societies were formed under the title of the "Soles de Bolivar," and everything was prepared for seconding the invasion, which might very possibly have proved successful but for the intervention of our own Government, which dissuaded the invasion. (See letters of Mr. Clay to the ministers of Colombia and Mexico, December 20, 1825.) The knowledge of this effervescence of the public mind induced, on the part of the Spanish King, one of the most extraordinary acts which ever emanated from a despot. He gave the Captain-General, by an ordinance of the 28th of May, 1825, all the powers granted to the governors of besieged towns; or, in other words, declared the whole island under martial law, with full power in the Captain-General over the lives, fortunes, and liberties of the people, and with the right of suspending all laws and royal decrees at his pleasure.

This would appear scarcely credible, but I desire to read a passage from this ordinance of 1825 of the Spanish King. I find it fortunately translated here in a little book called Cuba and the Cubans, which I would recommend to the perusal of gentlemen who may desire some additional facts in relation to the condition of the island:

On the 28th of May, 1825, the royal ordinance addressed to the Captain-General of Cuba declares: "It has pleased His Majesty, in conformity with the advice of his ministers, to authorize your excellency, fully investing you with the whole extent of power which by royal ordinances is granted to the governors of besieged towns; in consequence thereof His Majesty most amply and unrestrictedly authorizes your excellency not only to remove from the island such persons holding office from the Government or not, whatever their occupation, work, class, or situation in life may be, whose residence there you may believe to be prejudicial, or whose public or private conduct may appear suspicious to you, employing in their stead faithful servants of His Majesty. Also to suspend the execution of whatever royal orders or general decrees in all the different branches of the administration, or in any part of them, as your excellency may think conducive to the royal service."

We are told that under this system of government the whites are contented. Why, sir, independent of the conspiracies of which I have spoken, in 1823-24 and 1825, again in 1826, another conspiracy broke out, and its chiefs were arrested, and Sanchez and Aguerro were executed at Port au Prince; and again, at a later day, the conspiracy called the conspiracy of the Black Eagle broke out and was again repressed, and those engaged in it executed or exiled or imprisoned. The different conspiracies that have existed of late years are familiar to us all; the various expeditions of Lopez and his companions; and the last of which I have any memory, or, at least, authentic detail, is that of 1851, when a few Cuban patriots, worn-out, disappointed fugitives, still had courage to meet together on the 4th of July, 1851, and declared the independence of Cuba. Here is their declaration of independence. I am going to refer to this, not so much for the purpose of showing this fact, not so much for the purpose of calling attention to the signatures, including names of this same family of Aguerro, that seems to have distinguished itself in behalf of the liberties of its country, but because there is a list of grievances in this declaration of independence to which I now desire to call the attention of the Senate, and which I will lay before it, asking every man who hears it, if it be possible that human beings subjected to grievances like these can be content, can be willing to kiss the rod which smites them?

They begin, sir, by stating the horrible cruelties that are exercised upon them. It is in Spanish; I will read it as well as I can; it will be probably somewhat imperfect in the translation.

They state that "they supposed the world would refuse credence to the history of the horrible iniquities which have been perpetrated in Cuba, and would consider, with reason, perhaps, that if there existed

monsters capable of committing them, it is not conceivable that there should exist men who for so long a time had submitted to them; but if those persons are few who reach the truth of particular facts, by reason of the means of which the Government disposes to obscure and disfigure them, nobody can resist the evidence of acts that are public and official."

Therefore, they go on to relate:

It was publicly, and with arms in his hands, that General Tacon despoiled the Island of Cuba of the constitution of Spain, proclaimed by all the powers of the Monarchy and which these powers had ordered to be sworn to as the fundamental law of the entire Monarchy.

It was publicly, and by the acts of the courts, that Cuba was declared to be deprived of the rights which all Spaniards enjoyed, and which are naturally conceded to persons the least civilized.

It was publicly that the decree was issued which deprived the sons of Cuba of all right of being chosen to occupy public offices or of employment in the State.

It was publicly that omni-modal faculties were granted to the Captains-General of Cuba, who may deny to those whom they desire to have punished or sentenced by the tribunals even the form of a trial before the courts.

Publicly prominent in the Island of Cuba are still those military commissions which in other countries the law permits only in extraordinary cases during a time of war, and then only for offenses against the State.

Publicly has the Spanish press threatened Cuba with tearing from it the property in its slaves, of converting the island into ruin and ashes, and of disenchanining against it all the hordes of barbarous Africans which now exist within it.

Public is the continual increase of the army and the creation of new mercenary bodies which, under pretext of public security, are only put upon us for the purpose of augmenting the burdens that lie upon Cuba and of exercising with greater vexation the system of subordination and espionage over its inhabitants.

Public are the obstacles and difficulties which are placed in the way of each individual for moving, for exercising any industry, nobody being sure that he will not be seized and fined, by reason of some defect of authorization or want of license at every step that he makes in the island.

Public are the contributions which are exhausting the Island of Cuba and the projects of other contributions which are threatened and which are to absorb all the products of its riches, there remaining nothing to its miserable inhabitants but the pain of labor.

Public are the exactions of all kinds which inferior officers impose on its inhabitants, with the greatest disregard to the opinion of mankind.

I return now, sir, to the year 1836, when the Cuban deputies were convoked to the meeting of the constituent Cortes at Madrid. The Cortes assembled in 1837, but the Cuban deputies were not admitted to their seats. Cuba was deprived of her representation; nor was this the only outrage inflicted on her rights. It was decided that she should be governed in the future by exceptional laws, and not by the laws common to the rest of the monarchy. These special laws were never passed; but the royal ordinance has continued in force to the present hour, maintaining martial law, and Cuba has thus remained ever since a helpless victim, subject to the despotic control of a single man, the extent of whose powers can only be described by the word invented to express them-omni-modas, of all kinds.

Ever since this monstrous system has been adopted Cuba has not been blessed with one hour of peace. Constantly repeated have been her efforts to shake off the yoke under which they groan, but all in vain. Twenty thousand bayonets on the land and a powerful fleet off its coasts keep the dread watch of the tyrant and suppress the first symptoms of revolt. The whites have been disarmed, and 4 companies of colored men have been added to each of the 16 regiments of peninsular troops stationed on the island, thus holding before the unfortunate inhabitants the constant threat of a war of races, a renewal of the horrors of Santo Domingo. Their pride of race has been shocked by a governor's decree

authorizing marriages between the two races, except when one of the parties is a noble.

The army is maintained faithful solely by a rigorous isolation, all communication between the inhabitants and troops being interdicted. No security for life, person, or liberty against the caprice of a despot; no arms for self-defense, the size of a walking stick even being limited to dimensions small enough to pass through a ring furnished the policeman.

The Cubans have not even the idea of a trial by jury. Cases are tried before the judges of royal appointment, the venal favorites of the Spanish court, who are speedily removed to make room for more hungry aspirants. The Captain-General, himself a mere soldier, presides by law over the supreme court of justice. All offices, with the exception of a few of the lowest order, are in the hands of Spaniards. The penalty for carrying weapons of any description is six years' hard labor in the chain gangs of the penal colonies of Africa. The Cuban can not have company at home without a permit, for which he must pay $2.50, and he must be provided with a license, at the same cost, if he is to absent himself from town or from his home in the country. Neither can he change his domicile without notifying the police, obtaining a permit, and paying for the same. He can not lodge any person, whether foreigner or native, stranger, friend, or relative, in his house without previous notice to the police. Mayors of cities are not elected by the people, but by the aldermen of the common councils and under the dictation of the Spanish governors. These aldermen serve for life, and their offices are either inherited or purchased from the Crown at public auction for prices varying according to the perquisites thereof. Thus it happens that even they who should be the immediate guardians of the people often become speculaters, who, far from extending them protection, extort the full interest of the capital invested in the purchase of their offices. No affidavit is required in Cuba, but a suspicion or a secret denunciation is sufficient to tear a man from the bosom of his family at any hour of the day or night, throw him into a dungeon, there to linger for weeks or months, if it so please the authorities, and then to set him free with the bare acknowledgment of his innocence, or send him to transatlantic exile, if, though innocent, he still remains suspicious.

Such is the sad, the dreadful condition of the unfortunate islanders who are represented by the official press as hastening to lay at the feet of the Queen ardent professions of loyalty to her Government and attachment to her person. They have again and again made heavy sacrifices for freedom-nay, at this very moment, and for years past, they maintain, by secret contributions, for gratuitous circulation, public journals in the United States, repeating their constant appeal to our sympathies. The whole of the recent wrongs committed, Mr. President, in relation to the arming of the blacks, and other similar outrages, were committed under the instigation of Great Britain, and Lord Palmerston did not blush to acknowledge his guilt in the face of the civilized world. I have here his dispatch, in which, in answer to the remonstrance of the inhabitants of the island, communicated to him through the correspondence of the Spanish minister, he replied to the effect that it was true that the measures he was recommending might not be suitable for the whites, but that they were exceedingly beneficial to the blacks-an actual recommendation to the Spanish Government to trample the white native Cuban under foot for the benefit of the Africans that had been imported in defiance of the treaties with Great Britain herself. Here is Lord Palmerston's dispatch of September 11, 1851, and it is capable of that signification alone:

With reference to that passage in M. Miraflores's note, in which he states that the Spanish Government can not understand how Her Majesty's Government can seriously recommend á measure which would prove very injurious to the natives of Cuba, when they also recommend that the Spanish Government should conciliate the affections of those Cubans, I have to instruct your lordship to observe to M. de Miraflores that the slaves of Cuba form a large portion, and by no means an unimportant one, of the population of Cuba, and that any steps taken to provide for their emancipation would therefore, as far as the black population are concerned, be quite in unison with

the recommendation made by Her Majesty's Government; that measures should be adopted for contenting the people of Cuba, with a view to secure the connection between that island and the Spanish Crown; and it must be evident that if the negro population of Cuba were rendered free that fact would create a most powerful element of resistance to any scheme for annexing Cuba to the United States, where slavery still exists.

There it is, sir. It is the white population that is to be trampled under the feet of the blacks, and such blacks as now exist in Jamaica; it is this white population that is represented in the face of the Senate and the country as desirous of continuing subjects of the rule under which they now groan.

Sir, it is very easy to say: "If the people of Cuba desire emancipation from this tyranny, why do they not rise in arms?" And we are pointed to our own condition when our forefathers resisted the tyranny of the British Crown. How unfair to them! How delusive the comparison! We were 3,000,000 men. We had the right of speech, the liberty of the press. We could assemble, combine, prepare. We could arm. We had a right to buy arms and to wear them. When Patrick Henry was urging the Virginia assembly to the declaration of American independence, his cry was that three millions of men in arms could not be vanquished by any power that our enemy could send against us. how is the case of the miserable Cubans? Had we, as they have, a foreign army in our midst-an army composed of soldiers whose fidelity to the mother country is only secured by the system already mentioned, of strict isolation, of absolute interdiction from any communication with the inhabitants of the island-had we such a force as that among us, and, backed by the bayonets of the black race, threatening an exterminating war of races? No, sir; there is no fairness, no justice, in the reproach.

But

I must waive, Mr. President, all discussion of the effects that the acquisition of this island would have on the industrial, agricultural, and commercial interests of our country, these points having been already treated very satisfactorily by gentlemen who have already spoken.

I shall not even speak of its geographical position, commanding, as it does, a commerce which, before all that are now within sound of my voice shall have disappeared from the earth, will reach $1,500,000,000. Still I must call attention to the fact that it seems hitherto to have been taken for granted that this country is exposed to no risk so long as this island remains within the feeble grasp of Spain. I apprehend this is a mistake, and a very grave mistake. It is a grave mistake for several reasons: First, because those harbors, being the most capacious and the best fortified in the Gulf, offer a secure rendezvous, in case of diffi culties with other foreign powers, for collecting fleets and navies with which our own unprotected coasts could be attacked; secondly, because Spain is not now an independent nation.

I deny her independence in the true sense of the word. Spain has bartered away her sovereignty in Cuba, effectually bartered it away to Great Britain. She did not yield to motives of policy or of philanthropy in abolishing the slave trade. There was a time when Spanish dignity was not insulted by the offer to buy something from her, and her pride was not touched when Great Britain paid her £400,000 for giving up the slave trade. Again and again has the Spanish nation been twitted upon the floor of the British Parliament with hav ing cheated Great Britain by taking the money and then countenancing the traffic. It is under the controlling influence of Great Britain that Spanish pride has been so far humiliated that a mixed commission sat in the Island of Cuba; that British subjects in the town of Habana try Spanish subjects in their own colonies for breaches of the treaty, and that England had a hulk, a prison ship belonging to herself, lying in

the harbor of Habana, to enforce the edicts of British judges over Spanish colonists; and yet we are told that this is an independent nation, whose pride and dignity will revolt at the bare proposal for a cession of sovereignty over the island.

The safety of our country is further involved in the acquisition of Cuba, or at least in her independence; because her harbors not only furnish points of rendezvous for hostile fleets, but secure harbors of refuge in which they could refit and repair, and prepare themselves for fresh attacks on our unprotected coasts. It was those harbors that afforded refuge for the British fleet after its descent on New Orleans, and in them did the French fleet refit after its bombardment of the castle of San Juan d'Uloa. In the event of a rupture with Great Britain, which many gentlemen around me seem to suppose inevitable in no very distant future, Cuba would be, in her possession, a tremendous point of vantage for attack; and little would she reck of any opposition by Spain to her use of it for her own purposes in a moment of emergency. It is for this reason that the instincts of the American people have already taught them that we shall ever be insecure against hostile attack until this important geographical and military position is placed under our protection and control.

This being the relation borne to us by Cuba, the President has proposed that Congress shall give expression to the national sentiment by sanctioning a proposition to Spain for the purchase of the island. Why should we not do it?

First, we are told that it is an offense to the dignity of Spain to make the offer of purchase. To that, reply has been made so often and so victoriously that it is hardly necessary to repeat it. We have only to say that of all the colonies that Spain ever possessed on this continent none remain but the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico, and, I believe, some small islands adjacent not worth naming; and that, of all she has lost, everything has been torn from her by violence, with the exception of Florida, that we bought, and Louisiana, that France bought. If it was no offense for France to purchase Louisiana and no offense for us to purchase Florida, it is a little too late to say that it is an offense to her dignity for us to propose the purchase of Cuba. And, sir, I can not understand the dignity and sense of honor of a country that sells to the people of Great Britain for a sum of money an agreement to abandon the slave trade, and under that treaty gives to Great Britain power to hold courts in her own territory, judging her own subjects; and then turns upon us and, on the bare indication of a desire to purchase, tells us that she considers herself insulted by the proposition. I am afraid she will have to be insulted; I am afraid the proposition will have to be made. This insult was offered to her dignity a good many years ago in relation to this same island, first by Great Britain and afterwards by us, and this is the first time we have ever heard of her being insulted by the offer.

But, sir, we are told that England and France will object. If that be true, it affords to my mind a controlling motive for persisting. I wish to examine a little into this subject of the interference of England and France; and first I desire the attention of the Senate to a fact which has not yet been adverted to in this debate-that as far back as 1823 Great Britain tried to buy Cuba from Spain, and made her offers of purchase, which were rejected; that then in 1825 and 1826 Great Britain was at the bottom of the plot for declaring Cuba independent, by an insurrection of the people, with the aid of the Colombian and Mexican forces, her object being to get the control of the island under