hibits no signs of advance, but seems to be confined to an irregular system of hostilities carried on by small and illy armed bodies of men, roaming without concentration through the woods and the sparsely populated regions of the island, attacking from ambush convoys and small bands of troops, burning plantations and the estates of those not sympathizing with their cause.

But if the insurrection has not gained ground, it is equally true that Spain has not suppressed it. Climate, disease, and the occasional bullet have worked destruction among the soldiers of Spain; and although the Spanish authorities have possession of every seaport and every town on the island, they have not been able to subdue the hostile feeling which has driven a considerable number of the native inhabitants of the island to armed resistance against Spain, and still leads them to endure the dangers and the privations of a roaming life of guerrilla warfare.

Public feeling in the United States was greatly excited by the seizure (January 21, 1869) of the American steamer Colonel Lloyd Aspinwall, on the charge, apparently unfounded, that she had been. landing arms for the insurgents. She was held for three months, and was finally liberated on the ground that she carried official despatches, the Spanish Government ignoring repeated protests from Washington that her arrest on the high seas was a violation of international law. Subsequently a small indemnity-$19,702.50 in gold-was paid to her owners.

In March of the same year another American ship, the schooner Lizzie Major, was arrested at sea by a Spanish frigate, and two passengers, alleged to be Cuban revolutionists, were forcibly taken from her. The act was disclaimed, however, and the prisoners released. In May, Captain-General Dulce attempted to legalize such seizures by a proclamation authorizing Spanish men-of-war to stop and search foreign vessels. Of course the United States Government promptly protested against this palpable breach of the law of nations, and Dulce had to withdraw his proclamation.

オ

affair, 1873.

Much greater excitement was caused by the Virginius affair, which for a time made war appear inevitable. The Virginius was The Virginius a small side-wheel steamer, British built, but claiming a somewhat questionable American registry, which had made several filibustering voyages to Cuba. On October 31, 1873, she was sighted off the south coast of the island by the Spanish gunboat Tornado, which promptly gave chase. By a curious coincidence the two vessels were sister ships, built in the same English yard; and in the light of recent tests of Spanish and American seamanship it might have been expected that the Virginius would outrun her pursuer. But though she made frantic efforts to reach Jamaican waters, throwing her cargo of horses and arms overboard to lighten the ship, as well as to destroy evidences of her unlawful mission, she was overhauled and taken to Santiago de Cuba.

One hundred and fifty-five men were captured with the Virginius. On November 4th four of them-three Cubans and one American—were summarily shot by order of the Spanish commander, General Juan Burriel. Three days later, thirty-seven prisoners, one of whom was the ship's commander, Captain Joseph Fry, a former officer of the United States navy, were taken ashore, lined up before a file of marines, and shot. These men were Cubans, Americans, and British subjects. The American and British consuls protested vehemently, but without effect. On the 8th twelve more prisoners suffered the same fate.

The news of the executions was received with wild rejoicings in Havana, with a burst of horrified indignation in the United States. The Government at Washington found itself in a very difficult position. Whether they were filibusters or not, the shooting of American citizens captured on the high seas was an undisguised outrage upon international

law; but the weakness of the navy-which since the end of the civil war had been left to rot in defenceless harbours-rendered a prompt and effectual protest impossible? A fleet was ordered to rendezvous at Key West, but little could be expected of the rusty ironclads and obsolete wooden ships. The rest of the Virginius prisoners would probably have shared the doom of the fifty-three who had perished had it not been for Sir Lambton Loraine, captain of the British sloop of war Niobe, who ran into Santiago harbour with his guns ready for action, and threatened to open fire on six Spanish gunboats lying in the port if there were any further executions. He had come from Jamaica in answer to an urgent message from Mr. F. W. Ramsden, the British consul at Santiago-a gentleman who will be mentioned again in this history.

There followed weeks of tedious correspondence between Washington and Madrid. The Spanish Government declared that it had sent orders forbidding the shooting, but that owing to the interruption of telegraph lines by the insurgents they had not reached Santiago in time. Finally Spain consented to surrender the Virginius, to release the surviving Americans in her crew, to pay an indemnity of eighty thousand dollars, to salute the American flag, and to punish "those who have offended." By way of carrying out the last promise, General Burriel was promoted. The formal transfer of the Virginius, which had been taken in triumph to Havana, was ungraciously carried out in the obscure harbour of Bahia Honda; she was in a filthy and unseaworthy condition-the Spaniards had purposely defiled her—and she sank on her way to the north.

But once more war with the United States had been postponed, and Spain was left to wreak her will in Cuba.

CHAPTER III

FROM THE VIRGINIUS TO THE MAINE, 1873-1898

THE series of unpleasant incidents that culminated in the Virginius affair created a mutual feeling of intense bitterness in America and in Spain In the latter country, where civil war was in progress, Don Carlos sent an aide-de-camp to Madrid to propose to his cousin Alfonso, lately restored to the throne of the Bourbons, that the two factions should suspend their strife to join forces against their common foe, the United States, whose arrogance punished, each prince should be free to assert his claim to the crown. In America the general feeling in favour of an official recognition of the Cuban insurgents was greatly strengthened, and the step would undoubtedly have been taken had it not been for the opposition of the Secretary of State, Mr. Fish, whose advice was decisive with President Grant-an opposition that was unpopular at the time, but which has been abundantly justified by later events.

As the hope of American intervention faded, the rebellion seemed to wane. In December, 1873, its lack of organization was shown by reports of dissensions among its leaders. Carlos Cespedes, who had been designated as the first president of the

*General Grant's position upon the question of recognising the Cuban insurgents was fully stated in his first annual message (December 6, 1869); in the special message of June 13, 1870; and in his seventh annual message (December 7, 1875).

insurgent republic, was deposed by the so-called Cuban congress; and it was found impossible to agree upon a successor, though Salvador Cisneros Betancourt assumed the title of acting president. Cespedes continued in the field, but in March, 1874, he was mortally wounded in a skirmish, and his death brought further discouragement.

Campos goes to
Cuba, 1876.

The war had dragged on for two years more when the Spanish Government decided, in 1876, to make a supreme effort to end it. The old Bourbon dynasty was now firmly re-established at Madrid, the struggle with the Carlists was over, and the man of the hour, the man to whom Spain owed the restoration of peace and order, was General Martinez Campos. With twenty-five thousand soldiers, the flower of the Spanish army, he was sent out to Havana as captain-general, in the hope that he would do for Cuba what he had accomplished at home.

As a rule, the military operations of the Cuban wars have been practically limited to the winter and spring months, which constitute the dry season; there being on both sides a wholesome dread of the climatic terrors of the summer and early autumn, which decimated the American troops during the brief Santiago campaign of 1898. Campos's first winter, that of 1876-77, passed without any tangible result; and he found his task so heavy that he turned over the captain-general's office to General Jovellar, devoting himself solely to his work in the field against the insurgents. Perhaps the most patriotic and clear-sighted public man that his country has produced in our time, he recognised that Spain's policy in Cuba had been a disastrous failure. In one of his reports-a remarkable document, which must have been read with unpleasant surprise in Madrid-he openly arraigned its blunders and crimes: