, the American ministers to England, France and Spain united to announce that if Spain would not sell Cuba to the United States, that country would be justified in seizing the island; it took military form in the southern encouragement of filibustering expeditions, and it received public expression in the platforms

of the Democratic party in 1856 and 1860, and in three of the four annual messages of President Buchanan.

With the defeat of the Democratic party in 1860, and the breaking out of the Civil War, the Cuban question sank into a state of insignificance, except so far as Cuba was used as a place of resort by Confederate blockade runners. It was, however, raised to a position of first-rate importance by the exertions of the Cubans themselves during their tenyear struggle for independence from 1868 to 1878. In the United States the annexation movement now gave place to a popular desire for the independence of Cuba from Spanish control. The decline of interest in annexation probably came from two sources: first, the death of the slavery party in the United States and of its plans for the extension of its institution; and secondly, an increased respect for the Cubans and for their ability in self-government as shown by their success in the ten years' war. To these reasons may be added that general democratic interest in the rights of man which was leading the Republican party into its radical measures for negro suffrage. General Grant deserves the credit, among American presidents, of first formulating this popular demand for Cuban independence. As early as 1869 he directed the United States minister in Spain to strive to obtain the recognition of the Cuban republic; and in 1875 he expressed the opinion that it was impossible to doubt the ultimate issue of Cuban affairs in independence. Grant did not, however, intervene in favor of the Cubans, nor did he recognize them as belligerents or as an independent state. The amicable agreement which General Campos perfected in Cuba in 1878 put off for another twenty years the consummation of the plans for independence.

These twenty years were not, however, years of great prosperity in Cuba. The value of sugar declined in competition with the beet sugar of Europe, and the price of tobacco was not maintained. But to these economic difficulties there were added many political reasons for discontent. The promises of 1878 were not fulfilled. In 1885 an