It was on Monday, the 25th of April, that the national authorities notified the governors of each state that they would be expected to furnish volunteers for our war with Spain. The response was immediate. In every state of the Union the call to arms was heard with delight and troops gathered at their armories for prompt enlistment. The speed and facility with which a trained and efficient army could be mobilized was an amazement to those who had not been familiar with the details of the organization of the National Guard of America. Within twenty-four hours after the receipt of the order, thousands of troops were moving to the state encampments where they had been directed to gather. Illinois was an example of this promptness, in sending nearly 5,000 men out of Chicago without delay, but this was no more notable than the record made by many other states in every part of the Union. The cheers and the blessings of hundreds of thousands of loyal citizens stimulated those who were to go to the front with the banner of freedom, and they realized that they were representing the sentiment of a united nation.
Those days near the end of April were exciting times. The whole nation was keyed up to a nervous tension of anxiety to know what would be the next event recorded on land or sea. The armies of the United States were preparing for the struggle, the coast defenses were brought to completion, and the government was ready for any emergency that might arise. Admiral Sampson's splendid North Atlantic squadron was blockading the ports of Cuba. Admiral Schley, with the flying squadron at Hampton Roads, was ready for prompt action in any direction where it might be effective, whether to protect the Atlantic coast cities from a threatened assault by Spanish warships, or to descend upon the Spanish fleet for a naval battle.
Admiral Dewey with the Asiatic squadron had been driven out of Hong Kong by application of the neutrality laws, and international obligations might embarrass him unless he took the aggressive, and made for himself a base of supplies in the Philippine Islands. It was expected every day that he would make an assault upon Manila, the capital of the Philippines, and that the first naval engagement of consequence in the war would be with the Spanish fleet in those waters. No one doubted that the Asiatic squadron would be able to give a good account of itself, although the fleet which was to oppose it did not lack efficient guns and fighting strength.
The capture of that valuable Spanish colony, in which rebellion against the government was in progress, would be not only a severe blow to the Spanish arms, but would also strengthen the position of the United States in the Orient by the capture of large supplies of coal and naval equipment, as well as a splendid base of operations.
But while these preparations were going on for the conflict which was destined to cost Spain her possessions in the western world, there were a few individuals who were still making desperate efforts to induce the administration at Washington to effect a compromise at any cost. Not even the actual declaration of war, and the call for volunteers, could bring the members of this peace-at-any-price party to a realization of the fact that patience has ceased to be a virtue, that we could no longer turn a deaf ear to the appeals of an oppressed people, and that the brave men who went down with the Maine must be avenged.
Every true American felt that the hour had come when we must defend the honor of our great nation, and it was evident to all that the time was near at hand when actual warfare was to begin both on land and sea.
The insurgents in Cuba, who have been struggling against almost overwhelming odds for so many months, received the glad tidings of American intervention with unbounded joy, and at once sent representatives to the United States to arrange for co-operation in the invasion of Cuba, and to assist in planning a systematic campaign against the Spanish forces. Every arrangement was completed for final action and with men and money, munitions of war and ships, all in ample supply, it was evident that the crucial test was soon to come, and that war was at last an actual fact.
In gratitude of Spain to the Great Discoverer Who Gave Her a New World—How Spain's Evil Colonial Policy Lost the Western Hemisphere to That Obsolete Nation—Early Settlement of Cuba— Character of the Natives at the Time of the Discovery—Founding of the First Cities—Havana Becomes the Island Capital—Docility of the Natives and Their Extermination by Spanish Oppressors.
Cuba and Columbus are names inseparably connected. This largest and most fruitful island of the Spanish Main was discovered by the great navigator himself on the 28th day of October, 1492, only a short time after his first landing upon the soil of the western hemisphere on the island of San Salvador. There is a sentimental association to Americans in the thought that the discovery of our own continent was due to the pioneer expeditions sent from Spain. But any regret in one's mind that animosities have risen between the two nations, may be mollified by the memory that Columbus was himself an Italian, that it had required years of his efforts to induce sufficient interest on the part of Spanish monarchs to father his undertaking, and that his life in the service of Spain was marred by the basest ingratitude on the part of those whom he had served.
Upon the handsome monument erected to the memory of Columbus inSeville by Ferdinand and Isabella, is the simple inscription, "ACastile y Leon, nuevo mundo dio Colon"—"to Castile and Leon,Columbus gave a new world."
This was the tardy recognition granted to the discoverer by those to whom he had made the marvelous gift. Recognition had been denied him in his life, except after years of persistent urging, second only to those years he wasted in his effort to arouse Spanish interest and enterprise. Once he was removed from his West Indian governorship and returned to Spain in chains. The titles and honors which had been promised him before, were denied after he had earned them. He was a victim of foul ingratitude, and no American need permit sentiment to blind him for the sake of Columbus.
The splendid new world which Columbus gave to Spain, was the most marvelous addition of territory that has ever come into the possession of any nation upon earth. It included the whole of South America, except Brazil, which was acquired by Portugal, and the small colonies known as British, Dutch and French Guiana. It included the whole of Central America and Mexico. It included the whole of what is now the United States west of the Mississippi river. It included the whole of the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and the peninsula of Florida to the southern limit of Alabama and Georgia, and except for a few scattered islands, it included every foot of land in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean sea, all the coral rocks, as well as the greater islands of the West Indies and the Antilles. To-day not a foot of all that enormous possession remains to Spain undisputed, except the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico. These hundreds of thousands of square miles are inhabited by a free and peaceful people, most of them as republics, and the few exceptions under civilized and liberal colonial policies. Spain's hold on Cuba has vanished and Puerto Rico is slipping away. Spain could not preserve the gifts of Columbus.
The logic of events and the progress of civilization have commanded that Spain should withdraw from her possessions in the western hemisphere. Never has there been such a record of ferocity and barbarity in conquest, as that which blackens the pages of Spanish history in connection with Spain's acquisition and subjection of her newly discovered territories. Whether it was the peaceful Indians of the Antilles, the highly civilized Aztecs of Mexico, or the Incas of Peru, the policy pursued was always the same. First, treacherous friendship, then robbery and massacre, then slavery, and finally extermination, was the unvarying programme. And so, instead of winning favor and loyalty with their consequent happiness and prosperity from the native tribes, Spanish conquerors implanted in the possessors of the country an over-mastering and ineradicable hatred, which grew with association, until in colony after colony the bonds were burst by violence.
When Great Britain lost her American colonies by reason of her misgovernment and oppression of them, it was a lesson which her people never forgot. From that day, the colonial policy of the British government was altered, and the spirit of liberality and generosity began to dominate. To-day, every colony of Great Britain that enjoys representative government—Canada, Australia, Cape Colony and many others, owes to the United States the liberty which Great Britain grants.
But Spain could learn no such lessons. Her cruelty and misgovernment aroused colony after colony to rebellion ending in freedom, but her policies remained unaltered. One by one possessions of fabulous wealth dropped away until at last this old crone of nations has been left to shiver alone by her fireside, abandoned in her misery by all the children whose memory of her is nothing but that of vicious cruelty. The only pity to which Spain is entitled, is the pity that is due for her ignorance and her mistakes, not pity for the penalties that these have brought upon her.
Spain was once the intellectual leader of the world, as well as the pioneer of discovery. Spanish universities were centers of learning long before northern Europe had its intellectual birth. Spanish mariners sailed every sea and Spanish adventurers explored every land. If learning and advancement bring obligations, as they are admitted to do, it was Spain's obligation to be a leader in strife for liberty of mind and body, but the two most notable things in her history are the Spanish inquisition against freedom of thought, and the Spanish ferocities which enslaved a new world for many a year. Now she has reaped the harvest of her own misdeeds.
Every one knows that Columbus was not looking for a western hemisphere, but for the Orient, and that when he found Cuba he believed he had reached the East Indies and the islands of gold and spice which had been reported from that mysterious land. His first island discoveries he believed to be the outlying portions of that eastern archipelago and when the natives told him of a greater land near by, which he reached a few days later, he believed that at last he had reached Cipango, as Japan then was called.
The first name given to the island was Juana, in honor of Prince Juan, the son of Ferdinand and Isabella of Aragon and Castile. After Ferdinand's death, in his honor the name was changed to Fernandina. Still later it received the name of Santiago, as a mark of reverence for the patron saint of Spain, and another change was made a few years afterward, when the inhabitants, as a proof of their piety, called it Ave Maria, in honor of the Holy Virgin. In spite of all this effort at establishing a Spanish name, the original Indian name of Cuba, which it bore when the great navigator first landed on its shores, has asserted itself triumphantly through all the centuries and is now ineradicable.
According to the accounts given by Spanish writers who were contemporary with the discovery, and the century immediately following, the aboriginal inhabitants of Cuba were a generous, gentle, hospitable people, by no means energetic, but heartily cordial and courteous to the strangers who reached their shores. The mildness of their climate did not stimulate them to much activity in cultivation of the soil, because tropical fruits and vegetables came with scarcely an effort on the part of the natives. Their implements and utensils were crude and their life simple.
The system of government was by no means complicated. The island was divided into nine independent principalities, each under a Cacique, all living in harmony, and warfare being almost unknown. Their religion was a peaceful one, without human sacrifices or cannibalism, but the priests had great power through their pretense of influence with spirits good and evil.
Of all the people discovered by the Spanish in their colonization of the western hemisphere, the Cubans were the most tractable to the influences of Christianity so far as their willingness to accept the doctrines was concerned. Christianity, as practiced by the Spanish conquerors, was scarcely that of the highest type of the faith, and the inducements to accept it were somewhat violent. Nevertheless it must be noted that it is from Spanish sources this testimony as to the docility of the Cuban natives comes. Under these circumstances it becomes a magnified crime that the Spanish conquerors absolutely exterminated the hundreds of thousands of native Cubans whom they found at the time of the discovery, and that within little more than a century, there was absolutely not a trace of native stock to be found anywhere in the island.
When Columbus first rested his eyes on the island of Cuba it seemed to him an enchanted land. He was charmed with its lofty mountains, its beautiful rivers, and its blossoming groves, and in his account of the voyage he said: "Everything is green as April in Andalusia. The singing of the birds is such that it seems as if one would never desire to depart. There are flocks of parrots that obscure the sun. There are trees of a thousand species, each having its particular fruit, and all of marvelous flavor."
Columbus was first of the opinion that he had found an island, but after following the shores for many miles he concluded that it was a continent. He retained the latter belief until his death, for it was not until 1508 that the island was circumnavigated, when it was discovered that it was of about the same area as England. In a subsequent expedition he reached the coast of South America, but he had no appreciation of the magnitude of that continent, and to him Cuba was the grandest of his discoveries in the New World.
Cuba was twice visited by Columbus after its discovery, in April, 1494, and again in 1502, and these visits but confirmed his first opinion regarding the salubrity of the climate and the wealth of the soil. His sailors wrested from the natives large sums of gold and silver, and this led to the mistaken belief that mines of great richness were within their grasp.
Biography furnishes no parallel to the life of Columbus. Great men there have been who have met with injustice and disappointments, but there is perhaps no other instance of a man whom disappointments and injustice did not dishearten and disgust; who had his greatness recognized in his lifetime, and yet was robbed of the rewards that it entitled him to.
It is probable that before his death Columbus confided his belief in the wealth to be found in Cuba to his son Diego Columbus, for in 1511 the latter fitted out an expedition for the purpose of colonizing the island. This company consisted of about 300 men, under Diego Velasquez, who had accompanied the great explorer on his second voyage. The first settlement was made at Baracoa, in the extreme eastern section, and this village was regarded as the capital of the colony for several years. In the meantime extensive settlements had been made by the Spaniards in the island of Jamaica, and in 1514 the towns of Santiago and Trinidad were founded on the southern coast of Cuba, in order that the inhabitants of the two colonies might be brought into closer communication. As immigration increased, other towns of importance sprung up, and the island became the base for the various operations against Mexico. Baracoa grew largely in population, and the towns of Puerto Principe and Sancti Espiritus were established in the central section, and San Juan de los Remedios on the north coast. In July, 1515, the city of San Cristobal de la Habana was planted, deriving its name from the great Discoverer, but this name was transferred in 1519 to the present capital, and the original town was called Batabano.
In 1518 the capital was fixed at Baracoa, which had by this time become a city of considerable importance, and the diocese of the colony. In 1522 both the seat of government and the bishopric were removed to Santiago de Cuba. In 1538 Havana was reduced to ashes by a French privateer; and to prevent a similar disaster in future, the Castillo de la Fuerza, a fortress which still exists, was built by Fernando de Soto, governor of Cuba, and afterwards famous for his explorations in the southern and western portions of North America, as well as for the discovery of the Mississippi.
Using a modern expression, this great fortress, added to her almost perfect harbor, gave Havana a wonderful "boom," and the city experienced a remarkable growth. The Spanish merchantmen were actively employed in carrying the wealth of Mexico to the Peninsula, and Havana was a convenient port for them to secure supplies of provisions and water. In 1549 Gonzales Perez de Angulo was appointed governor of the island, and he was so impressed with the beauties of the city, that he chose it as his residence. Several of his successors followed his example, and in 1589 it was legally made the capital of Cuba.
The early records of the island were kept in so imperfect a manner that it is not possible to give an accurate account of the early governors and their lieutenants. It is certain, however, that the seat of government was at Santiago de Cuba, and that Havana and other towns of minor importance were ruled by lieutenants. In 1538, Hernando de Soto, adelantado of Florida, and also governor of Cuba, landed at Santiago, and remained a few days before proceeding to the mainland. On his departure he left the government of the island in charge of a lady, Dona Isabel de Bobadilla, and gave her for a colleague Don Juan de Rojas, who had at one time been lieutenant governor of Havana. It is from this date that the gradual transference of the seat of power from Santiago to Havana may be said to have arisen.
Don Antonio de Chavez assumed the government in 1547, and he it was who gave Havana its first regular supply of water, bringing it a distance of about six miles from the river Chorrera.
The early settlers devoted themselves principally to the raising of cattle, paying very little attention to agricultural pursuits, or in fact to any means of livelihood that called for manual labor. Much time and money was wasted in explorations for gold and silver, but these were invariably unsuccessful, for while the precious metals have occasionally been found in the island, the quantity has never been sufficient to repay the labor of the search.
Nothing more interesting for the conclusion of this chapter can be offered than Columbus' own account of his first view of the island of Cuba. It is as follows
"When I reached Juana, I followed its coast to the westward, and found it so large that I thought it must be mainland, the province of Cathay; and as I found neither towns nor villages on the sea coast, but only some hamlets, with the inhabitants of which I could not hold conversation, because they all immediately fled, I kept on the same route, thinking that I could not fail to light upon some large cities or towns. At length, after the proceeding of many leagues, and finding that nothing new presented itself, and that the coast was leading me northwards (which I wished to avoid, because the winter had already set in, and it was my intention to move southwards; and because moreover the winds were contrary), I resolved not to wait for a change in the weather, but to return to a certain harbor which I had remarked, and from which I sent two men ashore to ascertain whether there was any king or large cities in that part. They journeyed for three days, and found countless small hamlets, with numberless inhabitants, but with nothing like order; they therefore returned. In the meantime I had learned from some other Indians, whom I had seized, that this land was certainly an island; accordingly, I followed the coast eastward for a distance of 107 leagues, where it ended in a cape. From this cape I saw another island to the eastward, at a distance of eighteen leagues from the former, to which I gave the name of La Espanola. Thither I went and followed its northern coast, (just the same as I had done with the coast of Juana), 118 full miles due east. This island, like all others, is extraordinarily large, and this one extremely so. In it are many seaports, with which none that I know in Christendom can bear comparison, so good and capacious that it is a wonder to see. The lands are high, and there are many lofty mountains, with which the islands of Tenerife cannot be compared. They are all most beautiful, of a thousand different shapes, accessible, and covered with trees of a thousand kinds, of such great height that they seem to reach the skies. I am told that the trees never lose their foliage, and I can well understand it, for I observed that they were as green and luxuriant as in Spain in the month of May. Some were in bloom, others bearing fruit, and others otherwise, according to their nature. The nightingale was singing, as well as other little birds of a thousand different kinds, and that in November, the month in which I was roaming amongst them. There are palm trees of six or eight kinds, wonderful in their beautiful variety; but this is the case with all other trees and fruits and grasses. It contains extraordinary pine groves and very extensive plains. There is also honey and a great variety of birds, and many different kinds of fruits. In the interior there are many mines of metals, and a population innumerable."
Present Men of Prominence Are Types of Those Who Were InfamousYears Ago—Roman Rule in Spain—Weakness of Spanish Power ofResistance—Discoveries in America—Horrors of the Inquisition—Spanish Rule in Holland—Expulsion of the Moors—Loss of AmericanColonies—Later History of Spain.
The signal fact that will present itself to the student of Spanish history is that from the earliest times the country has been in a continual state of conflict, internal, with its colonies, and with other nations; and seldom has it been a war of defense. In almost every instance Spain has been the aggressor. The Spaniard has ever been perfidious, avaricious, ferocious. In his veins still flows the blood of Ferdinand, of Torquemada, and of Philip II. Weyler is a prototype of Alva, and in Blanco we find another Antonio de Mendoza. Spain is the China of modern Europe. Her spirit is still the spirit of the inquisition. Her policy is not to conciliate, but to coerce; not to treat justly, but to rob and enslave; and her dependence is the ignorance and superstition of her people.
All reforms wrung from rulers must first be baptized in blood, and it is possible that the end of the present century may see a new nation, built on the ruins of the old, which will be a credit to civilization, instead of a disgrace.
Prior to the first war between Rome and Carthage, which ended 241 BC, there is little or no authentic information regarding the history of the country now known to the world as Spain. To the ancients it was a land of mystery and enchantment, the home of the setting sun; and Iberia, as they called it, was but a name for an indefinite extent of territory in the far west, peopled by barbarous Celts and Iberians, with a few Phoenician settlements, for the purposes of trade, on its southern coasts.
At the close of the first Punic war, Hamilcar Barca, at the head of a Carthaginian host, crossed the strait of Gibraltar and commenced the conquest which his son Hannibal completed, and which resulted in the undisputed supremacy of Carthage throughout almost all of Spain. This brings us to 218 B. C. and marks the beginning of the second Punic war, when the Roman legions first entered Spain. After a struggle which lasted for thirteen years the Carthaginians were completely routed, and the country was conquered by the arms of Rome. It was many years, however, before the inhabitants were really subdued, but eventually they became more completely Romanized than any province beyond the limits of Italy. When brought under the iron rule of the Empire they were forced to desist from the intestinal wars in which it had been their habit to indulge, and adopting the language, laws and manners of their conquerors, they devoted themselves to industrial pursuits, and increased remarkably both in wealth and numbers. Their fertile fields formed for a considerable time the granary of Rome, and from the metal-veined mountains an immense amount of gold and silver flowed into Roman coffers. However, these were not voluntary offerings of the natives. They were compelled to labor in the mines for the benefit of strangers, and thus Spain, in the early ages, was the type of Spanish America in the fifteenth and succeeding centuries, with the difference that in the first case the Spaniards were the slaves, and in the second they were the slave-holders.
For more than 300 years Spain remained under Roman rule, until in 409 AD, hordes of barbarians crossed the Pyrenees and swept over the Peninsula. Suevi, Alani and Vandals ravaged with equal fury the cities and the open country, and brought the inhabitants to the lowest depths of misery. They were finally subjugated by a Visigothic host, and in 415, Walia, a war-like and ambitious chief, established the West-Gothic kingdom in Spain, on the ruins of the old Roman province. Walia concluded a treaty with the Emperor Honorius, and, putting himself at the head of the brave Goths, in a three-years' war he destroyed or drove the barbarians from the land. Spain, thus reconquered, was nominally subject to Rome, but soon became really independent, and began to be the seat of a Christian civilization. This West-Gothic kingdom lasted for about three centuries, from 418 to 711, when it fell before the Moorish invasion.
Few things in history are more remarkable than the ease with which Spain, a country naturally fitted for defense, was subdued by a mere handful of invaders. The misgovernment of the Visigoths, the internal factions and jealousies, and the discontent of numerous classes, notably the Jews, co-operated to facilitate the conquest and to weaken the power of resistance. These conquerors were of the Mohammedan faith, but while they were united by religion, they were of different races. Besides the Moors there were the Arabs, the Egyptians and the Syrians, and when the task of conquest was achieved, and the need for unity removed, quarrels arose between them. So difficult was it to prevent these quarrels, that it was found necessary to subdivide the conquered territory, and to allot separate settlements to the different tribes.
During the period of Moorish domination a number of small independent kingdoms were formed in opposition to Moslem rule. These comprised Castile, Leon, Navarre and Aragon, and sometimes separately, sometimes in combination, they were in constant war with the common enemy. The age of the great crusades came, and all Christendom was absorbed in the struggle against the infidel, both in the East and West. Spain, like Palestine, had its crusading orders, which vied with the Templars and the Hospitallers both in wealth and military distinction. The decisive battle was fought in July, 1212, when the combined forces of Castile, Leon, Navarre, Aragon and Portugal met the Mohammedan army, and gained the most celebrated victory ever obtained by the Christians over their Moslem foes, the latter losing, according to the account transmitted to the pope, 100,000 killed and 50,000 prisoners. The king of Grenada was speedily forced to become a vassal of Castile, and from this period all danger from Moorish rule was over.
Following this time until the different kingdoms became as one, there is nothing in their history deserving a detailed account. The history of Spain as a united state dates from the union of Castile and Aragon by the marriage of Isabella and Ferdinand, the respective rulers of those kingdoms, in 1469. Grenada, the last remaining possession of the Moors, fell before the Spanish forces in 1492, and Navarre was acquired in 1512.
The year 1492, during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, witnessed the discovery of America. Spain had become consolidated into one empire from the Pyrenees to the strait of Gibraltar, and civil wars were at an end. Maritime exploration was the task of the age, and under the patronage of Isabella, Columbus planted the flag of Spain in the West Indies. This grand achievement led to the opening of a splendid continent, teeming with riches, for Spanish adventure and despoliation. In 1498, Columbus landed on the continent of South America, and in a few years the entire western coast was explored by subsequent adventurers. In 1512, Ponce de Leon discovered Florida, and the following year, Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Darien, and gazed for the first time upon the Pacific.
The history of Spain, in connection with its discovery and settlement of the New World, is one long record of revolting crime. New England was settled by a people who came to turn the wilderness into a city, but the Spanish invaders went to the southern shores to turn the cities of the natives into a wilderness. In Mexico and Peru they found a civilization the equal and in many respects the superior of their own. With cross and sword in hand, in the name of religion, but with the lust for gold in their hearts, their coming was invariably a signal for every kind of attack that malignity could devise or avarice invent. Wherever they went, desolation followed them. They looted the towns, pillaged the cities, murdered the people; they burned alike the hovels of the poor, and the palaces of the rich.
The value of the treasure that Spain secured from Mexico and Peru never can be known accurately; but it is certain that within sixty years from the time of the landing of Columbus she had advanced to the position of the richest and most powerful nation in Europe. Victorious in Africa and Italy, Philip II, who was then the reigning monarch, carried war into France, and ruled in Germany, as well as in those provinces now known as Belgium and Holland. The money necessary to carry on these vast wars of conquest was undoubtedly acquired in the New World. When Cortez approached the palace of Montezuma, the King's messengers met him, bearing presents from their lord. These gifts included 200 pounds of gold for the commander, and two pounds of gold for each of his army. Prescott, in his "Conquest of Peru," says that when the Spanish soldiers captured the capital of that country they spent days in melting down the golden vessels which they found in temples and palaces. On one voyage a single ship carried to Spain $15,500,000 in gold, besides vast treasures of silver and jewels.
The Inquisition was a tribunal in the Roman Catholic church for the discovery, repression and punishment of heresy and unbelief. It originated in Rome when Christianity was established as the religion of the Empire, but its history in Spain and her dependencies has absorbed almost entirely the real interest in the painful subject.
As an ordinary tribunal, similar to those of other countries, it had existed there from an early period. Its functions, however, in those times were little more than nominal; but early in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, on account of the alleged discovery of a plot among the Jews to overthrow the government, an application was made to the Pope to permit its re-organization. But in reviving the tribunal, the Crown assumed to itself the right of appointing the inquisitors, and of controlling their entire action. For this reason Catholic writers regard the Spanish inquisition as a state tribunal, and refer to the bull of the Pope, Sixtus IV., protesting against it. Notwithstanding this protest, however, the Spanish Crown maintained its assumption. Inquisitors were appointed, and in 1483 the tribunal commenced its terrible career, under Thomas de Torquemada.
The inquisition arrested on suspicion, tortured for confession, and then punished with fire. One witness brought the victim to the rack, two to the flames. The prisoner was not confronted with his accuser, nor were their names ever made known to him. The court was held in a gloomy dungeon at midnight, a dim light gleamed from smoking torches, and the grand inquisitor, enveloped in a black robe, glared at his victim through holes cut in the hood. Before the examination, the accused, whether man, maid or matron, was stripped and stretched upon the rack, where tendons could be strained without cracking, bones crushed without breaking and the body tortured without dying.
When the prisoner was found guilty, his tongue was cut out, so that he could neither speak nor swallow. On the morning of the execution a breakfast of rare delicacies was placed before the sufferer, and with ironical invitation he was urged to enjoy his last repast. Then the prisoner was led to the funeral pyre, where an address was given, lauding the inquisition, condemning heresy, and commanding obedience to the Pope and the Emperor. Then, while hymns were sung, blazing fagots were piled about the victim, until his body was reduced to a heap of ashes.
Some conception of the appalling cruelty of the inquisition under Torquemada may be formed from the statement that during the sixteen years of his tenure of office nearly 10,000 persons were condemned to the flames, and the property of 97,000 others was confiscated.
Horrible as the atrocities of the inquisition were in the mother country, it is doubtful if they ever reached the acme of savage cruelty that they attained during the period when Spain was seeking to strengthen the fetters with which she nominally held Holland in her grasp. The Spanish government, from the time when it first acquired a place among nations, has never been satisfied with a reasonable tribute from its dependencies. Its plan ever has been to exact all, and leave nothing to supply more than a miserable existence. So it was in the middle of the sixteenth century, when Philip II., greedy of the treasures of Holland, determined to spoil them of their wealth, and planned to establish the inquisition among them by the sword.
The duke of Alva, already famous for his harshness and bigotry, was named commander of the forces, with almost unlimited powers. He entered the Netherlands with about 20,000 tried troops, ready for cruelties, and all hopes of peace or mercy fled before them. There was a great and desperate exodus of the inhabitants; thousands took refuge in England, Denmark and Germany, and despair and helplessness alone remained to greet the cold Spaniard and his train of orthodox executioners. The Council of Troubles—the "Blood-tribunal"—was immediately established, and the land was filled with blood. In a short time he totally annihilated every privilege of the people, and with unrelenting cruelty put multitudes of them to death.
The more the peasants rebelled, the crueler were the methods of Alva. Men were tortured, beheaded, roasted before slow fires, pinched to death with hot tongs, broken on the wheel, flayed alive. On one occasion the skins of leaders were stripped from their living bodies, and stretched upon drums for beating the funeral march of brethren to the gallows. During the course of six years Alva brought charges of heresy and treason against 30,000 inhabitants, and made the infamous boast that, in addition to the multitudes killed in battle and massacred after victory, he had consigned 18,000 persons to the executioner.
This unholy war with the Netherlands lasted with occasional cessations of hostilities for eighty years, and during its progress Spain buried 350,000 of her sons and allies in Holland, spent untold millions in the attempted destruction of freedom, and sunk from the first power in Europe, an empire whose proud boast it had been that upon her possessions the sun never set, to the level of a fourth-rate country, cruel in government, superstitious in religion, and ever an enemy to progress.
In addition to the terrible drain upon the country from losses in war, the expulsion of the Jews and the Moors was productive of the direst results. In 1609 all the Moriscoes were ordered to depart from the Peninsula within three days. The penalty of death was declared against all who failed to obey, and against any Christians who should shelter the recalcitrant. The edict was obeyed, but it was a blow from which Spain never recovered. The Moriscoes were the back-bone of the industrial population, not only in trade and manufactures, but also in agriculture. The haughty and indolent Spaniards had willingly left what they considered degrading employment to their inferiors. The Moors had introduced into Spain the cultivation of sugar, cotton, rice and silk. In manufactures and commerce they had shown superiority to the Christian inhabitants, and many of their products were eagerly sought for by other countries. All these advantages were sacrificed to an insane desire for religious unity.
The reigns of Philip III. and Philip IV. witnessed a fearful acceleration in the decline of Spain by the contests with the Dutch and with the German Protestants in the Thirty Years' War, the wars with France, and the rebellion of Portugal in 1640, which had been united to Spain by Philip II. The reign of Charles II. was still more unfortunate, and his death was the occasion of the war of the Spanish succession.
Under Charles III. (1759-1788), a wise and enlightened prince, the second great revival of the country commenced, and trade and commerce began to show signs of returning activity. Previous to his accession to the throne, Spain appeared to be a corpse, over which the powers of Europe could contend at will. Suddenly men were astounded to see that country rise with renewed vigor to play once more an important part on the international stage. Commerce and agriculture were developed, native manufactures were encouraged in every way possible, and an attempt was made to remove all prejudices against trade, among the nobles. Meritorious as these reforms were, it would give a false impression to represent them as wholly successful. The regeneration of Spain was by no means accomplished, and many of the abuses which had been growing for centuries, survived the attempt to effect their annihilation. One of the chief causes of this failure was the corruption and ignorance of the lower officials; and a large portion of the population remained, to a great extent, sunk in sloth and superstition, in spite of all that was done in their behalf.
During the inglorious reign of Charles IV. (1788-1808), who left the management, of affairs in the hands of the incapable Godoy, (at once the queen's lover and the king's prime minister), a war broke out with Britain, which was productive of nothing but disaster to the Spaniards. Charles finally abdicated in favor of his son, the Prince of Asturias, who ascended the throne as Ferdinand VII. Forced by Napoleon to resign all claims to the Spanish crown, Ferdinand became the prisoner of the French in the year of his accession, and in the same year, Joseph, the brother of the French emperor, was declared King of Spain, and set out for Madrid to assume the kingdom thus assigned him. But Spanish loyalty was too profound to be daunted even by the awe-inspiring power of the great Napoleon. For the first time he found himself confronted, not by terrified and selfish rulers, but by an infuriated people. The rising on Spain commenced the popular movement which ultimately proved fatal to his power.
In July, 1808, England, on solicitation, made peace with Spain, recognized Ferdinand VII. as king, and sent an army to aid the Spanish insurrection. Joseph invaded the country on July 9, defeated the Spaniards at Rio Seco, and entered Madrid on the 20th. But the defeat of Dupont at Baylen by the veteran Spanish general Castanos somewhat altered the position of affairs, and Joseph, after a residence of ten days in his capital, was compelled to evacuate it.
Meanwhile Sir Arthur Wellesley, afterwards Duke of Wellington, at the head of the British auxiliary force, had landed at Mondego bay, and began the Peninsular war by defeating the French at Roliza and Vimiero. In November, 1808, Napoleon, who had been preceded by Ney with 100,000 men, entered Spain and assumed the command. For a time his armies were completely successful. In less than a week the Spanish forces were broken through and scattered, and Joseph was returned to Madrid. The victory was a short-lived one, however, for, in April, 1809, General Wellesley arrived in Portugal and at once commenced operations. By dint of masterly generalship and bold enterprise he finally succeeded in driving the French from the country. Napoleon, loth to lose his hold in the Peninsula, sent Soult, his most trusted general, to stop the ingress of the British into France, but the battles of the Pyrenees, (24th July 1st August, 1813), and of the Nivelle, Orthez, and Toulouse, in the beginning of 1814, brought to a victorious conclusion this long and obstinate contest.
After the convulsions it had endured, Spain required a period of firm but conciliatory government, but the ill fate of the country gave the throne at this crisis one of her worst rulers. Ferdinand VII. had no conception of the duties of a sovereign; his public conduct was regulated by pride and superstition, and his private life was stained by the grossest dissipations.
For six years Spain groaned under a "Reign of terror," and isolated revolts only served as the occasion for fresh cruelties. The finances were squandered in futile expeditions to recover the South American colonies, which had taken advantage of Napoleon's conquest of Spain to establish their independence. In his straits for money, Ferdinand ventured to outrage national sentiment by selling Florida to the United States in 1819. Louisiana had been ceded to France in 1803, and when Mexico gained her independence in 1822, the last of the territory under Spanish rule in North America was lost to her.
The reign of Ferdinand's daughter, Isabella II., was disturbed by the Carlist rebellion in 1834-1839, in which England aided the Queen with an army commanded by Sir De Lacy Evans. Spain, under Isabella II., presents a dismal picture of faction and intrigue. Policies of state had forced her into a distasteful marriage with her cousin, Francis of Assisi, and she sought compensation in sensual indulgences, endeavoring to cover the dissoluteness of her private life by a superstitious devotion to religion. She had to contend with continual revolts, and was finally compelled, in 1868, to abdicate the throne and fly to France for her life.
A provisional government was formed with Serrano as President, and a new constitution was formed, by which an hereditary king was to rule, in conjunction with a senate and a popular chamber. The throne was offered to Amadeus of Aosta, the second son of Victor Emmanuel, in 1870, and he made an honest effort to discharge the difficult duties of the office. But he found the task too hard, and too distasteful, and resigned in 1873. A provisional republic was then formed, of which Castelar was the guiding spirit. But the Spaniards, trained to regard monarchy with superstitious reverence, had no sympathy with republican institutions. Don Carlos seized the opportunity to revive the claim of inalienable male succession, and raised the standard of revolt. Castelar finally threw up the office in disgust, and the administration was undertaken by a committee of officers. Anarchy was suppressed with a strong hand, but it was obvious that order could only be restored by reviving the monarchy. Foreign princes were no longer thought of, and Alfonso XII., the young son of the exiled Isabella, was restored to the throne in 1874. His first task was to terminate the Carlist war, which still continued in the North, and this was successfully accomplished in 1876. He died in 1885, and the regency was entrusted to his widow, Christina of Austria. On May 17th, 1886, a posthumous son was born, who is now the titular King of Spain.
Spain's Stolen Treasures from Mexico and Peru Tempt Her EuropeanRivals—The Spanish Main the Scene of Piratical Plundering forMany Years—Havana and Other Cities Threatened—Great BritainTakes Santo Domingo—American Troops from the British ColoniesCapture Havana—Victory on Land and Sea Is Saddened by ManyDeaths of Brave Americans from Fever—Lessons of the First Captureof Havana.
After the acquisition of rich and populous countries in the western hemisphere had begun, Spain discovered that her new-found wealth was not to be hers without a struggle. From the harbors of Mexico and Peru, Spanish galleons sailed with their loads of treasure, stolen from the Montezumas and the Incas. Year after year, rich argosies, laden with gold and silver to replenish the extravagant treasury of the Spanish crown, crossed the seas. The Atlantic ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean sea were furrowed with the keels of Spanish fleets, at a time when the European nations scarcely maintained the pretense of friendship with one another.
It was hardly to be expected that these rich prizes should go unmolested. England and France knew quite well that they were plundered from the native treasuries of the new world, and no reason appeared why Spain in turn should not be robbed of her plunder. So the Spanish Main, the Caribbean sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and the adjacent waters, became the haunt of buccaneers and pirates, some under flags of European nations, and others under the black flag. Desperate fights were the lot of almost every Spanish galleon that sailed those seas, and fabulous prizes sometimes were taken under the skull and crossbones. Spanish men of war sailed back and forth to convoy the merchant fleets, but their protection was not always sufficient. Pirates could obtain frigates with guns as good as those of Spain, and with the temptation of wealth before them they braved conflict whenever it was necessary.
The harbors of Key West, the Dry Tortugas and others along the Florida keys, as well as many of those in the Bahamas, the West Indies and the Antilles, were the haunts of buccaneers and privateers who careened their ships on shore for repairs, or held high revel on the beaches after their triumph over some Spanish treasure fleet. Those were bloody days, full of dramatic excitement. From them some of the most notable writers of fiction have drawn their tales, which entertain readers of to-day.
What was done with all the gold thus garnered in sea fights before it reached the ports of Spain, is hard to know. Sometimes mysterious strangers appeared in the seaport towns of France and England and even the American colonies in their younger days, to spend money lavishly for a short time and then disappear as mysteriously as they came. These men were reputed to be pirate chiefs seeking relaxation from their customary life. Others of the buccaneers hoarded their wealth in hiding places known only to themselves, the secret of which must have died with them, while the gold remains undiscovered. All through the Florida keys and the West India islands, as well as along the coasts of Georgia and the Carolinas, traditions still exist in relation to these treasure hoards. Sanguine people are still digging in the sands of these beaches, in the hope that some day they will unearth a sea chest full of Spanish doubloons, or the golden ornaments stripped from Aztec idols. Some finds indeed have been made, but those who make them are not apt to reveal the secret which might guide another to a successful search.
Having discovered the wealth that could be obtained by attacks upon the Spanish fleets, the pirates began to think of the cities which were themselves the source of much of this wealth. The result of this was that they began to make descents upon the coasts, not only of Cuba, but of the neighboring islands of Jamaica and Santo Domingo. The expense occasioned by the attempts to suppress these incursions became so great toward the end of the sixteenth century, that it became necessary to impose a special tax to cover it.
Fortresses at all the fortified harbors were improved, and the power of the military officials increased as their importance increased, and that of the civil governors diminished. It was as a direct result of these conditions that the office of Captain General was created, in which the governor shared military and civil authority alike. Havana fortifications were hastened to completion and the preparations for defense began, which never have been materially improved to this day. The three fortresses of El Morro, La Punta and La Cabana were built before the end of the sixteenth century and still were standing as the most effective defenses of Havana when our war with Spain began.
It was during the same period, that African negroes were first introduced into Cuba. Slavery had proved so severe upon the aborigines, that their numbers had almost reached the vanishing point, and there was a lack of sufficient labor for the cultivation of tobacco and sugar cane, the chief products of Spanish agriculture in the island. It was to promote the production of these new luxuries that the African slave trade was begun. A royal license from the King of Spain was obtained to guarantee the privilege of importing negroes.
Then began that foul commerce which was another black stain on the history of Spanish colonization of the western hemisphere. Spanish ships descended upon the African coasts and kidnapped thousands of negroes for service in the Cuban cane and tobacco fields. The horrors of the trade cannot be magnified and are too distressing for repetition. It is sufficient to say that in Havana it is understood that the harbor was free from sharks which now swarm there, until they followed the slave ships from the African coasts in multitudes, for the feast of slaves who were thrown overboard on the long voyage. Scores and hundreds of Africans died during the journey, from the hardships they were compelled to undergo, and Havana harbor itself was the last grave of many of these hapless ones.
It was just after the middle of the seventeenth century and during the rule of Oliver Cromwell in England, that the Spanish governors of Cuba began to fear an attack by a British fleet. A squadron sailed in 1655 with the design of capturing Jamaica, a purpose which was easily accomplished. That island was taken by Great Britain, the Spanish forces defending it were utterly defeated, the governor was killed, and many of the inhabitants removed, in consequence, to Cuba. From Jamaica the same fleet sailed for Havana, but the attack was repulsed and the ships abandoned the attempt. Except for the encroachments of the French upon the island of Santo Domingo, and the continual piratical incursions of French and English buccaneers, the Spanish in the West Indies were not threatened with any more hostilities except by their own internal dissensions until 1762. At that time Spain and England were at war, Spain in alliance with the French, and it was decided by the British government that Cuba was a vulnerable possession and a valuable one that ought to be taken.
The capture of Havana by forces under the English flag fills little space in the history of England and Spain, because of the magnitude of the interests involved elsewhere. It is almost forgotten in America, in spite of the bearing of all its contemporary incidents upon the rapidly approaching revolution, and yet it was an achievement of the colonial troops and consequently the first assault upon Cuba by Americans.
It was an event of the first importance in its own day and contained lessons of the first moment for the guidance of those who had to plan the conduct of the war against Spain in 1898. It proved that American troops under efficient officers could take the field with success against double their number of Spaniards fully provisioned and strongly intrenched. It proved that Havana could be successfully assaulted by a combined military and naval force, regardless of her picturesque but obsolete fortifications. Spain's lack of administrative ability in the later war as well as in the first, destroying any advantage to be derived from balls and cannon. On the other side it proved that Americans had to look forward to a considerable loss of life as a result of climatic conditions, if they attempted to conduct hostile operations in Cuba during the summer season.
The utter incapacity for straightforward, pertinacious fighting, which both Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington found in the Spanish army during the Peninsular war, was as conspicuous fifty years before, when the Americans took Havana, and may rightly be argued as perpetually inherent in the national character; for though the annals of Spain are filled with instances of individual courage of the first rank, demoralization sets in as soon as they come together in numbers in the face of a civilized foe. Their chief maneuver in the course of a century and a half, has been just plain running away. The victorious Wellington, seeing his Spanish allies running for dear life just after he had whipped the opposing French line in the last battle of the peninsular campaign, was moved to remark that he had seen many curious things in his life, but never before 20,000 men engaged in a foot race.
Yet the fight made by the Spaniards in Havana during the attack of the British and colonial forces in 1762 is the one notable instance of a prolonged struggle between men who speak English and men who speak Spanish. History may be searched in vain, either in the old or new world, for a defense as able in point of generalship or as stubborn in resistance as the Spaniards made at the siege of Havana. In all other cases, from the Elizabethan campaigns in Holland to the war with Mexico, the men educated in the Spanish school of arms have been content to spend their energies upon a single assault and then flee, sometimes even when the odds were greatly in their favor.
The English Armada left Portsmouth on March 5th, 1762, under the command of the gallant Admiral Pococke and Lord Albemarle, the force moving in seven divisions. It consisted of nineteen ships of the line, eighteen frigates or smaller men-of-war, and 150 transports containing about 10,000 soldiers, nearly all infantry. At the Island of Hayti, then called Hispanola, the British were joined by the successful expedition from Martinique. Together they sat down before Havana, July 6th, 1762.
Spain, suffering, as it suffers to-day, from intellectual dry rot, had known for weeks of the intended beleaguerment. Then, as now, nothing adequate was done to meet it. The Governor of Havana, the Marquis de Gonzalez, was a gallant soldier, as he was to prove; but that ounce of prevention which is proverbially worth more than the pound of cure, was not taken by him, and the British found the fortifications in a partially ruinous condition, and the fourteen ships of the line which were lying in the harbor before the city in such a state that they could hardly be called in commission. The Spanish army of defense numbered 27,000 men, and was in better condition; but the Spanish sailors were utterly demoralized by the granting of too much shore liberty, and the best use the Spaniard could put his fighting ships to was by sinking them at the entrance to the anchorage to prevent the entrance of the British fleet. Once the enemy was before the city, however, all was activity. The fortifications, which were too newly erected to be quite incapable of repair, were set in order, the guns of Morro Castle and of the fort known as the Puntal, across from it, were trained on the advancing foe, and the Spanish ships were sunk, as has been said.
Those familiar with the history of English administrative methods during this period will find little to choose between them and the methods of Spain. The season of the year most unwholesome to the inhabitants of a temperate climate had already set in, with all its train of pestilences, when the British arrived. Though deluged by the tremendous rains of the tropics from day to day, the water supply was wholly insufficient, and the little obtainable was so tainted as to make its use fraught with danger. There was no pilot who knew the roadstead in order to lead the ships against the Morro and the Puntal for many days. In throwing up the parallels and approaches to the walls of the city on the landward side, the soldiers found such scarcity of earth, the blanket over the rocks being of the thinnest sort, that this necessary material for covering an attack had to be brought from a distance. Then, too, it was charged with the germs of disease, and all who handled it suffered extremely. Despite all the precautions of the officers, the sanitary condition surrounding the camp was horrible, and the troops died like dogs.
Meanwhile there was a large force of British regulars in North America, stationed there ever since the fall of the French empire in the new world in 1760. Four thousand of these soldiers were gathered in New York City. To them the colonies of East and West Jersey added a regiment of 500 men, New York another of 800, while Lyman raised a full thousand in Connecticut. When these, too, had been assembled in New York, Lyman was made Brigadier General of the colonial troops, and his Lieutenant Colonel, Israel Putnam, was made Colonel of the Connecticut soldiers in his stead. This was the same Putnam who fought the wolf single-handed in its cave, and who was to take that breakneck ride a few years later to escape the very troops with whom he was now associated. The entire force of 2,300 provincials under General Lyman's command was not a mere bevy of raw militia. Nearly all of them had seen service against the French in those well trained and active forces which were given the general name of "Rangers;" the officers especially, of whom Putnam was hardly more than a type, being men of extended experience. The fact that so many men were willing to volunteer in this arduous and, as it turned out, desperate service for the King, speaks volumes for what could have been done with such men had Pitt and not Bute been at the head of the English nation at that time. The advices from Havana showed that the army there was in great need of reinforcements, so by great efforts the regulars and provincials were stowed way in fourteen transports, and with an escort of a few frigates they set sail for the South about the middle of May. There were the usual shouts of an admiring populace and the tears of sweethearts and wives; but it is easy to say that there would have been no rejoicing if the people of Connecticut, the Jerseys, and New York could have foreseen that hardly one of every fifty of their volunteers would see his home again.
Just before the arrival of these welcome reinforcements on July 20, some English merchantmen had come along with cargoes of cotton bags, which were pressed into immediate use for the lines which were now closing around Havana; and in the ships were also found several pilots. Then the forces from the North came amidst general rejoicings, but without Putnam and 500 of his Yankees. These, in a transport which was skirting the dangerous coast much too closely, were shipwrecked on one of the treacherous shoals thereabouts. Putnam, with true New England fertility of resource, extemporized rafts from the fragments of the vessel and got all his men ashore without the loss of a life. They landed near the City of Carthagena, threw up breastworks, and were found ready to repel a force of thousands of Spaniards when the ships from before Havana arrived for their rescue, their own companions wisely pressing on and sending aid back from the headquarters.
The American troops went bravely to work, engaging themselves chiefly with the undermining of one of the walls. To reach this it was necessary for them to pass along a narrow eminence where they were in plain view and easy range of the Spaniards. A number were lost in this dangerous enterprise, but their valor was dimmed neither by this nor by the still heavier losses which came upon them through the diseases prevalent in every portion of the British camp. Though men of such hardiness that they must have been equal in resisting power to the British, their losses were comparatively much greater, proving that they occupied positions of greater danger, either from bullets or the fevers of the region.
Five days after the arrival of the reinforcements, Lord Albemarle judged himself sufficiently strong to assault Morro Castle, and the word was accordingly given. The sunken ships were blown up early on the morning of July 25, and the British ships sailed into the fury of the Spanish cannon, belching shot from all along the shore. The big guns of the ships could not be elevated sufficiently to silence the fire from Morro Castle, and this was accordingly left to be carried by assault. The Puntal was silenced, troops landed, and after five days of ferocious fighting, in which the British and American losses were enormous by reason of their exposed position, and where every one concerned exhibited the utmost valor, Morro Castle was carried by the bayonet. The fighting within its walls after an entry had been made was exceedingly fierce. The Marquis of Gonzalez was killed by his own cowardly men for refusing to surrender. The cannon from the other Spanish batteries were turned upon the Morro as soon as the Spanish flag had been lowered, and the British ensign run up in its place; and then the slow and disastrous work of the siege was taken up again.
As the lines grew nearer and nearer, and the last hope of the Spaniard for relief was given up, there was the usual attempt made to buy the attacking party off. Though it would have been a hopeless undertaking at any time, the amount offered for the ransom of the city was so far below the treasure which was known to be in the town that the offer was made a subject for derisive laughter. Fifteen days after Morro Castle had fallen, though the mortality in the trenches was so great that a few weeks more must have seen the abandonment of the enterprise, the city fell, the garrison stipulating for a passage out with all the honors of war, which was freely accorded them, owing to the climatic predicament in which Lord Albemarle found himself. It was also stipulated that private property should be respected. This was strictly observed, though Spain had set repeated examples of giving a captured city over to plunder in the face of a stipulation to the contrary.
August 14, 1762, the British entered, the glory of their victory over such heavy odds even then dimmed by the enormous mortality. It was reckoned that the few days of August had wrought more damage to the invading forces than all the weeks of hard labor and open assault which had gone before. In the city—the Havannah, as it was then called—treasure was found to the amount of $7,000,000, much of it in such shape that there had been abundant time to withdraw it either to Spain or into the interior of the island, had there been any other than Spaniards at the head of affairs.
The occupancy of the British and colonial forces lasted but a few months. Lord Albemarle, with $120,000 of the prize money as his personal share, received notice of the conclusion of the treaty of Paris and withdrew his army to Great Britain. A single ship sufficed to remove the shattered remnant of the soldiers from Connecticut, the Jerseys, and New York. Twenty-three hundred sailed; barely fifty returned. It was a part of the good fortune of America—all of the good fortune, to be exact—which brought Colonel Israel Putnam safely home again, though the paralysis which shortened his labors not many years after the Declaration of Independence was unquestionably due to his exposure to the vertical sun of Cuba and to the poisons of its pestilential coast.
In the hands of George III., then King of England, all this suffering and deprivation amounted to virtually nothing. He was a coward at heart, a man who could not even avail himself of such hardly gained victories. The peace of Paris was signed, and by its terms George yielded up Cuba and the Philippines again to the power that has never ceased to misuse the advantages so obtained.
The belief gained ground in Havana, in 1807, that the English government again contemplated a descent on the island; and measures were taken to put it in a more respectable state of defense, although, from want of funds in the treasury, and the scarcity of indispensable supplies, the prospect of an invasion was sufficiently gloomy. The militia and the troops of the garrison were carefully drilled, and companies of volunteers were formed wherever materials for them could be found. The French, also, not content with mere preparations, made an actual descent on the island, first threatening Santiago, and afterwards landing at Batabano.
The invaders consisted chiefly of refugees from St. Domingo; and their intention seems to have been to take possession with a view to colonize and cultivate a portion of the unappropriated, or at least unoccupied, territory, on the south side of the island, as their countrymen had formerly done in St. Domingo. Without recurring to actual force, the captain-general prevailed on them to take their departure by offering transportation either to St. Domingo or to France.