CHAPTER XV.

Cuba.-General Lopez.-Interview with Mr. Calhoun.-Visits Governor Quitman.-His personal Appearance.-Proposals rejected.— Quitman's Reason therefor.-Fillmore's Proclamation.-Its illegal Character.-Indictment and threatened Arrest of Quitman.-Letter from IIon. Jacob Thompson.-Letters to the United States District Attorney.-Letter from General Henderson.-Governor Quitman resigns.-Patriotism of the Ladies.-Arrested.-Appears in Court in New Orleans.-Is discharged.-Reception by the People. - Legal View of the Casc. - Original Letters from La Fayette, Adams, Webster, and Clay.-Lopez sails for Cuba.-Failure of the Expedition, and the Cause.-IIis Capture and Death.-Capture of Crittenden and Party.—Their Execution.-Atrocities in Havana. -Death to the Americans.-Future Retribution.-The Proclamation and General Concha. -The Liberators vindicated. - Great Britain and France.-l'ower of Republics.-Our proper Policy. WHILE these important matters wero transpiring, an event occurred that, for a time, concentrated public attention in another quarter. In 1849, General Narcisso Lopez, a native of Venezuela, a veteran soldier of Spain, and long domiciliated in Cuba, visited the United States. On his arrival at Washington Mr. Calhoun called on him, and repeated his visit the next day. Soon afterward General Lopez had another interview with Mr. Calhoun and four distinguished senators in a committee-room of the Capitol. He submitted to them in detail the condition of the island. The people are allowed no share in the administration of affairs even by the expression of opinion; there is no freedom of speech, of the press, or of occupation. From a population of little more than a million, including the slaves, Spain exacts annually, by

an arbitrary system of taxation, and every sort of vexatious excise, a tribute of 24,000,000 of dollars. It employs 20,000 regulars, besides a formidablo marino, and a legion of spies and stipendiaries, to watch the movements of individuals and keep the people in subjection. No trade or business can be pursued without first paying for a license; no guest be received, no company entertained, no festival in any private residence, and no removal from one domicil to another, without a formal permission. The productions of the plantation are taxed, most of them ten per cent. on their value; tithes are exacted to the amount of more than a quarter of a million of dollars, yet the inhabitants are obliged to support their places of worship and cemeteries by private subscription. No native is allowed to hold any of fice, civil, judicial, military, or ecclesiastical; every placo of honor, trust, or profit is confided to Spaniards. Cuba has no representative in the Spanish Cortes. She is literally governed by the sword. The captain general is absolute as the Sultan of Turkey, and promulgates any law or regulation which his caprice may dictate. Under his rule the slave-trade-which the British government and his own maintain a mixed commission, and our government and Great Britain, at vast expense, keep squadrons on the coast of Africa, to prevent-is actively carried on; negroes are surreptitiously admitted in great numbers, not to contribute to the prosperity of the Cubans, but because a heavy douceur is paid to the authorities for their admission, and these negroes, and their threatened emancipation, are relied on by the government to intimidate the citizens.

The captain general at that period was General Concha, a field-marshal of Spain, and a thorough absolutist in his political opinions. He had a consultative junta, the members of which were named by himself, and were the

creatures of his will. The institutions of charity, of policy, and of finance, the army and the navy, were under his control. In private life bland, courteous, gallant, and magnificent, as supreme chief he crushed, with a hand of iron, every shadow of liberty.

The people of Cuba, in the mean time, were panting for independence, and only waited an opportunity to revolt. The want of arms, the difficulty of concert owing to incessant surveillance, and the hope of intervention or aid, in some way or other, from the United States, had hitherto postponed any serious attempt. But they were ready, feeble and scattered as they were, to make the effort if any assurance of aid could be communicated to them.

This was the sacred mission that brought General Lopez to the United States. His statements made a deep impression on Mr. Calhoun, the most circumspect and conservative statesman of our country. In several interviews with Lopez he expressed himself in favor of the annexation of Cuba to the United States, but as that could not be immediately accomplished, he referred to the assistance that might be lawfully proffered by the American people in the event of an insurrection of the Cubans. He declared, moreover, in such event European intervention need not be apprehended. Both England and France are bound by their own precedents.*

In the spring of 1850 Gen. Lopez waited on Gen. Quitman privately at Jackson. IIe was received with cordi

* Subsequently Mr. Calhoun, it must be conceded, became more lukewarm on this subject, owing to the increasing gravity of the issue between the North and the South on the slavery question. He feared that the Cuba question, so full of interest and chivalry, would draw the minds of the people from an internal to an external contest. Ile desired to confine public attention, and the South particularly, to a special issue of vital importance, and, therefore, discouraged all collateral matters. But the same arguments he employed for the acquisition of Texas apply to Cuba, and would have made him the advocate of its annexation.

ality. The general declared that the people were ripe for revolution, and he came in their name to solicit the auxiliaries that the citizens of a great republic should not refuse to their oppressed neighbors. He exhibited confidential communications and credentials from every portion of the island, and letters of encouragement from distinguished sources in the United States. He said that he had no ambition but for the liberation of his country; that he had long been convinced that it needed an infusion of American blood to vitalize its energies; that Cuba once free, and her resources put in motion by an energetic will, the regeneration of Mexico and of the distracted governments to the south of it would follow, and a new empire, the centre of the world's production and commerce, governed by the great principle of unrestrained free trade, would soon be established. He concluded by offering Gov. Quitman, in the name of his compatriots, the leadership of the revolution, and the supreme command if their armies should triumph."

This was the tempting scheme submitted by the Cuban patriot. It made a deep impression. Quitman was ambitious, and these grand ideas of revolution and progress, of changes to be accomplished by liberal principles and energetic rule, were his own. To lead such a movement in aid of an oppressed people, and for the introduction of American civilization and Southern institutions, had been the dream of his life. The battle-field and its glory, the clangor and the charge rose up like a gorgeous pageant to dazzle his imagination. Lopez perceived the impression, and led the conversation to Chapultepec and Belen, and the fame he had acquired, and the enthusiasm with which the Cubans and many of the Mexicans would rally around his standard. He was an eloquent and winning man in conversation. His brow bore the traces of suffering and reflection; his square-built and upright car

riage, and measured pace, and grizzled mustache denoted at a glance the veteran soldier; his voice was low and musical, his manners singularly mild; his eye, small but lustrous, indicated concentration and enthusiasm; the prevailing expression of his countenanco was firmness and sincerity. He used no gesticulation, but he stood before the governor, fixed his eyes upon him, and poured his low voice into his ear. It was the wizard spell upon a magnetic temperament which was never entirely broken, not even by the bloody drama that soon ensued, and the prosecution and calumny that followed like blood-hounds upon the track.

Quitman long and anxiously reflected. No one disturbed the silence. Lopez slowly paced the apartment, like a sentinel on guard. The few confidential friends who had been specially invited to the interview felt the sorcery of his presence. All hoped that the governor would accept the offer, and embark in a career so just and so prodigal of glory. Thousands at a word would have followed his standard, and with his flashing sword he would have made

"His name

A light, a landmark, on the cliffs of fame."

It required no ordinary virtue and an iron will to reject a career so brilliant. But Quitman did reject it. Ile was influenced simply by the sentiment that pervaded his whole life-the sentiment of duty and honor. He acknowledged the justice of the demand of Cuba for aid; the moment she fired the first gun, and shed the first blood, as our forefathers did at Lexington, it became legitimate to go to her assistance, whether authorized by the government or voluntarily as individuals. He would resign the office of governor in an hour to accept the responsibilities tendered to him but for the menacing posture of public affairs. Our rights as a sovereign stato