The question of the annexation of Cuba to the United States, we repeat, is a question but of time. The fruit that was not ripe when John Quincy Adams penned his dispatch to Mr. Forsyth (it has not yet been severed by violence from its native tree, as he anticipated) is now mature. Shall it be plucked by a friendly hand, prepared to compensate its proprietor with a princely guerdon, or shall it fall decaying to the ground?

As Spain can not long maintain her grasp on this distant colony, there are but three possible alternatives in the future of Cuba: First, possession by one of the great European powers. This we have declared to be incompatible with our safety, and have announced to the world that any attempt to consummate it will be resisted by all the means in our power. When first we made this declaration we were comparatively feeble. The struggle would have been fearful and unequal; but we were prepared to make it at whatever hazard. That declaration has often been repeated since. With a population nearly tripled, our financial resources and our means, offensive and defensive, increased in an infinitely larger proportion, we can not now shrink from an issue that all were then ready to meet.

The second alternative is the independence of the island. This independence could only be nominal; it could never be maintained in fact. It would eventually fall under some protectorate, open or disguised. If under ours, annexation would soon follow as certainly as the shadow follows the substance. An European protectorate could not be tolerated. The closet philanthropists of England and France would, as the price of their protection, insist upon introducing their schemes of emancipation. Civil and servile war would soon follow, and Cuba would present, as Haiti now does, no traces of its former prosperity, but the ruins of its once noble mansions. Its uncontrolled possession by either France or England would be less dangerous and offensive to our Southern States than a pretended independent black empire or republic.

The third and last alternative is annexation to the United States. How and when is this to be effected? By conquest or negotiation? Conquest, even without the hostile interference of another European power than Spain, would be expensive, but with such interference would probably involve the whole civilized world in war, entail upon us the interruption, if not the loss, of our foreign trade, and an expenditure far exceeding any sum which it has ever been contemplated to offer for the purchase of Cuba. It would, besides, in all probability, lead to servile insurrection, and to the great injury or even total destruction of the industry of the island. Purchase, then, by negotiation seems to be the only practicable course; and, in the opinion of the committee, that can not be attempted with any reasonable prospect of success, unless the President be furnished with the means which he has suggested in his annual message, and which the bill proposes to give him.

Much has been said of the danger of confiding such powers to the Executive, and from the fierceness with which the proposition has been denounced it might be supposed that it was without precedent. So far is this from being the case, that we have three different acts upon the statute book placing large sums of money at the disposition of the Presi dent for the purpose of aiding him in negotiations for the acquisition of territory. The first is the act of February 26, 1803. Although its object was well known, viz, to be used in negotiating for the purchase of Louisiana, the act does not indicate it. It placed $2,000,000 unreservedly at the disposition of the President for the purpose of defraying

any "extraordinary expense which may be incurred in the intercourse between the United States and foreign nations." Second. The act of February 13, 1806, using precisely the same phraseology, appropriates $2,000,000, it being understood that it was to be used in negotiating for the purchase of Florida.

The act of March 3, 1847, "making further appropriation to bring the existing war with Mexico to a speedy and honorable conclusion," has been adopted as the model on which the present bill is framed. Its preamble states that

Whereas, in the adjustment of so many complicated questions as now exist between the two countries, it may possibly happen that an expenditure of money will be called for by the stipulations of any treaty which may be entered into, therefore the sum of $3,000,000 be, and the same is hereby, appropriated, to enable the President to conclude a treaty of peace, limits, and boundaries, with the Republic of Mexico; to be used by him in the event said treaty, when signed by the authorized agents of the two Governments and duly ratified by Mexico, shall call for the expenditure of the same, or any part thereof.

The bill now reported appropriates, under the same conditions, $30,000,000 to make a treaty with Spain for the purchase of the Island of Cuba.

It will be perceived that this bill defines strictly the object to which the amount appropriated shall be applied, and in this respect allows a much narrower range of discretion to the present Executive than the acts of 1803 and 1806 gave to Mr. Jefferson. In those cases the object of the appropriation was as well known to the country and to the world as if it had been specifically stated. The knowledge of that fact did not then in the slightest degree tend to defeat the intended object, nor can it do so now. Under our form of Government we have no state secrets. With us diplomacy has ceased to be enveloped with the mysteries that of yore were considered inseparable from its successful exercise. Directness in our policy and frankness in its avowal are, in conducting our foreign intercourse, not less essential to the maintenance of our national character and the permanent interests of the Republic than are the same qualities to social position and the advancement of honest enterprise in private life.

Much has been said of the indelicacy of this mode of proceeding; that the offer to purchase will offend the Spanish pride, be regarded as an insult, and rejected with contempt; that, instead of promoting a consummation that all admit to be desirable, it will have the opposite tendency. If this were true, it would be a conclusive argument against the bill, but a brief consideration will show the fallacy of these views. For many years our desire to purchase Cuba has been known to the world.

Seven years since President Fillmore communicated to Congress the instructions to our ministers on that subject, with all the correspondence connected with it. In that correspondence will be found three letters from Mr. Saunders, detailing conversations held with Narvaez and the minister of foreign relations, in which he notified them of his authority to treat for the purchase of Cuba, and while the reply was so decided as to preclude him from making any direct proposition, yet no intimation was given that the suggestion was offensive. And why should it be so? We simply say to Spain, "You have a distant possession, held by a precarious tenure, which is almost indispensable to us for the protection of our commerce, and may, from its peculiar position, the character of its population, and the mode in which it is governed, lead at any time to a rupture which both nations would deprecate. This possession, rich though it be in all the elements of wealth, yields to your

treasury a net revenue not amounting, on the average of a series of years, to the hundredth part of the price we are prepared to give you for it. True, you have heretofore refused to consider our proposition, but circumstances are changing daily. What may not have suited you in 1848 may now be more acceptable. Should a war break out in Europe, Spain can scarcely hope to escape being involved in it. The people of Cuba naturally desire to have a voice in the government of the island. They may seize the occasion to proclaim their independence, and you may regret not having accepted the rich indemnity we offer." But even these arguments will not be pressed upon unwilling ears. Our minister will not broach the subject until he shall have good reason to believe that it will be favorably entertained. Such an opportunity may occur when least expected. Spain is the country of coups d'état and pronunciamentos. The all-powerful minister of to-day may be a fugitive to-morrow. With the forms of a representative government, it is in fact a despotism sustained by the bayonet-a despotism tempered only by frequent, violent, and bloody revolutions. Her financial condition is one of extreme embarrassment; a crisis may arise when even the dynasty may be overthrown unless a large sum of money can be raised forthwith. Spain will be in the position of the needy possessor of land he can not cultivate, having all the pride of one to whom it has descended through a long line of ancestry, but his necessities are stronger than his will-he must have money. A thrifty neighbor, whose domains it will round off, is at hand to furnish it. He retains the old mansion, but sells what will relieve him from immediate ruin.

The President, in his annual message, has told us that we should not, if we could, acquire Cuba by any other means than honorable negotiation, unless circumstances which he does not anticipate render a departure from such a course justifiable, under the imperative and overruling law of self-preservation. He also tells us that he desires to renew the negotiations, and it may become indispensable to success that he should be intrusted with the means for making an advance to the Spanish Government immediately after the signing of the treaty, without awaiting the ratification of it by the Senate. This, in point of fact, is an appeal to Congress for an expression of its opinion on the propriety of renewing the negotiation. Should we fail to give him the means which may be indispensable to success, it may well be considered by the President as an intimation that we do not desire the acquisition of the island.

It has been asserted that the people of Cuba do not desire a transfer to the United States. If this were so, it would present a very serious objection to the measure. The evidence on which it is based is that on receipt of the President's message addresses were made by the municipal authorities of Habana and other towns protesting their devotion to the Crown and their hostility to the institutions of the United States. Anyone who has had an opportunity of observing the persuasive influence of the bayonet in countries where it rules supreme will know how much value to attach to such demonstrations of popular sentiment. There can be no doubt that an immense majority of the people of Cuba are not only in favor, but ardently desirous of annexation to the United States. It would be strange, indeed, if they were not so. Deprived of all influence, even in the local affairs of the island; unrepresented in the Cortes; governed by successive hordes of hungry officials sent from the mother country to acquire fortunes to be enjoyed at home, having no sympathy with the people among whom they are mere sojourners and upon whom they look down as inferiors; liable to be arrested at any

moment on the most trifling charges; tried by military courts or submissive judges, removable at pleasure; punished at the discretion of the Captain-General, they would be less than men if they were contented with their yoke. But we have the best authority, from the most reliable sources, for asserting that nearly the entire native population of Cuba desires annexation.

Apprehensions have been expressed by some Southern statesmen of perils resulting from the different elements composing the population, and the supposed mixture of races. They are not justified by the facts. The entire population, by the census of 1850, was 1,247,230, of which 605,560 were whites, 205,570 free colored, and 436,100 slaves.

Allowing the same annual percentage of increase for each class as shown by comparison with the previous census, the total population now is about 1,586,000, of which 742,000 are whites, 263,000 free colored, and 581,000 slaves. There is good reason to suppose that the slaves considerably exceed the estimated number, it having been, until very recently, the interest of the proprietor to understate it. The feeling of caste or race is as marked in Cuba as in the United States. The white creole is as free from all taint of African blood as the descendant of the Goth on the plains of Castile. There is a numerous white peasantry, brave, robust, sober, and honest, not yet, perhaps, prepared intelligently to discharge all the duties of the citizen of a free republic, but who, from his organization, physical and mental, is capable of being elevated by culture to the same level with the educated Cubans, who, as a class, are as refined, well informed, and fitted for self-government as men of any class of any nation can be who have not inhaled with their breath the atmosphere of freedom.

Many of them, accompanied by their families, are to be met with every summer at our cities and watering places, observing and appreciating the working of our form of government and its marvelous results; many seeking until the arrival of more auspicious days an asylum from the oppression that has driven them from their homes; while hundreds of their youths in our schools and colleges are acquiring our language and fitting themselves hereafter, it is to be hoped at no distant day, to play a distinguished part in their own legislative halls or in the councils of the nation.

These men, who are the great proprietors of the soil, are opposed to the continuance of the African slave trade, which is carried on by Spaniards from the Peninsula, renegade Americans, and other adventurers from every clime and country, tolerated and protected by the authorities of Cuba of every grade.

Were there a sincere desire to arrest the slave trade, it could be as effectually put down by Spain as it has been by Brazil. Cuba and Puerto Rico are now the only marts for this illegal traffic; and if the British Government had been as intent upon enforcing its treaty stipulations with Spain for its abolition as it has been in denouncing abuses of our flag, which we can not entirely prevent, this question would long since have ceased to be a source of irritating discussion-it may be of possible future difficulty. Those who desire to extirpate the slave trade may find in their sympathy for the African a motive to support this bill.

We have, since the conclusion of the Ashburton treaty in 1842, kept up a squadron on the coast of Africa for the suppression of the slave trade, and we are still bound to continue it. The annual cost of this squadron is at least $800,000. The cost in seventeen years amounts to $13,600,000, and this, too, with results absolutely insignificant. It appears from a report of a select committee of the British House of

Commons, made in March, 1850, that the number of slaves exported from Africa had sunk down in 1842 (the very year in which the Ashburton treaty was concluded) to nearly 30,000. In 1843 it rose to 55,000. In 1846 it was 76,000. In 1847 it was 84,000, and was then in a state of unusual activity. Sir Charles Hotham, one of the most distinguished officers of the British navy, and who commanded on the coast of Africa for several years, was examined by that select committee. He said that the force under his command was in a high state of discipline; that his views were carried out by his officers to his entire satisfaction; that, so far from having succeeded in stopping the slave trade, he had not even crippled it to the extent of giving it a permanent check; that the slave trade had been regulated by the commercial demand for slaves, and had been little affected by the presence of his squadron, and that experience had proven the system of repression by cruisers on the coast of Africa futile-this, too, when the British squadron counted 27 vessels, comprising several steamers, carrying about 300 guns and 3,000 men. The annual expense of the squadron is about $3,500,000, with auxiliary establishments on the coast costing at least $1,500,000 more—a total cost annually of $5,000,000 in pursuance of a system which experience has proved to be futile.

In 1847 the Brazilian slave trade was in full activity. It has been entirely suppressed for several years. The slaves now shipped from the coast of Africa are exclusively for the Spanish islands. It is not easy to estimate the number. From the best data, however, it is supposed now to be from twenty-five to thirty thousand per year. It would cease to exist the moment we acquire possession of the Island of Cuba.

The importation of slaves into the United States was prohibited in 1808. Since then, a period of more than fifty years, but one case has occurred of its violation-that of the Wanderer, which has recently excited so much attention.

Another consequence which should equally enlist the sympathies of philanthropists, excepting that class whose tears are only shed for those of ebon hue, and who turn with indifference from the sufferings of men of any other complexion, is the suppression of the infamous coolie traffic-a traffic so much the more nefarious as the Chinese is elevated above the African in the scale of creation; more civilized, more intellectual, and therefore feeling more acutely the shackles of the slave ship and the harsh discipline of the overseer. The number of Chinese shipped for Cuba since the commencement of the traffic up to March last is 28,777, of whom 4,134 perished on the passage. From that date up to the close of the year the number landed at Habana was 9,449. We blush to say that three-fourths of the number were transported under the American and British flags-under the flags of the two countries that have been the most zealous for the suppression of the African slave trade. The ratio of mortality on the passage was 143 per cent, and a much larger proportion of these wretched beings were landed in an enfeebled condition. Coming, too, from a temperate climate, they are not capable of enduring the exposure to the tropical sun, in which the African delights to bask. When their allotted time of service shall have been completed, the small remnant of the survivors will furnish conclusive evidence of the barbarity with which they are treated. The master feels no interest in his temporary slave beyond that of extracting from him the greatest possible amount of labor during the continuance of his servitude. His death or incapacity to labor at the end of his term is to the master a matter of as much indifference as is the fate of the operative employed in his mill to the Manchester spinner.