CUBA U 1851 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 AUTHENTIC STATISTICS OF THE POPULATION, AGRICULTURE AND 
 COMMERCE OF THE ISLAND FOR A SERIES OF YEARS, 
 
 OrnCIAL AND OTHEE DOCUMENTS 
 
 IN RELATION TO THE 
 
 EEVOLUTIONAEY MOYEMENTS OF 1850 AND 1851. 
 
 J 
 
 BY ALEXAE"DEK JOITES. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 STRINGEH & TOWNSEND, 222 BROADWAY^ 
 
 COENER OF ANN STREET. 
 IS51. 
 
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 PREFACE. 
 
 The following work has been undertaken with a knmHe 
 desire to disseminate, in a popular form, more general and cor- 
 rect information regarding the island of Cuba. 
 
 Recent events have drawn the attention, not only of our own 
 citizens, to Cuban affairs, but have also attracted the serious no- 
 tice of the leading journals and people of Europe. 
 
 The subject is not confined to the excitement of the moment 
 growing out of the late transactions on the island. General 
 T OTDez and his party may be swept from existence, and undis- 
 \ d quiet apparently reign ; yet, the end will not be reached, 
 any seilous considerations will force themselves upon the 
 re ^ard of the political economist, the philanthropist, and states- 
 i-ian, with respect to the future destiny of Cuba. 
 
 Those who look to the public weal of states, must understand 
 the past, and learn from its experience, lessons to guide and 
 light them in the path of the future. 
 
 The time will arrive, shape our course as we may, when the 
 Cuban question will force itself upon our notice, and challenge 
 the most grave consideration. It will, sooner or later, assume 
 an importance of no ordinary interest. To be prepared for any 
 turn it may take, and to steer a course that shall secure the 
 safety, as well as the honor and interest of the coimtry, should 
 be the anxious desire of every American. 
 
 In the compilation of the statistical information of the island 
 we have found some discrepancies as to the exactness of figures. 
 
VI PEEFACE. 
 
 The census, witli commercial and other statistical details, do not 
 seem to have been arranged with such scrupulous care as mat- 
 ters of similar character are usually prepared in the United 
 States, France, or England. Still, the results have generally 
 ]3roved more satisfactory than were reasonably to have been ex- 
 pected, considering that not much value is usually placed upon 
 such knowledge by the mass, who are expected to aid in supply- 
 ing it. The author has also to put in a plea for the indulgence 
 of the reader. His time for composition has been exceedingly 
 limited, and in the hurry of preparing the work for the press, 
 he has been compelled to overlook, or to omit, many subjects 
 that would likely have interested the reader. It was the irregu- 
 lar labor of a few days, confined to hours between the calls of 
 other daily pursuits, or taken from the time usually allotted for 
 sleep. 
 
 In arranging the 'plan of the work it was not deemed neces- 
 sary to go back to the colonial history of the island, which is so 
 fully set forth in Dr. Robertson's work, and dwelt upon in the 
 publications of subsequent authors, including the work of Rich- 
 ard K. Kimball, Esq., entitled " Cuba and the Cubans." The 
 object has been as far as possible to set out Modern Cuba to the 
 latest moment of the present year before the public. 
 
 In treating with matters touching the late revolutionary 
 movements, including those of Puerto Principe and Santiago, 
 with the late expedition of Lopez, much difficulty was experi- 
 enced in reconciling conflicting accounts, so as to arrive at a 
 tolerable and intelligible narrative of facts. 
 
 And in some cases we have been compelled to give such state- 
 ments as presented the best claims to probability, in the absence 
 of more positive information. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
CUBA. 
 
 This island retains the name given to it hj the Indians or 
 Aborigenes. It is about 800 miles long, by a variable breadth of 
 from 25 to 130 miles. 
 
 According to Humboldt, it contains an area of 43,380 square 
 miles ; while Mr. Turnbull estimates it as 1o\y as 32,807. 
 
 The extent of territory is put down by the statistics of 1850, 
 at 731,7Y3 caballerias, each caballeria being about 33 acres. Of 
 this, 65,67T caballerias are under cultivation ; 99,615 consist of 
 natural pasturage, 3T,204 of artificial pasturage, 409,826 of 
 woodlands. The balance, 189,255 caballerias, is barren or 
 uncultivated land. 
 
 A ridge or cordillera of mountains stretches centrally through 
 the island, from east to west, having strips of comparatively 
 level land, of unequal width between their base and sea-shore. 
 
 The mountains are said to approach nearer the coast on the 
 north, than on the south side. 
 
 The land immediately on the sea-shore and bays is generally 
 low and flat, rising but little above the level of the sea. 
 
 The climate differs with the elevation of the country. On the 
 northern mountain slopes of 300 to 400 feet above the level of 
 the sea, during the prevalence of north winds in winter, frost 
 and ice are sometimes seen, but no snow. 
 
 The hottest months of the year are July and August, when 
 the mean tem^perature is said to be about 82° to 84° Fahr. 
 The coldest months are December and January, when the tem- 
 
8 CUBA EST 1851. 
 
 perature ranges about 10° below tliat of the tropics at the same 
 period. 
 
 The beat at the warmest season is mucb relieved bj sea and 
 land breezes. 
 
 The island is mostly exempt from hurricanes, so common in 
 other West India islands. 
 
 The productions of the vegetable and animal kingdoms are 
 too well known to require any detailed description. 
 
 The soil is known to be one of the most fertile in the world. 
 The range of mountains referred to are chiefly composed of cal- 
 careous or limestone rock, which, after undergoing decomposi- 
 tion, is washed into the valleys and plains, where, mixing with 
 clays and silicious earths, it forms the most fertile soil. 
 
 The greater part of the land on the island is said to be richer 
 than the best j)ortions of St. Domingo, or Guiana. Tobacco is a 
 native of the island, while the finest mahogany abounds in the 
 forest. It is needless to add that the island abounds in the finest 
 tropical fruits of all kinds. 
 
 But the articles which are cultivated to the greatest extent, 
 and form the chief staples, are sugar, tobacco and coffee ; though 
 indigo, rice, cotton, and Indian corn, can all be grown, such is 
 the variety of the soil and climate. 
 
 The great fruitfulness and beauty of the island justly entitle 
 it to be called " The Queen of the Antilles^ 
 
 The position of the island is remarkable. It stretches away in 
 a sort of crescent from east to west, throwing its western end into 
 a curve, as if to form an impregnable barrier to the outlet of the 
 Gulf of Mexico, as though it, at some ancient period, had formed 
 a part of the American continent, and had been severed on its 
 north side from the Florida peninsula, by the wearing of the 
 Gulf stream, and from Yucatan, on its southwestern point, by a 
 current setting into the gulf. 
 
 Its political position, all concede to be vital to the United 
 States, and especially so to the Yalley of the Mississippi. This 
 is apparent, from the slightest inspection of the map. 
 
CtJBA IN 1851. 11 
 
 In tlie possession of a maritime power at war with the United 
 States, om- whole trade in the Gulf of Mexico, embracing that of 
 'New Orleans, would be at its mercj, as well as the safety of our 
 intercourse with California by the various peninsular transits to 
 the Pacific. The extent of our trade, including imports and exports 
 passing on one side or the other of Cuba, and our California 
 trade, probably amounts to over $200,000^000 per annum. In 
 the event of war with a strong maritime power, should the 
 enemy occupy Havana on one side, and Yucatan on the other, 
 he could do much towards destroying the trade of I^ew Orleans. 
 The exports which now leave the mouth of the Mississippi 
 would — estimated at $114,000,000 per annum — then be com- 
 pelled to seek Atlantic ports, through the agency of railroads 
 and canals connecting them with the western rivers. During the 
 late war with Great Britain, cotton had to be wagoned from the 
 Carolinas and Georgia, to Baltimore and Philadelphia. 
 
 Momentous as these political considerations are, yet, under 
 existing treaties, American citizens have no right to invade' 
 Cuba with views of conquest. But when it becomes apparent 
 that wide-spread disaffection prevails among the Creole or native 
 white population towards the government by which they are 
 Unmercifully . oppressed, and it is known that portions of the 
 people of the island have risen in rebellion, the citizens of the 
 United States, then, have a perfect right to emigrate to the 
 island, and to aid the insurgents in establishing their indepen- 
 dence, and if captured, they cannot, under the laws of nations, 
 be treated as pirates. Hence the brutal and summary execution 
 of the fifty Americans was an act in direct violation of the laws 
 of nations and of humanity. 
 
 A declaration made in advance of an intention to violate the 
 laws of nations by a government, does not justify the com- 
 mission of the act when tlie case arises ; hence, the previous 
 threats of the Government cannot be plead as an excuse for a 
 deed of such gross barbarity. For further remarks on this subject 
 we refer the reader to other parts of this work. 
 
12 ciTBA m 1851. 
 
 Before proceeding further it may be remarked that, beyond 
 the copper mines at Cobre, near Santiago, worked by an English 
 company; and others near Santa Clara, worked at one time by 
 an American company, few minerals of value have been found 
 on the island. In some localities coal is said to exist. 
 
 The copper mines in 1841 yielded about four millions of dol- 
 lars' worth of ore, which was sent to England to be smelted. But 
 the exactions of the Government were such that they greatly re- 
 duced the yield of the ore. An export duty of 5 per cent, was at 
 first imposed upon the ore exported. Finally the exportation was 
 prohibited unless shipped to old Spain, with a view of compell- 
 ing it to be smelted in that country. These measures soon re- 
 duced the value of the ore from four millions in 1841 to about two 
 millions in 1845, and the American company, we believe, ceased 
 operations. Since then the Government has relaxed, and im- 
 posed the present duty of about $1,Y5 per ton ; but the former 
 prosperity of the mines has not been restored. 
 
 The mountains it is supposed, contain valuable minerals— but 
 no geological survey of the island has been made. 
 
 The great and inexhaustible wealth of Cuba lies in her rich 
 soil, which, under the influence of an active, intelligent, and free 
 population, would soon be converted into the garden spot of the 
 world. 
 
 As far back as 183Y the imports of Cuba were |23,921,251.02, 
 and the exports $22,920,251. The total amount of revenue for 
 the same year was $9,056,231.06. Of the imports, $1,373,962 
 were from England, and 6,541,955 from the United States — the 
 exports to each country being in about the same relative propor- 
 tion. It is remarkable how the growth of Cuba has grown up in 
 trade and population ^a^^ passu with the growth of the United 
 States. 
 
 In 1Y75, about the commencement of our revolution, we find 
 the trade of the island insignificant and confined chiefly to 
 the town of Santiago de Cuba on the south side. A writer 
 states that, "It is only of late years that Cuba has assumed 
 
CUBA m 1861. 13 
 
 an important position in the Spanish monarchy, yet, we ven- 
 ture to say, there has seldom "been witnessed a more rapid 
 advancement than this island has attained — far surpassing the 
 other Spanish colonies with whom its prosperous state forms a 
 painful contrast." 
 
 The population at the respective periods has been as follows : 
 
 1775, - .- - - 170,000 
 
 1791, . _ - . 272,000 
 
 1817, ... - 698,000 
 
 1827, - - - - 730,000 
 
 1841, - - ' - - 1,007,624 
 
 1846, .... 898,752* 
 
 1850, - - - - 1,247,230 
 
 Increase from 1775 to 1850, seventy-five years, 1,0YY,230. 
 The increase in the imports, exports, and revenues of the isl- 
 and has been no less remarkable. 
 Total imports, exports, and revenues of Cuba for 19 years from 
 
 1828 to 1847: 
 
 1828. 
 Imports. Exports. Revenues. 
 
 $19,534,922 $13,414,362 $9,086,406 
 
 1847. 
 32,389,117 27,998,770 12,808,713 
 
 Increase in 19 years. 
 $12,854,197 $14,584,408 $3,722,307 
 
 The imports and exports for 1848 fell ofP some, owing to the 
 year '47 having been deficient in provisions and breadstufis in 
 Cuba, on account of a drought, &c. They were as follows for 
 1848 : Imports, 25,435,565 ; exports, 26,077,068. 
 
 The above statistics exhibit a most extraordinary growth, and 
 the greatest increase has been on the north side of the island next 
 the United States. 
 
 In 1847 and 1848 the imports and exports of Cuba were di- 
 vided between Spain, England, France, and the United States, as 
 follows : 
 
 1847. 
 
 
 184 
 
 :8. 
 
 Imports. 
 
 Exports. 
 
 Imports. 
 
 Exports. 
 
 U.States.$ 10,892,335 
 
 8,880,040 
 
 6,933,538 
 
 8,285,928 
 
 Spain, 7,088,750 
 
 6,780,058 
 
 7,088,750 
 
 3,927,007 
 
 England, 6,389,936 
 
 7,240,880 
 
 4,974,545 
 
 7,064,798 
 
 France, 1,349,683 
 
 1,940,535 
 
 1,349,683 
 
 1,184,201 
 
 
 * Probably incorrect, 
 
 
 •" 
 
14 CUBA m 1851. 
 
 The entries and clearances of vessels of tlie foregoing respec- 
 tive nations were as follows : 
 
 1847. 1848. 
 
 Entries. Clearances. Entries. Clearances. 
 
 United States, 2,012 1,722 1.733 1,611 
 
 Spain, 819 751 875 747 
 
 England,. 563 489 670 348 
 
 France, 99 81 85 63 
 
 The exports of molasses from the following ports in 1849, 
 were, with the exception of about 23,000 hogsheads, made to the 
 United States : From Havana, 36,692 ; Matanzas, 68,597 ; Car- 
 dinas, 65,Y5T. Total, 163,000 hhds. Of which about 141,046 
 were taken by the United States. 
 
 The foregoing statistics exhibit the great stake the United 
 States has in Cuba. 
 
 It will be seen that our trade with her, both in imports and 
 exports, vastly outstri23S that of any other nation. While the 
 number of vessels trading to the island in 1847, is more than 
 double those of Spain, and exceeds those of England and France, 
 both combined, more than four-fold ; yet, an armed interven- 
 tion, hj those two jpoioers, against its, in the affairs of Cuba, has 
 teen hinted at ! ! 
 
 Cuba has been made, to a great extent, what she is by Amer- 
 ican trade and enterprise. Had the island been placed on the 
 coast of Spain, or near the coast of Europe, even with her pre- 
 sent soil and climate, does, or can any one believe, that her 
 growth, within the past nineteen or twenty years, would have 
 been so great as it has been in its present position near the 
 United States ? 
 
 As a further proof of the great prosperity Cuba has derived from 
 American trade, we have only to compare the growth, in po- 
 pulation and commerce, of the towns On the north side of the 
 island with those on the south side. "We have only to state that 
 the population, imports and exports of the towns of Havana, 
 Matanzas and Cardinas, alone, on the north side, excel those of 
 all the towns on the south side. The south-side towns, of which 
 Cuba de Santiago is the chief, do not, in any respect, equal more 
 
CUBA EST 1851. 15 
 
 than about 25 per cent, of tlie trade of the island. Before 
 American Independence, the principal trade of the island was 
 conducted from the south side, through Santiago, which was 
 most convenient to Jamaica and St. Domingo. A large number 
 of Americans own estates in Cuba. 
 
 EAILEOADS. 
 
 The first railroad was that opened from Havana to Guimez, forty- 
 five miles, in 1839, and constructed under the direction of Mr. 
 Cruger, an American engineer. 
 
 In 1848, the number of miles of railroad, it was supposed, in 
 the aggregate, reached 285 miles, and 85 more were projected. 
 
 They connect Havana, by a main line and branches, to 
 Guinez, and Batabano on the south side ; Cardinas and Matanzas 
 on the north side. From Cardinas to Jucaro, from Matanzas to 
 Sabanilla and Colisco. From ISTeuvitas, a road extends to 
 Puerto Principe; another from Cuba Santiagoio^ the Copper 
 Mines. Others are contemplated from Reniedios to Cair- 
 barien, and from Cienfuegos to Yilla Clara, and also between 
 other points on the island. The total amount invested in these 
 roads is estimated to be between five and six millions of doUars. 
 
 It is believed that some of the Americans residing on the 
 island, who &a]oj privileges under the government, are opposed 
 to its ever becoming annexed to the United States, fearing the 
 competition of American enterprise. 
 
 TAXES. 
 
 The taxes of Cuba are enormous. In 1836, the government 
 revenu.es amounted to $9,227,266.02, and in 1847, they had 
 increased to $12,808,713. The government constantly augments 
 the taxes in the most arbitrary manner. It is said, fearing the 
 resistance of the people, they always augment the troops with 
 every increase of taxation. A writer, speaking of Cuba in 
 1847, states that "the people are taxed beyond any other known 
 community,' — its half million of whites paying more than twelve 
 millions annually, a trifling portion of which is expended on 
 the island in other than means to keep them in subjection." 
 
16 CUBA IN 1861. 
 
 The tariff is exceedingly heayj, and operates very seriously 
 upon produce from tlie United States. The tariff was increased, 
 the present year (1851), both on exports and imports, and the 
 number of troops increased about the same time, the pretext 
 being the fear of a foreign invasion. The export duty (always a 
 direct tax on the producer) on box sugars was raised from 50 
 cents pel box to 87|-. On leaf tobacco it was raised to 25 cents 
 per quintal. On the thousand cigars, 25 cents per thousand. 
 And an additional amount of one-seventh of one jper cent, on all 
 imports in national vessels, and one per cent, on those in foreign 
 vessels. This, added to one-half per cent, added in November 
 1850, makes it \\ per cent. The aggregate duties by the late 
 increase on all imports arriving in foreign vessels, now amount 
 to 35| per cent. On foreign flour there is a fixed duty of $10, 
 to which, if we add the l^ per cent., with other charges, the 
 duty will amount to about $10.50, swelling the cost to the 
 consumer in Cuba to about $16 per barrel. On flour from 
 Spain, in Spanish vessels, the duty was formerly $2.50 per barrel, 
 increased since, it is said, to about $6 per barrel. This enormous 
 tax on flour prevents its use in the island, except by the wealthy 
 classes. 
 
 The poor and oppressed Creole whites are compelled to 
 use the dry and insipid Casava root as a miserable substitute 
 for bread. This exclusion of American flour from Cuba ope- 
 rates as a great drawback to American trade. If our flour 
 was admitted at a moderate duty, it would augment our com- 
 merce with the island. 
 
 The importations of flour into Cuba in 184T and 1848 were as 
 follows : — 
 
 f Imports of Flour. 1847. 1848. 
 
 From Spain, 175,870 212,944 bbls. 
 
 From America, 69,373 18,176 " 
 
 Total, 235,243 231,119 « 
 
 It will be seen by this statement that the consumption of flour 
 -was less in 1848 than in 184Y, and that the imports from the 
 United States fell off to 18,1Y5 in 1848. For the same ^^ear our 
 
CUBA m 1851. 17 
 
 imports from Cuba exceeded our exports by $1,352,390. Flour 
 forms one among the largest articles of export with. us. ' The 
 estimation of its consumption among our people is put down at 
 about one and a Tialf barrels per head, per annum. Some esti- 
 mate the consumption as high as eight bushels of wheat per 
 head. But let us for the sake of calculation suppose the free popu- 
 lation of Cuba are capable of consuming only one barrel per head, 
 per annum. ]^ow the free population of Cuba, including stran- 
 gers, soldiers, &c., amounts to about 600,000. This would give 
 rise to a demand, under a moderate duty, for 600,000 barrels of 
 iiour ; valued at $4.50 per barrel in the United States, would 
 make the sum of $2,Y00,000 per annum. If we allow half a 
 barrel to each of the slaves — 436,000 — it would require 218,000 
 barrels, making a total for the island of 818,000, equal in value, 
 at $4.50 per barrel, to $3,681,000. Can it be wondered at that 
 the balance of trade is against us, when so large an article of our 
 produce is excluded from the island ? Under a fair tariff how 
 could Castile, 4,000 miles off, compete with us within three or 
 four days sail, and with such a vast supply of cheap flour ? Hogs 
 are subjected to a duty of six dollars each, and all other articles 
 including bacon, lard, pork, &c., to about thirty-five and a half 
 per cent,, ad valorem. "While these almost prohibitory duties 
 are imposed upon our exports sent to Cuba, we only impose an 
 ad valorem duty of about thirty per cent, on sugar, molasses, an(i 
 tobacco, and admit their coffee duty free. 
 
 ISTo foreign vessel under eighty tons can import goods into 
 Cuba on deposit. The tonnage duties are $1 50 j)er ton, for 
 foreign vessels, or 75 cents for vessels carrying more than 1,000 
 hogsheads sugar, which were formerly much higher. 
 
 The $12,000,000 revenue taxes are not the only plunder the 
 people have to endure. The church comes in besides for its 
 share. 
 
 One-tenth of all the Oanado (produce) of the farms, is paid toi 
 the church. Everything is taxed in Cuba, except the air the 
 people breathe, and the light of the sun. The Government is 
 
18 CUBA m 1851. 
 
 paid six per cent, on the gross amount of the sales of "lands, 
 mines, houses, negroes, &c., amounting to about four millions of 
 dollars. There are taxes on domestic manufactures, on butchers' 
 meat, lotteries, hucksters, and on the sale of papal bulls, stamp 
 paper, cock and bull fights. 
 
 Foreigners landing in the island have to pay $2 for a pass- 
 port, and give security for good conduct, called " Fiador^'^ His 
 baggage is searched, and a Bible, if found with other contraband 
 books, under the ban of the Church or Government, is taken 
 from him. Khe wishes to go into the interior he must ]3ay two 
 shillings more for a passport. When he leaves the island, he 
 has to pay $7.50 for the privilege. A free country indeed ! 
 What glorious liberty, which a certain class of Americans per- 
 haps desire, to see jperjpetuated forever ! ! 
 
 The native white or Creole population on the island is more 
 than ten to one of the Spaniards, hence they feel and realize the 
 monstrous oppressions of the government in all their force. 
 
 If the taxes gathered from the poor creatures were spent on 
 the island in advancing their industrial and intellectual progress, 
 it would be quite another affair, and render the monarchal au- 
 thority more tolerable. 
 
 Estimating the taxes alone at twelve millions, and the poj)ula- 
 ^tion of the island at one million, it would make it equal to $12 
 per. head; but when levied on about five hundred and sixty 
 thousand white inhabitants, it would be equal to the enormous 
 sum of near $24 per head — some authors have made the esti- 
 mate as high as $38 per head. The taxes in the United States 
 for the support of the national government, direct and indirect, 
 average only about $2 per head. And that, included with taxes 
 for state, local, and municipal purposes, in no part of the country 
 probably exceeds $5 per head. The Spaniards on the island are 
 only about 35,000 strong, while that of the Creole amounts to 
 520,000. The Spaniards as a class are rich, intelligent, aristo- 
 cratic, and supercilious. They look down upon the Creoles as an 
 inferior race whom they wish to see kept in a state of ignorance, 
 
CUBA IN 1851. 19 
 
 dependence, and servitude. The fact is, Spain has struggled 
 later and harder than any other power to keep up the feudal 
 customs and laws of past ages ; she has done her best to preserve 
 those despotic fetters which bind the minds and spirits of her 
 subjects in unchanging ignorance and superstition. To make 
 the subject the abject slave of two precious masters, kingcraft 
 and priestcraft. 
 
 When the Spanish colonies of South America and Mexico 
 gained their independence, such as unabated priestcraft permits 
 it to be, and Florida with Louisiana fell into the possession of the 
 United States, large numbers of loyal and wealthy Spanish Dons 
 and noblemen abandoned them, and removed with all their 
 eifects, some to Spain, but a large number to Cuba, who carried 
 with them also the feudal prejudices of their government. The 
 35,000 Spaniards of Cuba comprise a large number of families 
 of this class, who are as loyal to the crown of Spain, and as 
 scornful towards republicanism, as the American loyalists of 
 ISTova Scotia were at the close of our revolution. The inveterate 
 innate pride of a Castilian Don peculiarly fits him for a disciple 
 of feudalism. Hence they combine with the Spanish crown to 
 keep the Creoles in ignorance and degradation. Education in 
 the island is at a very low ebb. In the whole population of 
 about one million of souls in 1850, 605,560 of whom are white 
 people, 205,5T0 free colored, there were only 222 schools, attend- 
 ed by 8,442 white children, and 540 free colored children ! And 
 such schools ; a mere mockery of education ; a flummery of 
 church dogmas and catechisrns, with perhaps a little music and 
 drawing to divert their minds from more serious and useful 
 studies, such as would shed light on the truths of science, or 
 upon their inalienable and sacred political, and social rights. 
 The .wealthy Spaniards send their sons to European colleges to 
 become educated. 
 
 Is it wonderful then that the more intelligent of the enslaved 
 Creoles, who live in such close proximity to ourselves, who from 
 the great trade and intercourse we have with the island, hear of 
 
20 CUBA IN 1851. 
 
 our liberty and progress, and witness tlie glorious results of our 
 independence, and wide-spread intelligence, and freedom, should 
 sigh to imitate our example, and to strike for their own inde- 
 pendence, casting off forever the threadbare and tottering mon- 
 archy of Spain, which retains little of its former existence ex- 
 cept its feudal oppression. And when they, though ignorant, 
 feeble, and undisciplined as the Creoles are, strike for liberty, is 
 it piracy for citizens of the United States to aid them ? And 
 can they be butchered like dogs by Spanish authority without 
 calling down the execrations of a civilized world ? 
 
 Christian civilization demands the revolution of Cuba as a 
 means of abolishing the slavetrade. 
 
 Mr. TurnbuU, an English a%vthor^ states, that the people of the 
 island are opposed to the continuance of the African slavetrade, 
 as our colonial governments were, including Yirginia, whose 
 House of Assembly passed an act against the continuance of it 
 which the king refused to sanction. This formed one of our 
 grievances set forth in the Declaration of Independence, say- 
 ing the king refused to sanction laws of " the most wholesome 
 character." 
 
 Mr. Turnbull affirms, that " The -trade is protected 'by the 
 Spanish government for the purpose of retaining more securely 
 in Her Catholic Majesty'^s obedienceP 
 
 Another writer on Cuba states that the slave dealer pays the 
 Governor General half an ounce of gold on each slave imported 
 as a sort of " douceur," and that the amount has been doubled. 
 He affirms that the Count d'Alcoy, the predecessor to Concha^ 
 received about $200,000 from this source in a single year ! 
 
 The cultivators of the soil believe that if the slavetrade were 
 abolished their present slaves would be greatly enhanced in 
 value. An able bodied negro man in Louisiana, worth jfrom 
 $800 to $1000, would bring only $300 to $400 in Cuba. The 
 enhancement in their value would secure more humane and 
 careful treatment. 
 
 But now, such are the facilities for obtaining slaves from 
 
CUBA m 1851. 21 
 
 Africa that they are badly treated, and severely driven, hence 
 their numbers soon become thinned, and require replenishing. 
 
 Mr. TurnbuU, in 1838-39, estimated the average annual impor- 
 tation of African slaves into Cuba, at 23,000. Yet, from the cen- 
 sus stated, the slave population has been nearly stationary, showing 
 that the destruction of life is nearly equal to the births and the 
 foreign importation combined. This is seen from the following 
 table : 
 
 Whites. 
 418,291 
 
 665,560 
 
 POPULATIOlSr IK 1841. 
 
 Free Colored. 
 152,838 
 
 IN 1850. 
 
 204,570 
 
 Slaves. 
 436,495 
 
 436,100 
 
 / 
 
 Increase, 146,279 61,732 
 
 Decrease, 395 
 
 In 1846 another table estimates the slaves as low as 323,'7'r9, 
 which is probably an error. 
 
 We thus see, notwithstanding the annual importation of Afri- 
 can slaves, that during the last nine years they have actually de- 
 creased 395, showing a fearful loss of human life attributed to 
 the infernal traffic in African slaves. Surely if an end could be 
 put to the slavetrade in Cuba by its independence, or annexation, 
 the change should enlist the warmest support and sympathy of 
 every sincere philanthropist in the United States, where no Afri- 
 can slavetrade exists, and where the slaves being so much more 
 valuable, and kindly treated, their increase has been quite rapid ; 
 keeping up about the same ratio as that of the whites in the 
 Southern States, or rather exceeding it. 
 
 The increase in the slave population of the United States is 
 shown by the following statement : 
 
 1830. 1840. 1850. 
 
 Slaves, 2,009,045 2,487,213 3,122,873* 
 
 Increase, 478,170 635,661 
 
 Nearly 25 per cent, for each decade. 
 
 * Official and estimated by the press. 
 
22 CUBA m 1851. 
 
 The mortalitj among the blacks of Cuba is said to be large, 
 and the natural increase small ; owing to the sexes being une- 
 qual in number. The males greatlj exceed the females, as it is 
 likely more of them are introduced from Africa than females. 
 By the census of 1846 there were set down 201,011 males to 
 122,748 females, in the proportion of nearly two to one. Had 
 the slaves increased in Cuba as rapidly as in the United States 
 for the last nine or ten years, the population would have aug- 
 mented 100,000, instead of falling below the returns of 1841. 
 
 Abolish the slavetrade in Cuba, as the Creoles wish, and the 
 same results will follow. The very first grand result obtained by 
 Cuban independence or annexation would be the total destruc- 
 tion of the slavetrade, the prevention of the annual subjuga- 
 tion of 23,000 miserable Africans, and their rescue from bondage 
 and death ; while the condition of the present 436,000 slaves, 
 by an increase of value, would be greatly ameliorated and elevat- 
 ed. This would not be all ; the spirit and love of knowledge 
 would spring up in the island ; schools and colleges multiply ; a 
 free press pour forth its echoes, and the mission of a higher, 
 and nobler, G-od-like religion shed its undying and humanizing 
 light abroad over every mountain top and fertilizing plain. Who 
 shall say that God has not a great work to fulfill in the destiny of 
 Cuba ? And who shall say that the blood of fifty Americans drank 
 by her soil, is not the first, yet mysterious link in the hand of Provi- 
 dence for carrying forward and accomplishing His own great and 
 inscrutable purposes ? 
 
 A strong objection has been made to the annexation of Cuba 
 on the ground that it would greatly injure, if it did not destroy, 
 the planting interest of the South, and particularly of Louisiana, 
 in the cultivation of the sugar cane. "No reasoning can be more 
 fallacious. 
 
 At the present time the most formidable competition in Cuba 
 which our southern planters have to contend against is not so 
 much owing to her climate and soil as to cheap slave labor, and the 
 cheap food on which they are fed, or rather starved: The differ- 
 
CUBA IN 1851. 23 
 
 ence of raising sugar with grown slaves at a cost of $300 to 
 $400 per head in Cuba, and at a cost of $800 to $1000 per head 
 in Louisiana, makes a wide difference, equal to more than 50 per 
 cent., and which enables Cuba to supply our markets in opposi- 
 tion to our own planters. The cost of feeding and clothing our 
 slaves, under kinder treatment, cost our planters probably 25 
 per cent, more than those of Cuba. What tariff short of prohi- 
 bition can equalize these differences, which would oppress our 
 own people. But let Cuba become independent, or annexed to 
 the United States, and an end put to the African slavetrade, as 
 would naturally follow, the negroes of Cuba would then rapidly 
 advance in value to equal those of Louisiana ; and by introduc- 
 ing our flom', meal, and provisions to feed them the expense of 
 supporting them would also be more nearly equal, and hence the 
 present unequal contest would cease. 
 
 "We find the following among the official police regulations in 
 force at Havana : 
 
 " All colored persons^ slaves or free^ that arrive from foreign 
 countries, shall be. sent immediately to a depot (prison) prepared 
 by the government for that purpose, where they shall remain 
 until the moment of leaving rthe island, or they can remain on 
 board the vessel, provided the consignee will give a bond of 
 $1000, to be forfeited in case they leave her, which bond shall 
 not be cancelled until the return of the boarding officer, on the 
 departure of the vessel." 
 
 This is a regulation, which we should think as deserving the 
 attention of the English government, as that of the municipal 
 authorities of Charleston ; but so far, we have heard of no strong 
 remonstrances being made to the government of Spain, regard- 
 ing its exercise. 
 
 The fear, or the idea expressed by rumor, that Cuba cannot 
 become independent, or annexed, without experiencing the horri- 
 ble scenes of St. Domingo, is grossly absurd. And the threat 
 thrown out by the Governor, that rather than Spain shall lose 
 the government of Cuba, he would liberate the negroes, and 
 
24: CUEA IN 1851. 
 
 arm them, is as inhuman and barbarous in its conception, as it 
 is futile and impracticable in execution. Cuba will neither be 
 " Castile" long, and never " St. Domingo.'''' 
 
 The circumstances of the two islands, and the advancement of 
 power on the part of the white race, here and elsewhere, in 
 steam-vessels and munitions of war, places the power of the 
 blacks at a greater distance below them. A few armed Ameri- 
 cans, with repeating arms, and flying artillery, would scatter 
 tens, if not hundreds of blacks, to one of the whites. The revo- 
 lution of St. Domingo occurred in 1793. In 1790, three years 
 before, the population stood as follows : whites 38,831 ; blacks 
 431,429 ; free people of color 24,000 ; domestic slaves, negro 
 mechanics, &c., 50,000.7 The comparative population of St. Do- 
 mingo, on the eve of th6 revolution, and of Cuba at the present 
 time, stands as follows : 
 
 
 Whites. 
 
 Free Col. 
 
 Slaves. 
 
 Cuba in 1850, 
 
 605,560 
 
 205,570 
 
 436,000 
 
 St. Domingo in 1790, - 
 
 38,813 
 
 
 431,429 
 
 Free Col. 24,000 
 
 
 
 
 Other pop. 50,000 
 
 
 • 74,000 
 
 
 Difference, 666,729 131,570 4,571 
 
 For the Governor-General of Cuba to arm the blacks before 
 the island became independent, would be to lose it. To do so 
 afterwards, would be out of his power. 
 
 The relative wealth of the two islands at the periods named, 
 stands as follows : 
 
 Sugar E. Coffee E. Tobac. Plant. Grazing F. Cattle. * 
 
 Cuba, 1850, 1,442 1,618 9,162 9,930 898,199 
 
 St. Domingo, '93, *793 3,117 
 
 Indigo. Cotton. Various. 
 
 St. Domingo, 3,160 789 677 
 
 This affords a most extraordinary contrast. We find that Cuba 
 only contains 4,571 more slaves than St. Domingo did, while she 
 possesses 566,729 more whites, and 131,570 more free people of 
 color ! Can the Governor-General, or the wildest fanatic, 
 
 * The owners, it is said, of extensive estates in St. Domingo were not resi- 
 dents, and lived in France. 
 
CUBA IN 1851. 25 
 
 imagine that 436,000 slaves can put down, or conquer 600,000 
 whites, with the aid of Americans to back them ? 
 
 Had St. Domingo escaped under the circumstances which 
 surromided her, the fact would have been more miraculous than 
 her fall. With a small weak French population of 38,000, and 
 they divided by the feuds which distracted the mother country, 
 how were they to stand up against 431,000 blacks, declared free 
 by a predominant fanatical abolition faction in the National Con- 
 vention of France, with an Abbe Gregoire at its head ? England 
 seized upon the island, and when she finally withdrew her 
 troops, the handful of French people were left defenceless, to be 
 butchered indiscriminately by an excited mob of blacks, through 
 the mere force of brutal numbers. 
 
 'Not so with Cuba. Spain cannot give freedom to the blacks, 
 without simultaneously giving liberty to the whites, when the 
 latter, aided by Americans, would not only take care of them- 
 selves, but of the blacks and Spaniards also. 
 
 CUEEENCT. 
 
 The currency of Cuba consists of gold and silver. The total 
 amount of coin in 1842 amounted to about $12,000,000. 
 
 The most of the gold coin circulates in doubloons, of $1T 
 government value. Formerly, the government compelled four 
 pistareens to circulate for a dollar. These were called in finally, 
 and now they pass at five to the dollar. 
 The imports of specie were in 
 
 1841, $781,639 1842, $1,158,770 
 
 Exports " 1,092,671 " 1,290,661 
 
 Excess exports, " 311,032 « 131,890 
 
 In 1839, the excess of imports amounted to 481,3'r5, and in 
 1840, to 209,126. 
 
 We have intimated before that the revenues gathered from the 
 people of Cuba amounted at this time to above twelve millions of 
 dollars per annum, which forms no doubt the chief support to the 
 monarchy of Spain, gathered from her oppressed Cuban subjects. 
 The Creoles endure all the evils, in their worst form, of which we 
 
26 CUBA IN 1851. 
 
 complained wlien colonies, and for tlie redress of whicli we 
 waged a seven years war. Among the chief of these evils is 
 taxation witJiout representation. The Creoles of Cuba are not 
 voters. They have not the slightest controlling voice in the 
 Government mider which they live. The authority of the 
 Governor-G-eneral is vice-regal and despotic. He unites in him- 
 self all the functions of government, civil, judicial and military, 
 and is only amenable to the crown. He feels no responsibility 
 on account of the people. He is not one of them ; but comes 
 from a foreign country, to plunder and oppress them in behalf of 
 the crown. And yet it is contended that the Creoles are content- 
 ed and happy under such a despotism ! If so, it is the happmess 
 and contentment of the serfs of Eussia, and of all other countries 
 secm-ed by debasement, ignorance, and superstition, the cherished 
 props of despotism all over the world. But all the Creoles are 
 not so debased ; some have caught the fire of our own free insti- 
 tutions and struck for liberty, and neither God nor man wiU con- 
 demn those who aid them as outlawed pirates. 
 
 We proceed in the next i^lace to give the divisions or depart- 
 ments of the island, with statistics of the population, sugar and 
 coffee ..estates, number of towns, tobacco plantations, grazing 
 farms, cattle, &c., from the census of 1850. 
 
 Cuba is divided into three departments : — 
 
 1st. The Western, of which Havana is the principal town. 
 
 2d. The Central, of which Puerto Principe is the chief town, 
 with a Governor of the East, of subordinate jurisdiction to that 
 of the Governor-General, but amenable to the court only. 
 
 3d. The Eastern Department, of which Santiago de Cuba is 
 the principal town. 
 
 The Western Department is the most wealthy and populous 
 part of the island, as will be seen by the following tables from 
 the census of 1850. 
 
 WESTERN DEPAKTMENT. 
 Whites. Free Colored. Slaves. ' Total. 
 
 325,500 88,300 320,500 734,030 
 

 CUBA 
 
 IN 1851. 
 
 
 27 
 
 Sugar 
 Towns. Estates. 
 157 735 
 
 Coffee • 
 Estates. 
 1,012 
 
 CENTRAL ■ 
 
 Tobacco 
 
 Plantations. 
 
 3,990 
 
 DEPARTMENT. 
 
 Grazing 
 Farms. 
 1,741 
 
 Cattle. 
 267,033 
 
 Whites. 
 153,000 
 
 Free Colored. 
 42,500 
 
 Slaves. 
 50,500 
 
 Total. 
 246,000 
 
 Sugar 
 Towns. Estates. 
 46 404 
 
 Coffee 
 
 Estates. 
 76 
 
 EASTERN ] 
 
 Tobacco 
 
 Plantations. 
 
 967 
 
 DEPARTMENT. 
 
 Grazing 
 Farms. 
 
 4,881 
 
 Cattle. 
 458,166 
 
 Whites, 
 87,060 
 
 Free Colored. 
 74,770 
 
 Slaves. 
 65,100 
 
 Total. 
 226,930. 
 
 Sugar 
 Towns. Estates. 
 20 303 
 
 Coffee 
 
 Estates. 
 
 580 
 
 Tobacco 
 Plantations. 
 4,145 , 
 
 Grazing 
 Farms. 
 3,308 
 
 Cattle. 
 173,000 
 
 
 AGGEEQATE STATEMENT. 
 
 
 
 Western Department 
 Central " 
 Eastern " 
 
 Whites. 
 325,500 
 153,000 
 
 87,060 
 
 Free Colored. 
 88,300 
 42,500 
 74,770 
 
 Slaves. 
 
 320,500 
 50,500 
 65,100 
 
 Total. 
 734,300 
 246,000 
 326,930 
 
 Total 
 
 665,560 
 
 204,570 
 
 486,100 
 
 1,207,230 
 
 Estimate for troops, strangers, &c., 
 
 
 
 40,000 
 
 Western Department 
 Central « 
 Eastern " 
 
 Sugar Coffee Tobacco. Grazing 
 
 Towns. Estates. Estates. Plantations. Farms. 
 
 157 735 1,012 3,990 1,741 
 
 46 414 76 967 4,881 
 
 20 303 530 4,145 3,308 
 
 Cattle. 
 267,933 
 458,166 
 173,000 
 
 Total 223 1,442 1,618 9,102 9,930 898,199 
 
 The cultivation of sugar has steadily increased, while the 
 
 coffee estates have diminished from about 2,000 in 1849, to 1,618 
 
 Recapitulation and classification of the Island of Cuba ili 18S0 : 
 
 Creole of Native Whites, 
 
 Spaniards, 
 
 Troops and Marines, 
 
 Foreigners, 
 
 Floating Population, 
 
 Free Mulattoes, 118,200 
 
 Free Blacks, 87,370 
 
 Slave Mulattoes, 11,100 
 do. Blacks, 426,000 
 
 620,000 
 36,000 
 23,000 
 10,560 
 17,000 605,560 Whites. 
 
 205,570 205,570 Free Colored. 
 
 436,100 436,100 Slaves. 
 
 Total, 
 
 1,247,230 
 
28 
 
 CUBA IN 1851. 
 
 Number of Men estimated as capable of bearing Arms : 
 
 Creole Whites, 140,000 
 
 do. Free Colored, 40,000 180,000 
 
 Spaniards, 20,000 
 
 Spanish Troops 23,000 43,000 
 
 Slaves, 170,000 
 
 Total, 
 
 393,000 
 
 CHIEF TOWNS OK THE ISLAND OP CUBA. 
 
 NOETH SIDE. Pop. 
 
 DefartWLt. 
 
 SOUTH SIDE. 
 
 Pop. 
 
 DepartmH 
 
 Havana, 200,000 
 
 Western. 
 
 Santiago 
 
 
 
 Matanzas, 25,000 
 
 do. 
 
 de Cuba, 
 
 35,000 
 
 Eastern. 
 
 Cardinas, 6,000 
 
 do. 
 
 MazanUlo, 
 
 4,000 
 
 do. 
 
 Saguda Le Grande, 2,500 
 
 Central. 
 
 Trinidad, 
 
 15,000 
 
 Central. 
 
 S. Juan de los 
 
 
 San Spiritero, 
 
 
 
 Remedies, 6,000 
 
 do. 
 
 interior. 
 
 12,000 
 
 do. 
 
 Villa Clara, 
 
 
 Cienfuegos, 
 
 5,200 
 
 do. 
 
 interior, 9,000 
 
 do. 
 
 Batabuno, 
 
 1,000 
 
 Western. 
 
 P. Principe, in the 
 
 
 San Juan, 
 
 1,000 
 
 do. 
 
 interior, with the 
 
 
 
 
 
 Port Neuvitus, 36,000 
 
 do. 
 
 
 
 
 Holguin, interior, 6,000 
 
 Eastern. 
 
 
 
 
 Baracoa, 4,000 
 
 do. 
 
 
 
 
 The above towns, where not stated to be in the interior, are sea- 
 ports. The names of a number of small places on the sea-coast 
 are omitted. 
 
 Besides the general features of the main land there are a 
 number of smaller islands scattered along the coast, both on its 
 northern, western, and southern shores. The most important 
 of these is the Isle of Pines on the south side, which is said to 
 contain a population of 800 people, probably mostly occupied as 
 fishermen. 
 
 By examining the map, it will be seen that the coast west of 
 Havana is studded with a number of smaU islands, and indented 
 with a number of bays. On the first bay is the small town of 
 Mariel and fort ; on the second is Cabanos, named after the bays 
 on which they stand. The third bay is that of BaJiia Honda^ 
 {deep hay) MhQUQ Gen. Lopez and the Americans are said to 
 have landed on the 12th of August, 1851. Still west of Bahia 
 Honda is seen a series^ of small islands, one of which is called by 
 the Spaniards Cayo (Key) Levisa^ on the shore and in the vicin- 
 ity of which Col. Crittenden and his party, in four launches, were 
 
CUBA IN 1851. 29 
 
 captured by the Spanish force in the steamer Habanero. The 
 water on the outer side of the keys, or islands, is deep, being 
 from 24 to 25 feet ; but between the keys and the shore the wa- 
 ter shallows off to 10 and 12 feet. The Habanero being of light 
 draught was enabled to run in, while the frigate Esperanza (Hope) 
 could not. This frigate was formerly the Caledonia, of the Cu- 
 nard line, and which was too slow to come up with the Falcon, 
 and the Pizarro, in attempting to go too near in shore, near Ba- 
 hia Honda, is said to have grounded and was wrecked. 
 
 We have embodied under another head all the particulars re- 
 garding this bold expedition of Lopez and the capture and brutal 
 execution of the fifty Americans, as far as can be ascertained, to- 
 gether with the lives and characters of the principal victims, as/W* 
 as known. 
 
 Before concluding our notice of the island, it may be of inter- 
 est to some readers to notice some of the principal towns. 
 
 HAVANA. 
 
 By far the most important and remarkable town on the island 
 is Havana, spelt Hahoma by the Spaniards, and sometimes 
 Havo/nnah by the English. The city was founded in 1511 by 
 Diego Yelasquez. It was taken by a French pirate in 1563. 
 Afterwards by the English and French buccaneers ; and again 
 by the English in 1Y62, by whom it was restored to Spain, by 
 the treaty of peace of 1763. 
 
 In 1Y95, the remains of Ohkistopher Columbus were brought 
 from St. Domingo and buried in the cathedral of this city, where 
 they yet rest. 
 
 The population of Havana, as far back as 1827, was estimated 
 at about 94,000. By the census of 1850, its population is set 
 down at about 200,000, including Spanish troops, residents and na- 
 tives of all kinds. As far back as 1836, it exported to the United 
 States 669,460 boxes of sugar, of 400 lbs. each, and 697,491 
 arobas of coffee ; four arobas (or quintals) are equal to 101| lbs. 
 Since the year 1836, the exj^ort of sugar has more rapidly in- 
 creased than that of coffee. 
 
 y 
 
30 CUBA IN 1851. 
 
 A railroad was opened from Havana to Guinez (to the east), 
 forty-five miles long, in 1839. Another railroad extends west 
 to Guanajay. It was over this road troops were sent against 
 Lopez. Another railway, as before noticed, connects Havana 
 with Cardinas, to the east, and from which other short branches 
 have been built. The rails of this road, near Cardinas, were 
 torn np by Lopez's men at his former descent in 1850, to prevent 
 commnnication with the capital. 
 
 The position of Havana is such, defended as it is by power- 
 ful fortifications on both sides of the entrance from sea, and on 
 the land side, as to make it justly considered the Gebealtak of 
 the western world. 
 
 On the northern side of the entrance, from sea, frowns Moro 
 Castle^ and on the southern or western side are seen the strong works 
 of the Castle of La Punta. Behind the Moro, inland, are again 
 seen the works of La Cabano, and Fort ~So. 4. Behind La 
 Punta, on the other side, are seen extensive barracks. On the 
 land side of the town, beyond its walls, is seen rising towards 
 the south, Prince's Castle / and again to the south-east of the 
 land side of the town, and on the small bay of Atares^ is seen to 
 rise the Castle of Atares (not far from the suburbs of El Horcon), 
 at the base of which the fifty Americans were shot, at five 
 minutes past eleven, a.m., on the 16th August, 1851, their 
 bodies stripped by the populace, and afterwards carried in 
 common dead-carts to Potter's Field. • 
 
 Besides the defences alluded ^o, the old city, proper, is walled ; 
 but the Campo de Marte is beyond the walls, as well as the new 
 part of the town known as the suburbs of Senior de La Salud, 
 Guadaloupe, Cerro, and Jesus Maria. Casa Blanca, on the 
 north or east side of the entrance, in the rear of Cabano, is the 
 slavetrade mart. It is here that cargoes of slaves are landed 
 from Africa, and sold. 
 
 The city contains, besides the cathedral, nine parish chm^ches, 
 and six others connected with hosj^itals and military orders. 
 
CUBA IN 1851. 81 
 
 Five cliaj)el8 or hermitages, eleven convents, a university, two 
 colleges, a botanic garden, anatomical museum and lecture- 
 rooms, an academy of painting, a school for navigation, and 
 about seventy ordinary schools for both sexes. 
 
 It also contains several benevolent institutions, among which 
 is the Gasa Real Beneficencia^ which contains within its walls two 
 lunatic asylums with 180 inmates. The city also contains a 
 penitentiary, a Magdalen asylum, a foundling asylum, and 
 several hospitals. These charitable institutions are supported by 
 an annual revenue of 55 to $60,000, derived from various sources 
 of municipal taxes, rents, &c. The ship and dock-yards are 
 located to the south of the city. The town also contains three 
 theatres and an amphitheatre for bull-fights. The old town is 
 level, with narrow streets, and until greater attention was paid 
 to cleanliness it used to be severely aifiicted at certain seasons of 
 the year with yellow fever. 
 
 MATANZAS. 
 
 This town is situated on the north coast of the island, in the 
 Western Department, at the bottom of a deep bay, and is fifty-two 
 miles from Havana, in north latitude 23° 2' 28", and longitude 
 81° 37' 44". By the census of 1850 it contained a population of 
 25,000. It is well built, having some good streets, and well built 
 houses of stone. 
 
 Matanzas in point of trade and wealth is the next town to 
 Havana on the island. 
 
 The following exports from the principal towns in 1818 exhib- 
 it, somewhat, their relative importance. 
 
 
 NOKTH SIDE. 
 
 
 
 
 Havana. Matanzas. 
 
 Cardinas. 
 
 Sagua Le Grand. 
 
 Sugar, boxes, 
 
 671,440 318,931 
 
 13,900 
 
 34,628 
 
 Coffee, arobas, 
 
 93,797 61,251 
 
 1,094 
 
 
 Molasses, hhds., 
 
 ♦25,886 61,793 
 
 60,508 
 
 8,327 
 
 Rum, pipes. 
 
 10,479 
 
 
 1 
 
 Leaf unm. Tobacco lbs. 
 
 
 
 
 Cigars, thousands. 
 
 136,980 
 
 
 62 
 
 Copper ore, quintals 100 lbs. 
 
32 
 
 
 CUBA m 1851. 
 
 
 
 
 Gibaro. Remedies. 
 
 Neuvilas. Baraco 
 
 Sugar, 
 
 
 1,648 5,595 
 
 4,293 
 
 Coffee, 
 
 
 16,241 
 
 114 
 
 Molasses, 
 
 
 16,201 1,880 
 
 5,030 
 
 Rum, 
 
 
 
 223 
 
 Tobacco, 
 
 
 1,867,736 
 
 2,269 102,168 
 
 Cigars, 
 
 
 588 88 
 
 2,061 247 
 
 Copper ore, 
 
 
 
 
 Mariel, 8,336 hhds. molasses. 
 
 
 
 
 
 SOUTH SIDE. 
 
 
 
 Mazanillo. 
 
 Trinidad. St. Jago de Cuba. 
 
 Cenfuegos. Santa Cru 
 
 Sugar, 
 
 115 
 
 69,656 31,298 
 
 59,215 198 
 
 Coffee, 
 
 
 3,609 548,432 
 
 128 
 
 Molasses, 
 
 1,475 
 
 26,175 857 
 
 14,160 997 
 
 Rum, 
 
 
 60 554 
 
 379 181 
 
 Tobacco, 
 
 315,570 
 
 1,208,536 
 
 6,000 2,669 
 
 Cigars, 
 
 542 
 
 3991^ 4,575 
 
 41>^ 155 
 
 Copper, ore, 
 
 
 571,826 
 
 
 THE CUBAN REVOLUTION. 
 
 The contemplated revolution by the Creole inhabitants of 
 Cuba is not of recent origin. As far back as 1842, an Ameri- 
 can gentleman who had resided in Cuba, and was familiar with 
 its peojjle and their political opinions, while on a visit to 'New 
 York stated that a revolution was then in confidential agitation 
 and was sanctioned by some of the wealthiest and most respecta- 
 ble Creole families on the island. This gentleman, feeling dis- 
 posed to favor their views, examined into the nature and cost of 
 the implements of war. Among other things he investigated 
 plans for blowing vessels out of water by means of the electrical 
 battery. He also informed himself as to other missiles of war. 
 Tie returned to Havana well stored with information to await the 
 ripening of the schemes of revolution. We believe that he died 
 some years since. There were very few in JSTew York at the 
 time referred to with whom he conferred on the subject. 
 
 It was not until the winter and spring of 1849-50 that any plans 
 were sufficiently matured to make the attempt, when General 
 Lopez projected the famous expedition in the steamship Creole, 
 
CUBA IN 1851. 33 
 
 and landed at Cardinas, in May, 1850. There seemed to be a 
 want of concert of action between his plans and those of the 
 patriots on the island ; for instead of their meeting him and 
 seconding his movement, he found it impossible, with the small 
 force of Americans under his command, to maintain his position. 
 Matanzas was the point for which he was aiming, and which he 
 expected to reach by railroad, or other means from Cardinas. 
 But the better to defend himself he had to tear up the rails of 
 the road to prevent the arrival of government troops, and the 
 transmission of intelligence to the capital. It is said the officer 
 in command of the Spanish troops after marching within 12 
 miles of Cardinas came to a halt, and failed to go a step further. 
 For 'this he was threatened with a court martial ; but he intimat- 
 ed that if he was brought to trial he would be compelled to dis- 
 close the fact, that the reason he could not go farther was, that- 
 the fidelity of the troops could not be depended on. The court, 
 martial it is said was never ordered. 
 
 General Lopez, for his retreat from Cardinas in the Creole,., 
 was severely condemned by many. They considered it an act of 
 fickleness, if not of cowardice ; but the story related by himself' 
 and friends was, that he returned on board of the Creole with the 
 view of entering the town of Matanzas from sea, where the 
 patriots had more strength, and were better prepared to give^ 
 him assistance ; but that after getting to sea, his men, discour- 
 aged by the fatigue and fighting at Cardinas, feared that their 
 numbers were too small to make a stand at Matanzas, and insist- 
 ed on his returning them in the Creole to the United States, , 
 which was accordingly complied with. General Lopez, after 
 landing some of his men, we believe, at Key West, landed him- 
 self at Savannah, where he was arrested but discharged. He' 
 afterwards went to N'ew Orleans, and visited other places. 
 
 Another portion of his expedition was landed at the isl- 
 and of Contoy, where they were taken by the Spanish author- 
 ities, without arms, and carried into Havana, where, by the un- 
 wearied exertions and firm conduct of Mr. Campbell, our consul, 
 
34 CUBA IN 1851. 
 
 they were finally liberated and sent home. Some members of 
 this division stated that they shipped from ISTew Orleans in good 
 faith as California emigrants, and were not undeceived until they 
 were at sea, and that they then insisted on being returned, or 
 landed somewhere else than on the island of Cuba, and were 
 hence left on the island of Contoy. 
 
 Colonel Campbell claimed their discharge as American citizens, 
 captured beyond the jurisdiction of the Captain-General. This, 
 with other arguments earnestly enforced, led to their discharge. 
 The persons charged with having been concerned in the Cuba 
 expedition were arraigned before the United States Circuit 
 Court at New Orleans on the 16th December, 1851. The follow- 
 ing answered to their names : — General IlTarcisso Lopez, Colonel 
 Theodore O'Hara, Colonel John Picket, Major Thomas Haw- 
 kins, Colonel William H. Bell, Captain Sigur, and General D. 
 Augustin. Those who did not appear were A. Gonzales, 
 Governor Quitman, John O'Sullivan, Major Bunch, Peter Smith, 
 and l!T. D. Havens. General Lopez pleaded in abatement of 
 the indictment, on the ground that the grand jury had been 
 illegally impaneled, as also did Sigur and Augustin. The 
 others put in a plea of not guilty. 
 
 General Quitman, for whose arrest a warrant was issued by 
 the court, at first hesitated to obey, but afterwards resigned 
 his office as governor and submitted to the requirements of the 
 law. 
 
 Governor Henderson's trial was proceeded with, and resulted 
 in the failure of the prosecution to procure a conviction. The 
 attorney withdrew all the suits, and the parties were discharged. 
 I The collection at Bound Island had dispersed, probably from the 
 impossibility of escaping the intervention of the United States au- 
 ! thorities, combined with the difficulty of obtaining transports 
 \ properly commanded and armed. Another contemplated ex- 
 pedition from l!^ew,Tork was also checked, and prevented fi-om 
 sailing. 
 
 General Taylor had issued a proclamation in favor of enforcing 
 
CUBA IN 1851. 85 
 
 the neutrality laws. The j)eople of ]^ew Orleans soon after 
 gave General Quitman a public dinner. 
 
 The steamer Pampero was fitted out at Kew Orleans with 
 great privacy, and little was known about the movement until 
 she was nearly ready to sail with General Lopez and his 450 
 officers and men. She passed down the river, being cheered on 
 her way, and went to sea without molestation. 
 
 The expedition was one of the most daring, not to say rash, of / 
 modern times. ^Notwithstanding Pres. Fillmore had issued his 
 proclamation, declaring all persons engaging in the expedition 
 outlaws, and beyond the protection of the American flag; 
 notwithstanding the Captain-General of Cuba had published his 
 intention of shooting all taken with arms in their hands against 
 the government, yet we find the Pampero standing on a straight 
 course for Bahia Honda, within forty miles of Havana, and pass- 
 ing within sight of the battlements of Moro Castle. This small 
 but brave band of men were landed. They placed themselves, ' 
 like Scipio on landing in Africa, without the means' of re- ; 
 treat, — the former burnt his vessels ; the latter sent off the I 
 Pampero for more men. 
 
 The attempt made the year before, had set the Creoles to think- 
 ing, and the revolutionary feeling had within a year greatly in- 
 creased, and had broken out near Puerto Principe and Santiago, 
 about the 3d of July, and the patriots on the 4th of the same 
 month issued their declaration of independence. These tidings, 
 with other favorable accounts, reaching the United States, 
 greatly stimulated the movements of the patriots in this country, - 
 and caused General Lopez to hasten his departure from INew 
 Orleans. 
 
 In the progress of this work, and especially in relation to the 
 facts connected with the late revolutionary movement, we have 
 experienced much difficulty in arriving at reliable facts. It is 
 probable that the whole truth regarding the movements of the 
 patriots will never be revealed, unless the whole enterprise 
 should be crowned with success. 
 
36 CUBA m 1851. 
 
 General Lopez was formerly a citizen of Cuba, and no doubt ' 
 sincerely sympathized with his countrymen in the political op- 
 pressions they endured. "We think it too early to form an opinion 
 as to the real character of General Lopez, and that it would be 
 premature to denounce him in advance for deception and impo- 
 sition, from an unfavorable expression or two, uttered in a letter 
 pm-porting to come from one of the unfortunate men butchered 
 by the Governor-General. If deception was practiced, Lopez 
 himself may have been the victim of it, as well as his men. 
 The poor untaught and timid Creoles, through their leaders, 
 may have made promises to Lopez and his friends, which they 
 have failed, or have been unable, to fulfill. 
 
 The letters of Captain Kerr, and other prisoners, make no al- 
 lusion to being betrayed or deceived by Lopez. 
 
 Many suppose, because the Creoles have not risen en masse, 
 against the government, that they are therefore contented with 
 their lot and opposed to change. Considering their situation, 
 stripped as they are of arms of all kinds, beyond the possession 
 of a pocket-knife ; excluded from all offices, and deprived, to a 
 great extent, of the common rudiments of an education, it could 
 not be supposed that they were in a situation to resist, at once, 
 23,000 Spanish troops. Only about one in sixty-three children 
 of the Creole population attend any school. Hence, it may be 
 supposed, that the number who can read and write among them, 
 does not probably exceed one in sixty-three. Hence, it would 
 be difficult for them to act in concert, and to convey intelligence 
 :from one to another. If they are so loyal as pretended, why 
 does not the Governor-General enrol them in the militia and 
 \ arm them for the defence of the island ? Our militia force 
 constitutes the bulwark of our defence. Contentment and 
 loyalty is all fudge. They could not be expected to do much 
 imtil a force was landed, with supplies of arms for them, to 
 form the nucleus of an army, around the standard of which 
 they could rally. People in their condition are moved by 
 ocular demonstrations in favor of liberty ; and once the patriots 
 
CUBA IN 1851. 37 
 
 break tlie spell of Spanisli rule, and military domination, by 
 a few successful victories, the Creoles would very soon rally 
 for freedom. 
 
 It is not yet known wbetlfer Lopez was culpable for neglect- 
 ing to succor Col. Crittenden. His own position might have 
 been sucb as to have rendered it impossible. A very large force 
 might have unexpectedly been so near at hand, as to have pre- 
 vented it. It is possible that he might have expected the arri- 
 val of Creole reinforcements at Pasos, or wherever he had en- 
 camped. Lopez may have been deceived as to the power or 
 disposition of his countrymen to aid him, or he may have been 
 rash, but it remains to be shown that he was either a " scoun- 
 drel" or a " coward." His life was at stake as much as that of any 
 of his men, and if captured, he could only expect to die by the 
 severest tortures known to Spanish cruelty. 
 
 If the Creoles of Havana are contented and happy, it is sin- 
 gular that they should send so many Creoles to the United States, 
 soliciting aid in the way of arms and men, and that so many 
 having fallen under suspicion, should have been exiled, and 
 their property confiscated. 
 
 The chief sums expended in the United States, in getting up 
 expeditions, have been supplied by the Creoles of Cuba. It is 
 mostly their funds which have supplied the sinews of war. 
 
 The London Times admits that the half million of Creoles are 
 badly governeS, and that the example of our free institutions has 
 had its influence on them, and that their tendencies are Ameri- 
 can, and not European ; but regarding the possibility of its an- 
 nexation to the United States as dangerous to the interest of 
 England, intimates that some sort of understanding or agree- 
 ment between England, France and Spain exist, or should be 
 come to, to prevent the independence of the people, and to per- 
 petuate the despotism which rules the island. It charges that a 
 bankrupt military man, and court favorite, is usually sent to 
 Cuba, from Spain, to enrich himself and family at the 
 expense of the people. It seems too, by its report, that the 
 
38 CUBA IN 1851. 
 
 European consuls residing on the island have been acting in 
 the character of sjpies^ and keeping their respective monarchies 
 advised of the movements of the Creoles; and it might have 
 added also, of the movements of the'people of the United States. 
 We direct the attention of the reader to the following state- 
 ment of the London Times of the 16th August last. It speaks 
 for itself. 
 
 " We have reason to believe that accounts have been received from the 
 consular agents of the principal European powers in Cuba, which have 
 excited some ap)prehensions, and have led to communications between the 
 allies of the Queen of Spain /" 
 
 The truth is, this island, indebted to our trade and enter- 
 prise for its prosperity, and lying, as it were, at our very doors, 
 is converted into a sort of stool-pigeon outpost of monarchy, 
 where its spies and pimps, devoted to its interest, can concoct 
 measures for our injury or annoyance. 
 
 ITo American at heart, or the American government, of what- 
 ever party, could be indifferent to the armed intervention of 
 European powers to destroy the independence of Cuba, and that 
 mainly from the fear of annexation to the United States. War, 
 it seems to us, would in that case be unavoidable ; — the results 
 of which might not only sweep monarchy from the l^Tew World — 
 Cuba included — but from the leading kingdoms of Europe also. 
 
 We believe in the progressive tendency of the American insti- 
 tutions and her people. While some fifteen or Inore new free 
 states remain to be carved out of the territory west of Minnesota 
 and Iowa, extending to the Pacific Ocean, embracing the terri- 
 tories of ISTew Mexico and Utah, other states, in the com^se of 
 time, must sooner or later spring up on our southern and south- 
 western borders. Our free institutions, if we are true to them 
 and each other, will fight more battles, and win more victories 
 for us, than the sword, and they are harder to fight against on 
 the part of monarchies, than the best appointed armies of men. 
 
 Probably the next move of foreign diplomacy may be an 
 attempt to estrange the Mexican and other southern republics 
 
CUBA IN 1851. 39 
 
 from us, and endeavor to unite them against ns. If so, this too 
 will fail. 
 
 The epithets of " Pirates,'''' '-'■Freebooters,'''' " Rollers,'''' " Out- 
 laws,'''' &c., applied so freely to the Americans who went to Cuba 
 in the firm belief that they were going to aid the Creoles who 
 had revolted against the government, we consider not justified 
 by the facts, or the character of the Americans engaged in the 
 expedition. "Whatever the real state of the case was, they no 
 doubt sincerely believed that a revolution had broken out, and 
 that their errand was both honorable and patriotic. 
 
 Such men as Col. Crittenden and his companions were far 
 above the commission of "^^V«cy" and " robbery^'' 
 
 So it was predicted, if the Americans ever went into Mex- 
 ico as soldiers that they would rob the churches. When, it is 
 said, they were there during the late war, the churches would 
 have been robbed by Mexicans, and other foreigners, had not the 
 Americans protected them. § 
 
 ''''Free-looting^'' '■'' piracy, '^ &c., are not ordinarily attendant 
 traits of Americans. All men struggling for liberty are pirates 
 and rebels in the eyes of despotism. The Hungarians were pi- 
 rates in the eyes of Austria. We were rebels and pirates in the 
 eyes of George the Third, and so are the Creoles taken and shot 
 as pirates by the Spanish Haynau, Gen. Concha of Cuba. 
 
 If the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church, the blood of 
 patriots is no less the seed of liberty. It is believed the bloody- 
 minded course pursued by the Spanish Government has done 
 more to prejudice the people of the United States against Spanish 
 rule, and in favor of the Creoles, than any other measure it could 
 have adopted. As a mere' stroke of political policy, it was the 
 most fatal error that could have been committed. So far from 
 affording any additional security to the island, it has made it a 
 hundred fold more insecure, if it does not cause the loss of it for- 
 ever. The inhuman act has been received with feelings of hor- 
 ror and indignation throughout the United States, and has raised 
 up thousands of friends for Cuban independence where there 
 
40 CTJBA IN 1851. 
 
 was one before. It is an act that, for all time to come, will rest 
 as a bloody stain upon tbe character of the Spanish Government, 
 and receive the seal of reprobation of all civilized people through- 
 out the world. 
 
 The Government, by executing even some of the ringleaders 
 and confining the rest in the prison walls of Havana or of Spain, 
 the ends of justice could have been better reached and with 
 more advantage to the Government. The prisoners would have 
 been just as incapable of harm when immured in Spanish dun- 
 geons as though shot and cast on a dunghill or into a potter's 
 field to rot. 
 
 Even admitting that Lopez and all his remaining force have 
 been captured and shot, it will not in the least strengthen the 
 Spaniards in the government of the island. And should Gen. 
 Concha shoot in succession 300 or 400 more Americans in the 
 same summary manner as those slain at the castle of Atares, it 
 will awaken and extend a flame of indignation from one end of 
 the United States to the other, which no human authority can 
 check, and which will never rest satisfied until every footprint 
 of Spanish despotism is forever swept away and effaced from 
 the island. 
 
 As to the insurrection near Puerto Principe, in the Central 
 Department, it is stated to have been less successful than that 
 near St. Jago de Cuba, where, at last accounts, the Spanish Gen- 
 eral in command had returned into St. Jago without being able 
 to overcome it. 
 
 Tet some who oppose the proffered aid of American citizens 
 contend that no revolution has been attempted ; and, forsooth, 
 that all Americans going there to aid them are outlaws and must 
 be dealt with and shot as pirates ! We do not envy the feelings 
 of those who can join the executioners in their exultations over the 
 dead and mutilated bodies of American citizens. 
 
CUBA IN 1851. 41 
 
 EVroENCES OP THE EEVOLUTION IN CUBA, COMMENCED BT THE 
 
 OEEOLES OP THE ISLAND, WITH THEIR DECLARATION 
 
 OP INDEPENDENCE, ON THE 4tH JULY, 1851. 
 
 The first notice we received of an attempt at revolution in 
 'Cuba, was brought to E'ew York on the evening of the 2 1 st July, 
 and the character and extent of which is explained by the follow- 
 ing correspondence, published in the New York Herald on the 
 morning of the 22d. 
 
 Although the transactions referred to have not been verified in 
 every particular by later advices, it is sufficiently clear that there 
 was a revolutionary movement on foot, however great or small, 
 and which, of itself, was sufficient to enlist the minds and feel- 
 ings of American citizens in favor of it, and to inspire them with 
 the ambition of repairing to the island, to aid those whom they 
 considered struggling for liberty, and without supposing, that on 
 reaching the island they were to be branded and executed as 
 ^irates^ without trial. 
 
 Havana, July 16, 1851. 
 
 The revolution of Cuba has changed its chrysalis for the full grown 
 fly. The first blood has been spilled. Cuba, some seem to think, has 
 her Lexington. The particulars of the accounts which we receive from 
 the interior are exceedingly various, but all unite upon the one great 
 fact, that the pronunciamento has been made, and a slight advantage 
 gained over the troops. The people of Principe have been the first to 
 draw the sword. 
 
 One of the most probable versions of the affair is the following : — 
 Under pretence of celebrating Saint John and Saint Peter's festivals, 
 (which occur on the 24th and 30th of June, respectively,) and in con- 
 sequence, by some order of the government, of their not being cele- 
 brated in Puerto Principe, a gathering of people was made a few leagues 
 from the city, on the fourth day of July. The Governor, anticipating 
 some open act, sent a detachment of dragoons to disperse them. These 
 did not come up to the Cubans until evening, when they were attacked 
 and forced to retire with a loss of (according to some accounts) 20, and 
 others, 60 men. When the troops had fled, the Cubans retired to the 
 hills, where they have formed an entrenched camp, and are driving in 
 cattle, collecting forage, and men, and arms. It is said that Puerto 
 Principe, Neuvitas, and all the adjacent country has been abandoned 
 by the young men, who are supposed to have gone to join the insur- 
 gents. The point where they are collecting is in the hills of Najassa. 
 This pronunciamento was followed by another at Tunas, a village about 
 
4:2 CUBA m 1851. 
 
 half way between Principe and Saint Jago ; and it is supposed that the 
 rising has, before this time, become general in the centre and eastern 
 part of the island. In the official accounts, which you will find in 
 to-day's Gaceta, you will observe that no report, later than the 5th, is 
 given from Principe. 
 
 Letters have been received up to the 10th, by which we learn that a 
 detachment of troops had been sent out, but did not consider itself 
 strong enough to penetrate the hill country. It is feared that a corre- 
 sponding movement may be made here ; and I am told that on Saturday 
 night last, very strong patrols were about, as though some movement 
 was anticipated. The revolution having begun, it cannot go backward ; 
 and it is more than probable that the days of Spain's rule here are at 
 least to be much embarrassed. The government count 14,000 troops, 
 and no more, in all the island, and may, perhaps, be able to raise as 
 many more from the Spanish population ; but their fleet is a good one, 
 comprising some twenty sail, of which six are steamers. Whether 
 the struggle be a long or short one, will depend upon the "aid and 
 comfort" the Cubans receive from the United States in the shape of 
 guns, pistols, powder, ball, apd men that can teach them to organize 
 and manoeuvre. The Spanish troops are scattered all over the island, 
 and cannot with facility be now concentrated. If, therefore, the move- 
 ment becomes at all general, they will probably fall or pass to the other 
 side — a thing that is not at all improbable — and whispers there-anent 
 are already abroad. The civil war in Spain has so accustomed the 
 army to change sides, that there is hardly a regiment that has not 
 fought once or more for each. It is this, it appears to me, that makes 
 the fidelity of the Spanish army such a strange contradiction. True to 
 their colors, but following their colors either way. 
 
 P. S. — 4 P.M. — Letters from Principe state that the troops are de- 
 serting in squads to the insurgents. Two steamers leave to-morrow 
 morning with reinforcements. A rumor is about town that Trinidad 
 will rise to-morrow. 
 
 Havana, July 16, 1851. 
 You may place the fullest confidence in the following information, as 
 to the insurrection going on in the eastern department of the island, 
 especially in the district of Puerto Principe, for I have my intelligence 
 from a source upon which I place the most implicit reliance. It ap- 
 pears that, about the 5th inst., from about 800 to 1,000 men, attended 
 by great numbers of women and children, assembled at a place some 
 twenty leagues from Principe, unfurled the standard of Cuban inde- 
 pendence, amidst cries of " Viva la Independencia Cubana !" " Mueron 
 los opresores Espanolis," displaying, at the same time, several Ameri- 
 can banners. The men were fully equipped for war, so that the troops 
 sent after them by General Lemory, were beaten ofi" with the loss of 
 one of the general's adjutants, and several soldiers. The loss on the 
 part of the insurgents was small. A larger force, under Lemory in 
 person, was then sent out to them, when, it is said, 100 cavalry went 
 
CUBA IN 1851. 43 
 
 over to the people, who fought their way to the mountains, where 
 they have entrenched themselves for the present, in the hope of receiv- 
 ing reinforcements from their friends in the States. In this last affair - -^ 
 forty or forty-two prisoners were captured by the troops, and, although 
 it is difficult to credit, I ann assured they were instantly shot. Such is 
 the history of the affair, as it stands at present. The object of the 
 government being to prevent reports becoming known, seem under no 
 apprehension or alarm as to the result of this affair. But it is easily to 
 be seen, from the anxiety displayed, by those better acquainted with 
 the country, that there is every reason to think that the terrible disas- 
 ters which have been long foreshadowed in Cuba, are about to be brought 
 to a crisis. 
 
 John Foster, a native of Portsmouth, U. S., has been the driver of 
 an omnibus between Havana and Jesus del Monte. Some three weeks 
 ago, two Comisarios, or policemen, came to the stand at the Plaza des 
 Armas, and arrested the coachman of an omnibus belonging to the 
 Cerro line of coaches, a line quite distinct from that of Jesus del Monte, 
 for, as they stated, running over a child in the street. This coachman, 
 being a Spaniard, protested he knew nothing at all about what they 
 accused him of, when, unfortunately for Foster, he happening to be on 
 the stand at the time, they went towards him, and said : " You are the 
 man who run over the child." Foster knew as much about it as the 
 other — perhaps less — but, being an American, he was forthwith con- 
 ducted to jail, where he has been locked up ever since, and up to yes- . 
 terday, not a soul had been near him, to inquire into the case ; his de- 
 position, if he had any to make, poor fellow, M'^as not even taken, and 
 there he may remain, probably for months, shut up with assassins and 
 robbers of all descriptions, while his poor wife and children are left to 
 starve, and he, all the while, entirely innocent of the charge against 
 him. 
 
 The father of the child, which I have since learned was knocked 
 down by a volante, and was only slightly bruised, said he would com- 
 promise the matter with Foster for $50. But Foster, adhering to the 
 fact of his being entirely innocent of the charge, and supported in his 
 assertion by the passengers who were in his coach at the time the acci- 
 dent is said to have happened, and who have declared through a public 
 journal that it was not done by him, refused to pay so large a sum out 
 of his hardly earned wages, and so he is still confined in jail. 
 
 The Austrian frigate Venus, of 44 guns, arrived here yesterday, from 
 the island of St. Thomas, having on board a young Prince of the royal 
 family of Wirtemburg, who, I understand, is to be feted on a very mag- 
 nificent scale, if the attention of the government be not otherwise en- 
 gaged by the present difficulties in the interior. The French steam 
 frigate of war Mogador, which has now been lying in this harbor fori! 
 upwards of a year — for what particular reason nobody can tell — ^is about \1 "V 
 to be relieved by the Asmodea, first class steam frigate, hourly expect- ^ ' 
 ed to arrive, also from St*. Thomas. Why the French should keep 
 stationed here continually a large vessel like the Mogador, would seem 
 
44: CUBA IN 1851. 
 
 a mystery, were it not strongly suspected that it has some reference to 
 the recent " fih'bustero" business. In the meanwhile, we, who have 'a 
 better right to watch so important a crisis in the affairs of the island, 
 and ought to be at Havana, are content to be cruising from Key West 
 to Pensacola, and from Pensacola back to Key West. 
 
 General Lemory has himself to thank for the insurrection at Principe. 
 From the moment of his arrival at that city as its governor, arrests were 
 the order of the day. The prisons were filled with what he was pleased 
 to term suspected people, and those, too, from the position they hold 
 as proprietors, planters, &c., the most influential of the place. We 
 have seen numbers banished the island, and others confined in the forts ; 
 and it is absurd to suppose that the tearing away, from the bosoms of 
 their families, of fathers and sons, in the barbarous manner in which this 
 has been done, on the most frivolous pretences and suspicions, would 
 not be resented, and rouse feelings which have now burst forth with a 
 vigor which will require all the means of this government to quash. 
 
 P. S. — 'The government, alarmed by the probable consequences of the 
 information reaching the United States, as to the critical state of things 
 in the interior, have to-day put forth a statement which you will find in 
 the Gazette^ of this day's date, to the effect that two parties had risen 
 in insurrection, but had been compelled to seek safety in flight, and 
 calling upon the people to be under no apprehension. 
 
 This statement of the government is admitted, even by the Spaniards 
 themselves, to be by no means correct, and that the affair is of far 
 greater importance than what they are willing to admit. I think, from 
 all I can gather, that the statements already made, are much nearer the 
 truth, and you may make them public accordingly. 
 
 The statement is evidently published to mislead the American people 
 as to the serious nature of the Principe business — got up for the steam- 
 ers about to sail, well knowing that the affair would reach the United 
 States in spite of their wishes to the contrary. 
 
 Havana, July 16, 1851. 
 
 I consider that, in a political point of view, this island was never in 
 a more critical state than it is at this present moment. The Creoles of 
 Cuba have at length thrown down the gauntlet of defiance to the 
 authority of Spain. The late act of the Captain-General, in dismissing 
 the " Ayuntamiento and Sindico" (corporation) of Puerto Principe, is 
 alleged to have aroused the indignation not only of the " Camague- 
 nanas," but that of the whole population of the interior cities of the 
 island, and even that of Havana itself, loyal ,as they may be disposed 
 to be towards Spain. His Excellency, many think, might in the same 
 manner dismiss them, should they venture to displease him in his 
 course. 
 
 A disturbance broke out on the 3d instant, in the neighborhood of 
 Puerto Principe — a city next in importance to Havana — in the eastern 
 department of the island. It is known that, simultaneous with the 
 affair at Principe, a large meeting of men took place some twenty 
 
ctTBA m 1851. 45 
 
 leagues from that city, and that upon the troops being sent to disperse 
 them, a skirmish ensued, which resulted in the troops being beaten off, 
 with the loss of their commander, and sixteen killed. The insurgents, 
 who, it is variously stated, number from five hundred to fifteen hun- 
 dred men, took to the mountains, and have strongly entrenched them- 
 selves, in the hope that the move now begun will prove general 
 throughout the island, and that their friends, the Filibusteros^ will fly 
 to their assistance. The Creoles of the interior are excellent horsemen, 
 strong, athletic, and hardy men, always on horseback, and accustomed 
 to thread the dense and intricate forests of the island, in which the 
 Spanish soldier would be found completely useless, however brave. 
 This movement has, it is supposed, extensive ramifications throughout 
 the whole of Cuba ; and we are on the verge of a crisis which will 
 require all the energy and ability of the government to put down — an 
 event by no means certain, if we are to credit the reports of the na- 
 tives, who seem to be quite confident of the success of their plans, and 
 the speedy overthrow of the Spanish dominion in Cuba. It is no less 
 a sign of the times to witness the hasty departure abroad of certain 
 wealthy Creoles, who might, from their supposed opinions, in favor of 
 Cuban independence, become compromised by remaining on the island, 
 in the power of the government. 
 
 You will scarcely credit what I now tell you, but it is nevertheless 
 a fact, that it was considered necessary that this, " the always faithful 
 city," surrounded as it is, and completely at the mercy of so many 
 forts, should be guarded with the greatest vigilance, which was duly 
 exercised over it on Saturday night last. Patrols were seen in every 
 direction, and double guards mounted, for it was suspected that some 
 were disloyal enough to follow the example of Principe ; and yet 
 such is the terror exercised over the minds of the Habaneros, fron; the 
 system of espionage introduced into the city, that few indeed venture 
 to express an open opinion upon the state of things, or even any opin- 
 ion at all, so that a stranger coming here would imagine we were in 
 the enjoyment of the most perfect state of political tranquillity. 
 
 That the present state of feehng which exists between the Cubans 
 and the Spanish can last, is out of the question. The hospitality and 
 generosity of the Cubans in the interior is proverbial, and their love for 
 their country amounts almost to adoration. I could recount many anec- 
 dotes illustrating this, but the following will be sufficient : — About a 
 month back, some one hundred men and their officers, belonging to a 
 regiment of cavalry, on their way from Manati to Puerto Principe, 
 halted for the night at a hacienda, where the proprietor received them 
 with the greatest cordiality — made provision for the men to pass the 
 night, and invited the olficers to partake of the hospitality the house 
 afforded. He being a creole of great wealth, they fared well ; his two 
 daughters, handsome, well educated, and accomplished girls, were in- 
 vited by the officers to play for them on the piano, and to sing, saying 
 they had heard much of their vocal powers. The young ladies, with 
 the grace and ease of their caste, at once acceded to their request, and 
 
40 CUBA m 1851. 
 
 commenced singing several of their most patriotic Cuban airs, to the 
 consternation of the officers, who for some time, perhaps out of deli- 
 cacy, or from surprise, remained rooted to the spot ; at length they 
 remonstrated with the ladies, declaring they could not listen to songs 
 so treasonable and improper. The ladies, singularly enough, replied, 
 " that those were their favorite songs, which they preferred to all oth- 
 ers, and that if the gentlemen did not like them, they could proceed 
 upon their journey when it suited their convenience." 
 
 Havana, July 17 — 11 30 a. m. 
 
 Notwithstanding the counter statements again put forth by the gov- 
 ernment, this morning, I confirm all the previous information which 
 you will find in my letters of yesterday's date, relative to the revolu- 
 tion going on in the interior and eastern district of this island, with the 
 addition that similar movements have taken place at Las Tunas, Sa- 
 beccu, Byamo, Trinidad, and Pino del Rio, and that it is positively 
 stated that great numbers of the troops have gone over to the insur- 
 gents. The government do all in their power to prevent the true state 
 of things becoming known to the people of the capital, and it is easily 
 to be perceived they are under great apprehensions and alarm. Nearly 
 all the vessels of war have been sent to sea, and the steamer Blasco de 
 Garcy sailed at 10 p.m., last night, with troops for Principe. 
 
 The expected French steamer Asmodea, a large vessel, arrived 
 from St. Thomas, yesterday afternoon. 
 
 On the 28tli of July, news of the further progress of the 
 revolution was received by the arrival of the Isabella at Savan- 
 nah, and by the schooner Pauline from Neuvitas, on the 27th, 
 together with the declaration of independence, published in 
 the Wevj York Herald of the 28th of July. In submitting a 
 copy of the declaration of independence, we head it with a copy 
 of the flag adopted bv the patriots. 
 
 The editor of the Herald prefaces these advices with the fol- 
 lowing remarks : 
 
 " These advices are probably the most authentic of any yet received. 
 
 " The official account of the insurrection at Port Principe related 
 only to a small skirmish on the 3d of July, in which Joaquin de Aguero 
 y Sanchez was taken prisoner, and a few arms captured bj^ the Spanish 
 troops. The news by this arrival is to the 14th July from Puerto Prin- 
 cipe, being eleven days later than the last accounts from that place. • 
 
 " The pronunciamento for independence was made on the 4th of 
 July, on which day the first real battle maybe said to have taken place. 
 The government troops previously sent out to make prisoners of any 
 revolutionists, came up with the guerilla party of Joaquin Aguero y 
 Aguero, at the foot of the Cascorro mountains, and about four or five 
 
OTJBA IN 1851. 
 
 47 
 
 miles from the village of that name. The Cubans nmnbered 200 men, 
 and the Spaniards 300 men, consisting of 100 lancers and 200 infantry. 
 After a sharp engagement, the Spaniards fled, their captain being killed, 
 and twenty others, together with eighteen wounded. The Cubans had 
 only two or three wounded, and none killed. ! Twelve of the Spanish 
 soldiers came over to the Cuban side. This battle inspired very great 
 confidence among the people, and immediately the numbers of the in- 
 surgents increased rapidly. At the last account their numbers were in 
 all as high as 1,000 men. These were divided up into five guerilla 
 parties of 200 each, under the command of Joaquin Aguero y Aguero, 
 Francisco Aguero y Estrada, aad Ubaldo Arteaga Pina. These 
 parties are stationed around in the strongholds, in the vicinity of Cas- 
 corro and Principe, drilling and augmenting their numbers. 
 
 " After the battle of the 4th, the Spanish troops hurried hack to 
 Principe, seventeen leagues from Cascorro. When the news of the 
 defeat reached Principe there was a great excitement among the people, 
 and nothing but the large number of soldiers prevented a general rising 
 and massacre among the troops. The garrison is over 4,000 ; but not- 
 withstanding this large number. General Lemory did not deem it pru- 
 dent to withdraw a single man to go out in pursuit of the Cubans, for 
 fear of a rising, but awaited the arrival of reinforcements from Havana, 
 having sent for 2,000 men. 
 
 TO THE INHABITANTS OF THE ISLAND OF CtJEA. 
 
 Manifesto and Proclamation of their Independence hy the Lib- 
 erating Society of Puerto Principe. {La Sociedad Leherta- 
 dora de P. P.) 
 
 Human Reason revolts against the idea that the social and political 
 condition of a people can be indefinitely prolonged, in which man, 
 stripped of all rights and guarantees, with no security of person or 
 property, no enjoyment in the present, no hope in the future, lives only 
 by the will, and under the conditions imposed by the pleasure of his 
 tyrants ; where a vile calumny, a prisoner's denunciation, a despot's 
 
48 CUBA EST 1851. 
 
 suspicion, a word caught up by surprise in the sanctuary of home, or 
 from the violated privacy of a letter, furnishes ample grounds for tear- 
 ing a man from his hearth, and casting him forth to die of destitution or 
 despair in a foreign soil, if he escapes being subjected to the insulting 
 forms of a barbarous and; arbitrary tribunal, where his persecutors are 
 themselves the judges who condemn him, and where, instead of their 
 proving his offence, he is required to prove his innocence. 
 
 A situation so violent as this, Cuba has now been for many years 
 enduring ; and far from any promise of remedy appearing, every day 
 adds new proof that the policy of the mother-country, and the ferocity 
 of her rulers, will grant neither truce nor rest till she is reduced to the 
 condition of an immense prison, where every Cuban will be watched 
 by a guard, and will have to pay that guard for watching him. In vain 
 have this people exhibited a mildness, a prudence, and even a submis- 
 sion and loyalty, which have been proverbial. 
 
 When the iniquity of the government has not been able to find any 
 ostensible grounds for persecution, it has had recourse to cowardly arts 
 and snares to tempt its victims into some offence. Thus were various 
 individuals of Matanzas entrapped into an ambuscade of the soldiery, 
 by the pretext of selling them some arms, under circumstances which 
 made them believe those arms were necessary for self-defence, against 
 threatened attacks from the Peninsulars. Thus have sergeants, and 
 even officers, been seen to mingle among the country people, and pass 
 themselves off" as enemies of the government, for the purpose of be- 
 traying them into avowals of their sentiments, to the ruin of many per- 
 sons so informed against, as well as to the disgrace of military honor on 
 the part of those who have lent themselves to so villanous a service. 
 
 If the sons of Cuba, moved by the dread of greater evils, have ever 
 determined to employ legitimate means of imposing some law, or some 
 restraint, upon the unbridled excesses of their rulers, these latter have 
 always found the way to distort such acts into attempts at rebellion. 
 
 For having dared to give utterance to principles and opinions, which, 
 to other nations, constitute the foundation of their moral progress and 
 glory, the Cubans most distinguished for their virtues and talents have 
 found themselves wanderers and exiles. For the offence of having ex- 
 hibited their opposition to the unlawful and perilous slavetrade, from 
 which the avarice of General O'Donnell promised itself so rich a har- 
 vest of lucre, the latter satiated his resentment with the monstrous ven- 
 geance of involving them in a charge of conspiracy with the free colored 
 people and the slaves of the estates ; endeavoring, as the last outrage 
 that an immoral government could offer to law, to reason, or to nature, 
 to prove the object of that conspiracy, in which they implicated whites 
 of the most eminent virtue, knowledge, and patriotism, to have been no 
 other than the "destruction of their own race." 
 
 All the laws of society and nature trampled under foot — all races and 
 conditions confounded together — the island of Cuba then presented to 
 the civilized world a spectacle worthy of the rejoicings of hell. The 
 wretched slaves saw their flesh torn from them under the lash, and be- 
 spattered with blood the faces of their executioners, who did not cease 
 
CUBA m 1851. 49 
 
 exacting from their tortures denunciations against accomplices. Others 
 were shot in platoons, without form of trial, and without even coming 
 to understand the pretext under v/hich they were masacred. The free 
 colored people, after having been first lacerated by the lash, were then 
 hurried to the scaffold, and those only escaped with life who had gold 
 enough to appease the fury of their executioners. And nevertheless, 
 when the government, or its followers, has come to fear some rising of 
 the Cubans, their first threat has been that of arming the colored peo- 
 ple against them for their extermination. We abstain for very shame 
 from repeating the senseless pretences to which they have had recourse 
 to terrify the timid. Wretches ! how have they been able to imagine 
 that the victims of their fury, with whom the whites of Cuba have 
 shared in common the horrors of misery and persecution, will turn 
 against their own friends at the call of the very tyrant who has torn 
 them in pieces .? If the free colored people, who know their interests 
 as well as the whites, take any part in the movement of Cuba, it cer- 
 tainly will not be to the injury of the mother who shelters them in her 
 bosom, nor of those other sons of hers who have never made them feel 
 the difference of their race and condition, and who, far from plundering 
 them, have taken pride in being their defenders, and in meriting the 
 title of their benefactors. 
 
 The world would refuse to believe the history of the horrid crimes 
 which have been perpetrated in Cuba, and would reasonably consider 
 that if there have been monsters to commit, it is inconceivable that there 
 could so long have been men to endure them. But if there are few 
 able to penetrate to the truth of particular facts, through all the means 
 employed by the government to obscure and distort them, no one will 
 resist the evidence of public and official facts. 
 
 Publicly, and with arms in his hands, did Gen. Tacon despoil Cuba 
 of the constitution of Spain, proclaimed by all the powers of the mon- 
 archy, and sent to be sworn to in Cuba, as the fundamental law of the 
 whole kingdom. 
 
 Publicly, and by legislative act, was Cuba declared to be deprived of 
 all the rights enjoyed by all Spaniards, and conceded by nature and the 
 laws of nations the least advanced in civilization. 
 
 Publicly have the sons of Cuba been cut off from all admission to the 
 commands and lucrative employments of the State. 
 
 Public are the unlimited powers, of every description granted to the 
 Captain Generals of Cuba, who can refuse to those whom they condemn 
 even the right of a trial, and the privilege of being sentenced by a tri- 
 bunal. 
 
 Public and permanent in the island of Cuba, are those courts martial 
 which the laws permit only in extraordinary cases of war, for offences 
 against the State. 
 
 Publicly has the Spanish press hurled against Cuba the threat of con- 
 verting the island into ruin and ashes, by liberating the slaves, and un- 
 chaining; against her the hordes of barbarian Africans. 
 
 Public are the impediments and difficulties imposed upon every mdi- 
 4 
 
50 CUBA EST 1851. 
 
 vidua], to restrain him from moving from place to place, and from exer- 
 cising any branch of industry — no one being safe from arrest and fine, 
 for some deficiency of authority or license, at every step he may take. 
 
 Public are the taxes which have wasted away the substance of the 
 island and the projects of other new ones, which threaten to abolish all 
 the products of its riches — nothing being left for its people but the toils 
 to produce them. 
 
 Public are the petty exactions and plunderings, at every turn, inflic- 
 ted in the most unblushing manner, in addition to the general imposi- 
 tions by the subaltern mandarins of authority in their respective locali- 
 ties. 
 
 Finally, the government has publicly and officially declared — and the 
 journals in its pay have labored to sustain the declaration with foul 
 commentary — ^" that the inhabitans of Cuba have no organ nor right of 
 action, even for the purpose of directing an humble prayer to. the feet 
 of the sovereign." The fact that the corporation of Puerto Principe, 
 with the authorization of the Governor, who presided over it, addressed 
 to the Queen a memorial to the effect that the royal court (audiencia) 
 shall not be suppressed in that district, gave rise to the removal of the 
 members of the corporation from oflSce, and to the unheard-of arbitrari- 
 ness of that declaration, in which to increase the outrage, it added that 
 the government is not bound in its proceedings to consult the opinions 
 and interests of the country. 
 
 Outrages so great and so frequent, reasons so many and so strong, 
 suffice not merely to justify, but to sanctify, in the eyes of the whole 
 world, the cause of the independence of Cuba, and any effort of her 
 people, by their own exertions, or with friendly aid from abroad, to put 
 an end to the evils they suffer, and secure the rights with which God 
 and nature have invested man. 
 
 Who will in Cuba oppose this indefeasible instinct, this imperative 
 necessity of defending our property, and of seeking in the institutions 
 of a just, free and regulated government, that welfare and security 
 which are the conditions on which alone civilized society can exist ? 
 
 The Peninsulars (natives of Spain) perhaps, who have come to Cuba 
 to marry our daughters, who have here their children, their affections 
 and their property, will they disregard the laws of nature to range 
 themselves on the side of a government which oppresses them as it 
 oppresses us, and which will neither thank them for the service, nor be 
 able, with all their help, to prevent the triumph of the independence of 
 Cuba? 
 
 Are not they as intimately bound up with the happiness and interest 
 of Cuba as those blood natives of her soil, who will never be able to 
 deny the name of their fathers, and who, in rising up to-day against the 
 despotism of the government, would wish to count upon their co-opera- 
 tion as the best guaranty of their new social organization, and the strong- 
 est proof of the justice of their cause ? 
 
 Have they not fought in the Peninsula itself, for their national inde- 
 pendence, for the support of the same principles for which we, the sons 
 
CUBA IN 1851. 51 
 
 of Cuba proclaim, and which, being the same for men in all countries, 
 cannot be admitted in one and rejected in another without doing treason 
 to nature and to the light of reason, from which they spring? 
 
 No, no — it cannot be that they should carry submissiveness to the 
 point of preferring their own ruin, and the spilling of the blood of their 
 sons and brothers, to the triumph of the holiest cause ever embraced by 
 man — a cause which aims to promote their own happiness, and to pro- 
 tect their rights and properties. The Peninsulars who adorn and enrich 
 our soil, and to whom the title of labor gives as high a right as our own 
 to its preservation, know very well that the sons of Cuba regard them 
 with personal affection — have never failed to recognise the interest and 
 reciprocal wants which unite the two — nor have ever held them respon- 
 sible for the perversenses of the few, and for the iniquities of a govern- 
 ment whose infernal policy alone has labored to separate them, on the 
 tyrant's familiar maxim — to divide and conquer. 
 
 We, who proceed in good faith, and with the noble ambition of earn- 
 ing the applause of the world for the justice of our acts — we surely 
 cannot aim at the destruction of our brothers, nor at the usurpation of 
 their properties ; and far from meriting that vile calumny which the 
 government will endeavor to fasten upon us, we do not hesitate to 
 swear, in the sight of God and of man, that nothing would better accord 
 with the wishes of our hearts, or with the glory and happiness of our 
 country, than the co-operation of the Peninsulars in the sacred work of 
 liberation. United with them, we could realize that idea of entire inde- 
 pendence which is a pleasing one to their own minds ; but if they pre- 
 sent themselves in our way as enemies, we shall not be able to answer 
 for the security of their persons and properties, nor, when adventuring 
 all for the main object of the liberty of Cuba, shall we be able to renounce 
 any means of effecting it. 
 
 But if we have all these reasons to expect that the Peninsulars, who 
 are in nowise dependent on the government, and who are so bound up 
 with the fate of Cuba, will at least remain neutral, it will not be 
 supposed that we can promise ourselves the same conduct on the 
 part of the army, the individuals composing which, without ties or 
 affections, know no other law nor consideration than the will of 
 their commander: We pity the lot of those unfortunate men, subject 
 to a tyranny as hard as our own, who, torn from their homes in the 
 flower of their youth, have been brought to Cuba to oppress us, on con- 
 ments and hopes of life. If they shall appreciate the difference between 
 dition of themselves renouncing the dignity of men and all the enjoy- 
 a free and happy citizen and a dependent and hireling soldier, and choose 
 to accept the benefits of liberty and prosperity, which we tender them, 
 we will a;dmit them into our ranks as brethren. But if they shall disre- 
 gard the dictates of reason and of their own interests, and allow them- 
 selves to be controlled by the insidious representations of their tyrants, 
 so as to regard it as their duty to oppose themselves to us on the field of 
 battle as enemies, we will then accept the combat, alike without hate 
 
52 CUBA IN 1851. 
 
 and without fear, and always willing, whenever they may lay down 
 their arms, to welcome them to our embrace. 
 
 To employ the language of moderation and justice — to seek for 
 means of peace and concihation — to invoke the sentiments of love and 
 brotherhood — befits a cultivated and Christian people, which finds itself 
 forced to appeal to the violent recourse of arms, not for the purpose of 
 attacking the social order and the lives of fellow beings, but to recover 
 the condition and the rights of man, usurped from them by an unjust 
 and tyrannical power. But let not the expression of our progress and 
 wishes encourage in our opponents the idea that we are ignorant of our 
 resources, or distrustful of our strength. All the means united, at the 
 disposal of the Peninsulars in Cuba, against us, could only make the 
 struggle more protracted and disastrous ; but the issue in our favor 
 could not be any the less sure and decisive. 
 
 In the ranks of independence we have to count all the free sons of 
 Cuba, whatever may be the color of their race — the brave nations of 
 South America, who inhabit our soil, and v/ho have already made trial 
 of the strength and conduct of our tyrants — the sturdy islanders of the 
 Canaries, who love Cuba as their country, and who have already had an 
 Hernandez and a Montes de Oca, to seal with the proof of martyrdom, 
 the heroic decision of their compatriots for our cause. 
 
 The ranks of the government would find themselves constantly thin- 
 ned by desertion, by the climate, by death, which from all quarters 
 would spring up among them in a thousand forms. Cut short of means 
 to pay and maintain their army, dependent on recruits from Spain to fill 
 up their vacancies, without an inch of friendly ground on which to plant 
 their feet, or an individual on whom to rely with security, war in the 
 field would be for them one of extermination ; while, if they shut them- 
 selves within the defences of their fortresses, hunger and want would 
 soon compel them to abandon them, if they were not carried by force of 
 arms. The example of the whole continent of Spanish America, under 
 circumstances more favorable for them, when they had Cuba as their 
 arsenal, the benefit of her coffers, and native aid in those countries them- 
 selves, ought to serve them as a lesson not to undertake an extermina- 
 ting and fratricidal struggle, which could not fail to be attended with 
 the same or worse results. 
 
 We, on the other hand, besides our own resources, have, in the 
 neighboring States of the Union, and in all the republics of America, 
 the encampments of our troops, the depots of our supplies, and the ar- 
 senals of our arms. All the sons of this vast New World, whose bosom 
 shelters the island of Cuba, and who have had, like us, to shake off by 
 force the yoke of tyranny, will enthusiastically applaud our resolve, will 
 fly by hundreds to place themselves beneath the flag of liberty in our 
 ranks, and their trained and experienced valor will aid us in annihila- 
 ting, once and for always, the last badge of ignominy that still disgraces 
 the free and independent soil of America. 
 
 If we have hitherto hoped, with patience and resignation, that justice 
 and their own interests would change the mind of our tyrants ; if we 
 
CUBA IN 1851. 63 
 
 have trusted to external efforts to bring the mother country to a nego- 
 tiation which should avoid the disasters of war, we are resolved to 
 prove by deeds that inaction and endurance have not been the re- 
 sults of impotence and cowardice. Let the government undeceive itself 
 in regard to the power of its bayonets and the efficacy of all the means 
 it has invented to oppress and watch us. In the face of its very autho- 
 rities — in the sight of the spies at our side — on the day when we have 
 resolved to demand back our rights, and by force to break our chains, 
 nothing has prevented us from combining the plan of our revolution ; 
 and the cry of liberty and independence will rise from the Cape of San 
 Antonia to the Point of Maysi. 
 
 We, then, as provisional representatives of the people of Cuba, and 
 in exercise of the rights which God and nature have bestowed upon 
 every freeman, to secure his welfare and establish himself under the 
 form of government that suits him, do solemnly declare, taking God to 
 witness the ends we propose, and invoking the favor of the people of 
 America, who have preceded us with their example, that the Island of 
 Cuba is, and, by the laws of nature ought to be, independent of Spain ; 
 and that henceforth the inhabitants of Cuba are free from all obedience 
 or subjection to the Spanish government, and the individuals composing 
 it ; owing submission only to the authority and direction of those who, 
 while awaiting the action of the general suffrage of the people, are 
 charged, or may provisionally charge themselves, with the command 
 and government of each locality, and of the military forces. 
 
 By virtue of this declaration, the free sons of Cuba, and the inhabi- 
 tants of the Island who adhere to her cause, are authorized to take 
 up arms, to unite into corps, to name officers and juntas of government 
 for their organization and direction, for the purpose of putting them- 
 selves in communication with the juntas constituted for the proclama- 
 tion of the independence of Cuba, and which have given the initiative 
 to this movement. Placed in the imposing attitude of making them- 
 selves respected, our compatriots will prefer all the means of persua- 
 sion to those of force ; they will protect the property of neutrals, what- 
 ever may be their origin ; they will welcome the Peninsulars into their 
 ranks as brothers, and will respect all property. 
 
 If, notwithstanding our purposes and fraternal intentions, the Spanish 
 government should find partizans obstinately bent upon sustaining it, 
 and we have to owe our liberty to the force of arms, sons of Cuba, let 
 us prove to the republics of America which are contemplating us, that 
 we having been the last to follow their example does not riiake us un- 
 worthy of them, nor incapable of meriting our liberty and achieving our 
 independence. 
 
 JOAQUIN DE AGUERO AGUERO, 
 FRANCISCO AGUERO ESTRADU, 
 UBALDO ARTEACA PIJJA. 
 
 July 4, 1S51. 
 
64: CUBA m 1851. 
 
 DETAILED ACCOTJNTS OF THE EXPEDITION, AND OE THE EXECUTION OF 
 
 THE FIETT AMERICANS UNDER THE COMMAND OF COLONEL 
 
 CRITTENDEN, AT HAVANA. 
 
 On the 21st of August the steamship "Winfield Scott arrived 
 at ISTew York from New Orleans, via Kej West, bringing the 
 startling intelligence that General Lopez had landed, from the 
 Pampero, on the island of Cuba, with 450 men. The following 
 letter from Kej West to the JVew York Jlerald received by the 
 Scott, unfolds particulars of interest respecting the expedition : — 
 
 Key West, August IT, 1851. 
 
 The steamer Pampero, Captain Lewis, with General l^arciso 
 Lopez, and four hundred and fifty followers, came through the 
 ISTorth West Pass, and anchored off our light house, on Sunday 
 last, at 5 p. M. She communicated with the shore and left again 
 at 10 p. M. It is understood that the Hungarian General Pragay, 
 with several other distinguished foreign ofl&cers, were on board, 
 with Colonels Chace, Crittenden, Downer, and many other 
 American gentlemen of standing and character. The night was 
 perfectly calm, and the moon shone brightly when she left her 
 anchorage for the shores of Cuba, and all hands appeared to be 
 in glorious spirits and gave three hearty cheers. 
 
 On Thursday last the Pampero returned, remained a few 
 minutes in the harbor, and left again for parts unknown ; it is 
 supposed for another party of filibusteros. It is understood that 
 she took a pilot out of a Spanish vessel off Havana, and landed 
 her people at ten o'clock^ jp.m.^ on Tuesday last^ about twelve 
 miles eastward of Baliia Honda^ wJiere they were immediately 
 joined iy the people of the surrounding cou7itry. The Pampero 
 left at seven o'dock on the next morning^ and Lopez was to 
 ma/pch at ten o'clock against the nearest military post. 
 
 A Spanish smack, sent by Francisco Marti, the manager of 
 the Havana Opera House, came here four days ago to pick up 
 intelligence and left again the same evening, carrying off a 
 Spanish refugee from justice, who has resided here for some 
 
CUBA IN 1851. 55 
 
 time, and who goes over to give sucli items of news as his fears 
 or invention may dictate. 
 
 A company of volunteers for Cuba, armed and equipped 
 efficiently, left here privately within the last few days. 
 
 This expedition seems to have been planned with a good deal 
 of skill ; and shere appears to be a determination among those 
 engaged in it, to sink or swim, survive or perish, in the cause. 
 The following are the names of most of the leading men who are 
 supposed to have landed at Cubanos from the Pampero : 
 
 General l!^arciso Lopez, the leader of the expedition. 
 
 Colonel J. Pragay, late of the Hungarian army, formerly 
 Adjutant General to General Klapka, and second in command 
 at Comorn, when that place capitulated. He goes second in 
 command to General Loj)ez. 
 
 Colonel Crittenden, late of the IT. S. Army, and nephew of 
 the Attorney General of the United States. He has the imme- 
 diate command of the artillery. 
 
 Colonel Dollman, of Georgia, who served through the Mexican 
 war. 
 
 Colonel Chase. 
 
 Major J. A. Kelly, who served in the Florida and Mexican 
 wars, and was once a leading whig editor in Louisiana. 
 
 Captain W. Scott Haynes. 
 
 Captain A. J. Dailey. 
 
 Captain Ellis, late of the Hungarian Army. 
 
 Captain Yictor Kerr, late of the American Army in Mexico. 
 
 The Pampero is commanded by Captain Lewis, who directed 
 the Creole so successfully in the Cardenas expedition ; and who 
 was arrested in this city a short time ago, while in command of 
 the Cleopatra, and held to bail in the sum of $5,000. The 
 Pampero is quite fast, and will run ahead of any of the war 
 steamers. 
 
 The public had scarcely had time to become acquainted with 
 this news, before the Cherokee arrived, about nine o'clock at 
 night on the 21st, with the horrifying details of the summary 
 
56 CUBA m 1851. 
 
 execution of the fifty Americans before the castle of Atares, at 
 Havana. "We make the following extracts from the published 
 accounts : — 
 
 It appears from statemetns published in the ISTew Orleans papers, 
 said to have been supplied from Col. Crittenden himself, that soon 
 after landing from the Pampero, near Bahia Honda, that he was 
 left with his detachment in charge of the artillery and baggage, 
 while Lopez, with his remaining force, pushed on to a village 
 not far distant, probably Posas / and that after waiting some- 
 time to hear from Lopez, Colonel Crittenden sent to him to learn 
 his position and his wishes, when Lopez ordered him to join him. 
 With this view Colonel Crittenden commenced his line of march 
 at a late hour in the night, and had only proceeded about two 
 or three miles, when he was met by a large Spanish force, whom 
 he succeeded in repelling, but they were shortly reinforced to the 
 estimated number of five hundred to seven hundred of the 
 Queen's troops, when they charged on Crittenden with his hand- 
 ful of men and dispersed them. They were forced to seek safety 
 in the chapparal, where they remained for a day or two destitute 
 of food, and finally reached the sea-shore, where they embarked 
 in fom* launches, and spent one night at sea, hoping to fall in with 
 a vessel of some friendly power. They were, however, forced 
 to return near the coast, and when near to the island of Levisa, 
 they were captured by the Habanero, as stated, without having 
 with them any means of defence. It is said that Colonel 
 Crittenden stated that he was not in possession of a single car- 
 tridge. 
 
 " They were brought to Havana by the Habanero, on Saturday morn- 
 ing, the 16th August, at 1 a.m., and taken from on board a Spanish 
 frigate, lying in port, and executed at 11:5 a.m. of the same mwning. 
 After they were shot, they were dragged by the feet, by negroes, and then 
 left to the mob, who commenced stri2opmg them of their clothes and carrying 
 them on sticks through the streets, yelling like so many tuild demons. 
 
 " Annexed is a list of the names of those men who were shot on the 
 public road, in Havana. It is estimated that there were 20,000 specta- 
 tors : — 
 
CUBA IN 1851. 
 
 57 
 
 Colonel W. S. Crittenden, 
 Captain F.S. Sewer, 
 " Victor Kerr, 
 " T. B. Veacey, 
 Lieutenant James Brandt, 
 " J. O. Bryce, 
 " Thomas C. James, 
 Doctor John Fisher, 
 
 " K. A. Tourniquet, 
 Sergeant J. Whitereus, 
 
 " A. M. Cotchett, 
 Adjutant R. C. Stanford, 
 Lieutenant M. H. Homes, 
 Private Samuel Mills, . 
 " Edward Bulman, ■ 
 " George A. Arnold, 
 " B.J. Wregy, >« 
 " William Niseman, 
 " Anselmo Torres, ■■ 
 " — Hernandez, . 
 " Patrick Dillon, , 
 " Thomas Hearsey, . 
 " Samuel Reed, 
 " H. T. Vinne, 
 
 Private James L. Manville, - 
 
 " G. M. Green, ' 
 
 " J. Salmon, 
 
 " Napoleon Collins, 
 
 " N. H. Fisher, ■ 
 
 " William Chilling, . 
 
 " G. A. Cook, . 
 
 " S. O. Jones, . 
 
 " M. H. Ball, ■ 
 
 " James Buxet, 
 
 " Robert Caldwell, 
 
 " C. C. Wm. Smith, ■ 
 
 " A. Ross, 
 
 " P. Brourke, 
 
 " John Christdes, . 
 
 " William B. Little, >- 
 
 " Robert Cantley, - 
 
 " John G. Sanka, . 
 
 " James Stanton, - 
 
 " Thomas Harnatt,- 
 
 " Alexander Mcllcer, • 
 
 " JohnStubbs, • 
 
 " James Ellis, • 
 
 " William Hogan, • 
 
 " Charles A. Robinson. 
 
 " M. Philips, . 
 
 " This list embraces forty-nine, there were fifty-two shot. 
 
 " Many of the Cherokee's passengers, who were on the spot at the 
 execution, were pointed at with a sneer of contempt, and many stopped 
 in the streets and insulted — called Americans, and that they were one 
 and all of the same party — that one of these days they would be served 
 in the same way. It was dangerous for an American to be in the 
 streets alone at night. 
 
 " The Falcon steamship, while on her way up the coast of Cuba from 
 Chagres, was fired at three times, by the war steamer Habanero, and 
 was obhged to heave to, and was boarded by the officers of the 
 Habanero. After the Falcon stopped, the officers of the Habanero 
 cheered as if they had gained a glorious victory. This is the third 
 time the Falcon has been served the same trick." 
 
 These men were at three o'clock in the morning of the IBtli 
 August, transferred from the Habanero to the frigate Esperanza, 
 which landed them at Havana, at about nine o'clock in the morn- 
 ing. The following account of their landing is taken from a let- 
 ter written by a party on board the United States sloop of war 
 Albany, which was lying in the port of Havana : — 
 
58 CUBA m 1851. 
 
 " A horrid story remains for to-day — fifty men, detaclied by Lopez to 
 gain some town, on or near the coast, were captured by the Spanish 
 Admiral, last night, at 2 a.m. They were brought into the harbor, 
 placed on board the frigate Esperanza, (Hope,) and this morning, at 
 9 o'clock, they marched down the ship's gangway, one by one, stripped 
 to trowsers and shirt, some even without the latter covering, bare- 
 headed, hands tightly bound behind their backs — a pale train, hurried 
 toward the land of ghosts. 
 
 " I saw these fifty men, one colonel, three captains, four lieutenants, 
 two surgeons, five sergeants, and thirty-five soldiers, bareheaded and 
 almost naked, bound, marched down the flag ship's gangway, on the 
 side next to, and not two hundred and fifty yards from, the Albany, into 
 a ferry boat, transported to the head of the harbor, distance about 
 one mile, and there, amidst an immense concourse of spectators — per- 
 haps one hundred thousand — shot without mercy. I saw their pale 
 faces and firm steps as they descended from their trial to death. Many 
 were very young, and some had the forms as they no doubt had the 
 souls, of heroes." 
 
 We annex the following account of the execution from a letter 
 published in the JVew York ITerald, though probably exag- 
 gerated in some respects, yet, as far as it relates to the brutal 
 conduct of the mob to the dead bodies after death, although 
 denied, later accounts are said to have conjBrmed them. 
 
 The friends of Mr. Owen, our Consul at Havana, have asked 
 
 a suspension of public opinion until he can be heard in defence ; 
 
 while not expressing an opinion as to his culpability, we put 
 
 upon record the censures expressed by correspondents regarding 
 
 his conduct. 
 
 Havana, August 16 — 4i p.m. 
 I am too much affected to write to you more than to say that I have 
 this day been witness to one of the most brutal acts of wanton inhu- 
 manity ever perpetrated in the annals of history. Not content, this 
 government, in revenging themselves in the death of these unfortunate 
 and, perhaps, misguided men, and which, it may even be said, was 
 brought upon themselves ; but these Spanish authorities deserve to be 
 most severely chastised for their exceedingly reprehensible conduct in 
 permitting the desecration, as they have done, of the senseless clay of 
 our brave countrymen. This morning 
 
 Forty Americans, One Italian, 
 
 Four Irish, One Philippine Islander, 
 
 One Scotch, Two Habaneros, and 
 
 Two Germans, or Hungarians, 
 were shot at 11 o'clock — after which the troops were ordered to retire ; 
 and some hundreds of the very vilest rabble and negroes, hired for the 
 
CUBA IN 1851. 59 
 
 purpose, commenced stripping the dead bodies, mutilating their limbs, 
 tearing out their eyes, cutting off their noses and fingers, and some of 
 the poor fellows (privates) these wretches brought to the city on sticks, 
 and paraded them under the very walls of the palace. Oh, the very 
 remembrance of the sight is frightful. 
 
 I never saw men — and could scarcely have supposed it possible-^— 
 conduct themselves at such an awful moment with the fortitude these 
 men displayed under such trying circumstances. They were shot six 
 at a time, i.e., twelve were brought to the place of execution, six made 
 to kneel down and receive the fire of the soldiers, after which the re- 
 maining six were made to walk round their dead comrades, and kneel 
 opposite to them, when they also were shot. After being stripped, and 
 their bodies mutilated in the barbarous manner I have described, they 
 were shoved, six or seven together, bound as they were, into hearses, 
 which were used last year for cholera cases. No coffins were allowed 
 them ; and I think the manner they were put into the hearses was 
 equally as disgusting as the other acts ; the heads of some were 
 almost dragging on the ground, and it had more the appearance of a 
 slaughter cart on its way to market from the slaughter house, than that 
 of a hearse conveying the dead bodies of human beings. 
 
 A finer looking set of young men I never saw ; they made not a sin- 
 gle complaint, not a murmur, against their sentence, and decency 
 should have been shown to their dead bodies, in admiration for the 
 heroism they displayed when brought out for execution. Not a muscle 
 was seen to move, and they proved to the miserable rabble congregated 
 to witness the horrid spectacle, that, it being the fortune of war that 
 they fell into the power of this government, they were not afraid to die. 
 It would have been a great consolation to these poor fellows, as they 
 repeatedly asked, to see their consul, and, through him, to have sent 
 their last adieus, and such little mementos as they had, to their be- 
 loved relations in the States. One handsome young fellow desired 
 that his watch should be sent to his sweetheart. But Mr. Owens, the 
 American Consul, did not even make application to the Captain-General 
 to see these unfortunate countrymen in their distress, and their sacred 
 wishes in their last moments have been unattended to. Lastly, at the 
 very hour of their triumph, when the people of the Spanish steamer 
 Habanero knew that the execution of the American prisoners, which 
 they had taken to Havana, was about to take place, two shots were fired 
 across, or at, the steamer Falcon, off Bahia Honda ; and, notwithstand- 
 ing that this vessel was well known to them, having, as she had, the 
 American flag hoisted, &c., she was detained and overhauled by these 
 Spanish officers, who, upon returning to their vessel, commenced 
 cheering, and hissing at the Falcon, proud, no doubt, of the impunity 
 with which they had detained an American mail steamer on the high 
 seas, at their pleasure. 
 
60 CUBA IN 1851. 
 
 Havana, August 16, 1851. 
 The Bloody Day in Havana — The- Execution of Fifty Fatriots-^The 
 Conduct of the American Consul — The Rising of the People — The 
 Reported Successes of the Invaders. 
 
 R: The bloodiest day of the Cuban revolution is fast drawing to its clbse, 
 and the sun that is now rapidly sinking in the west has seen fifty prison- 
 ers — the greater part of them young Americans — shot in cold blood, 
 and their mutilated remains torn and dragged by a savage populace, the 
 outpourings of Spain, the mule of Europe. 
 
 This morning, about three o'clock, the steamer Habanero arrived 
 with fifty prisoners, of whose capture we have only the official report 
 as you will find it in the Gaceta of this morning. At eleven o'clock 
 they were shot at the foot of the Fort Atares, in the presence of an 
 immense assemblage. The list I will send to you, if it is published in 
 time to go by this mail. The saddest portion of the history which I 
 have to relate is the indifference of the American Consul to their sad 
 fate. This gentlemen, as you are aware, is Mr. A. F. Owen, late 
 representative from Georgia in Congress, and nominated by Mr. Fill- 
 more to replace General Campbell, the late Consul here. Mr. Owen 
 was called upon by an American gentleman residing here, to see if he 
 had made any effort to see those of his countrymen who were thus in- 
 humanly to be shot ; the Consul took the ground that they had been 
 declared outlaws by Mr. Fillmore, and he should not interfere in the 
 matter. After some conversation he concluded that he would write to 
 the Captain-General, which he did, requesting only an interview. At 
 two o'clock he had received no answer. 
 
 In the career of a public man, moments present themselves in which 
 all rules of action, all the formalities of courts, all the delays of etiquette, 
 must be set aside, and the voice of public good, or of humanity, must 
 be obeyed with that decision which marks the high resolve, the steady 
 nerve, and the noble soul of the man of worth. Obeying the generous 
 impulses of such a moment, the man of action receives the reward he 
 merits in the approval of the world ; but the hour suffered to pass in 
 inglorious inaction, the laggard in the cause of humanity merits only 
 the opprobium and the scorn of his fellow men. Such has been the 
 error committed by Mr. Owen ; such has been the want of generous 
 impulse in his bosom, and in the eyes of men he has covered himself 
 with disgrace and infamy. The Diplomat may shield himself behind 
 the "Proclamation of the President;" the Consul may allege "the 
 want of power ;" but where will the Man hide himself when the fathers 
 and mothers shall ask him tidings of their sons ? when the wives and 
 daughters shall ask him for the last words of their hvisbands and fathers ; 
 when their brethren (and wherever liberty scatters her blessings they 
 have brethren) shall ask him, what of our brothers ? These are not 
 v^in words, but it is the outcry of young Cuba, from Capa Marsi to San 
 Antonio, and her thousand hills echo back the cry. This will be the 
 voice of a sympathizing people, that fill the land shadowing with wings. 
 
ciTBA m 1851. 61 
 
 Access to the Captain-General can be obtained at all hours by the 
 simple assertion that his business is urgent, and how much more easily 
 could the Consul of the great republic have obtained access. His 
 sirnply asking for an interview might have delayed their fate, and given 
 them more time to prepare for that dread tribunal before which they 
 were about to appear. His simply showing the interest of a man in 
 their fate, might, perhaps, have inclined the Captain-General to a less 
 vengeful determination, and have saved some from the fate they met. 
 Had he saved but one man it would have been to him forever a foun- 
 tain of joy ; as he made no effort, it must be to him forever a source of 
 bitter regret. As a public man, he has shown himself unfitted for the 
 responsible position he holds ; for, in times of revolution, men, and not 
 books — living impulse, not dead rules, are to be consulted. 
 
 I do not write this in a spirit or anger, but after hours of calm reflec- 
 tion ; and, to any gentleman who asks my name from any other motive 
 than an impertinent curiosity, you are at perfect liberty to communicate 
 it. Mr. Owen I leave to the judgment of his fellow-citizens. 
 
 The revolution goes gloriously on. In the East and the West the 
 patriots are everywhere triumphant. The people join them in crowds, 
 and the year 1851 will see the close of the Spanish rule in Cuba, I 
 leave to your able correspondents all details. 
 
 CUBANA. . 
 THE SPANISH ACOOrNTS OF THE EXECUTION. 
 
 The following is the blood-thirsty death warrant issued by the 
 
 Governor-General. ISTot the slightest allusion is made in this 
 
 document to anj sort of previous trial, which even the forms of 
 
 Spanish laws required : — • 
 
 " It having been decreed by the general order of the 20th of April 
 last, and subsequently reproduced, what was to be the fate of the 
 pirates who should dare to profane the soil of this island, and in view of 
 the declarations of the fifty individuals who have been taken by his 
 Excellency the Commander General of this naval station, and placed at 
 my disposal, which declarations establish the identity of their persons 
 as pertaining to the horde commanded by the traitor Lopez, I have re- 
 solved, in accordance with the provisions of the Royal Ordinances, 
 General Laws of the Kingdom, and particularly in the Royal Order of 
 the 12th June of the past year, issued for this particular case, that the 
 said individuals, whose names and designations are set forth in the fol- 
 lowing statement, suffer this day the pain of death, by being shot, the 
 execution being committed to the Senor Teniente de Rey, Brigadier of 
 the Plaza. 
 
 " Jose de la Concha." 
 
62 CTJBA EST 1851. 
 
 THE SPANISH ACCOUNTS. 
 
 Havana, August 17 — 8 o'clock a. m. 
 [Translated from the Government Journals of Havana.] 
 
 The excellent Senor General D. Jose Marie de Bustillos, General 
 Commander of the Navy in that district, has sent, to-day, at half past 
 one o'clock, A. M., the following communication to the Governor- 
 Genera] : — 
 
 Your Excellency : — I started yesterday from Bahia Honda, in the 
 steamer Habanero, with a view to reconnoitre the coast of Playitas and 
 Morillo, in order to remove all the means by which the pirates could 
 possibly escape ; or, in case of more expeditions to these points, to re- 
 move the means of disembarkation. At seven o'clock in the morning, 
 I communicated with the inhabitants^f Morillo, and was informed by 
 the proprietors that, at ten o'clock on the preceding night, one part of 
 them embarked in four boats, which were on the shore, in order to go 
 to New Orleans, by taking the first vessel they could find. Having 
 calculated the hour of their sailing, and the distance probably made in 
 ten hours, and supposing they had taken the direction of New Orleans, 
 which was the cause of their having disappeared from the inhabitants of 
 the neighborhood, I proceeded in that direction eighteen miles, with 
 full steam ; but, after having accomplished that distance, I could not 
 discover any of those I pursued. Believing that the road they had fol- 
 lowed was within the rocks, I directed my steamer to that point, and 
 made the greatest exertions to encounter the fugitive pirates. At ten 
 o'clock in the morning I found myself in the proximity of the passage, 
 and detected the four boats navigating along the coast, but so near to it 
 that I was afraid of my inability to seize them. In order to take them, 
 I ordered the steam to be pressed as much as possible ; and I think my- 
 self correct in affirming to your Excellency that the steamer was run- 
 ning thirteen miles. This was not enough to overtake them. I could 
 only seize one. Two others were upon the rocks of the island, and 
 the fourth upon the rocks of Cayo Levisa. When I seized the men of 
 the first boat, I armed the boats of the ship in order to pursue the 
 second and third, which were on the rocks ; but the officers of the army 
 who were in the boats, as well as the troops and sailors, the commander 
 of the boat, D. Ignacio de Arellano, and the captain of the steamer Car- ■ 
 denas, D. Francisco Estolt — who, stimulated by his patriotism, has 
 taken a part in all the services rendered by this boat — threw them- 
 selves in the water to pursue the pirates, of whom two only escaped. 
 Having left their arms, we did not pursue them, in order to occupy 
 ourselves with the boat in Cayo Levisa, for it was one of the largest 
 and contained more men. In short, I armed the boats, and directed 
 them to stop the debarkation of the men who were looking for a land- 
 ing, and to pursue these fugitive pirates. These, twenty-four in num- 
 ber, were hidden within a small creek, having the boat drawn up among 
 the rocks ; and here the pirates were seized. The number of the pris- 
 oners was fifty, well armed men, headed by a chief and five officers. 
 
CUBA IN 1851. 63 
 
 This important result proves that the faction is dispirited, and that 
 the greater number have sought their safety by flight, astonished at the 
 bravery of our soldiers, and convinced that their doctrines cannot find 
 an echo in the country. 
 
 At half-past two o'clock in the evening I returned to Morillo, as 
 the inhabitants, vv^ho informed me of the departure of the pirates, told 
 me, also, that some parties of the fugitives were wandering in the neigh- 
 borhood, and that the troops of her Majesty were at a small distance 
 from this place. I sent to the commander, by a faithful peasant, this 
 communication, with the names of the prisoners, whom I keep, for the 
 disposition of your Excellency, in the frigate Esperanza, in which I am 
 just now starting again to sea. 
 
 Published, by order of his Excellency, in the Gac'eta Extraordinaria. 
 
 PEDRO ESTEBAN. 
 
 Havana, August 16. 
 
 SPANISH OFFICIAL ACCOUNT. 
 We translate from a supplement of the Prensa^ of August 16, 
 the following article : — 
 
 JUSTICE. 
 
 We have just come from the shooting execution, at the brow of the 
 Castle of Atares, of the fifty pirates taken by the excellent General 
 Commander of Marine of this station, having arrived, in the morning, 
 on board the war frigate of her Majesty the Queen, Esperanza. 
 
 The justice of man is accomplished. The unfortunate criminals are 
 now before the tribunal of God, giving an account of their past.lives. 
 
 We hate the crime. We have compassion for the criminals. 
 
 Please God, that this inevitable and just warning may wake the under- 
 standing and reason of those perverse men who, from a foreign land, 
 sent to death those who are their instruments ; the infamous, who, in- 
 cited by the most vile passions and voracity, are intent to bring ruin, 
 desolation, and crime into a peaceful and quiet country, which respects 
 all the other nations of the world — which is always occupied with its 
 business, its industry, and its commerce. 
 
 New Orleans papers, there is your work ! There is the result of 
 your diragations, of your iniquitous falsehoods, of your placards with 
 large black letters, and your detestable extras. There you have that 
 scattered blood, and that will be scattered in future. There you have 
 it, smoking in accusation against you, perverse instigators, against you, 
 who have murdered those deluded men, whom you have sent to death 
 — for you knew well that they certainly would be killed. This blood 
 must flow, drop by drop, upon your heads — this blood will torment you 
 in your sleep, for they have lost their lives when you were in security 
 in your houses. 
 
 Never mind that those stupid men who left them to be taken by your 
 demoniac cries, have fallen ! What interest had you in that, if gold 
 was in your pockets, the gold your only god, the payment of the blood 
 
64 CUBA m 1851. 
 
 shed ? The greatest culprits ef all are the papers of New Orleans. But 
 they are in security, and God alone can punish them. Why did you 
 not come with the pirates, if you loyally believed that you would have 
 been received with open arms, ye iniquitous ? 
 
 The fifty prisoners of the Esperanza have been shot, at the brow of 
 the Castle of Atares, as we have already said. The steamer Habanero 
 brought them to the place of their execution. 
 
 The troops formed a square. They had on their war uniform — the 
 hlusa and straw hat. On the arrival of the troops, the cavalry and the 
 civic guard, the multitude on foot and on horseback, placed on the 
 heights, on the plain, on the sea, and a great distance upon the edifices 
 of Jesus del Monte and el Cerro, incessantly cheering the Queen and 
 Spain — eternal idols of that army and of this people so much calum- 
 niated by the United States. 
 
 Sr. Mayor de Plazo read the usual edict, and the criminals appeared by 
 ten at a time ; and, after being shot, were taken away from the place of 
 execution, to make room for their companions ! The first chief was 
 shot alone — the two second chiefs were shot together — all in the midst 
 of incessant cries in favor of the Queen and Spain. 
 
 Justice being done, the Lieutenant, Rey, in a speech to the soldiers 
 and the people, expressed himself in strong and worthy terms, saying 
 that the punishment inflicted was merited by these men ; who, without 
 a God, without a law, without a flag, came in order to attack our na- 
 tionality, our religion, our Queen, and all other objects dear to our 
 hearts. 
 
 The vivats to the Queen and to the country were repeated with 
 more energy ; the troops defiled, and the people went to the place of 
 execution, where they looked for what the criminals had left. 
 
 Ten funeral cars were waiting to convey to the cemetery the mortal 
 remains of the fifty pirates. Those cars had been furnished by the 
 funeral agencies, and were ornamented according to the circumstances 
 of the tragedy. 
 
 The justice of man is complete ! God has pardoned the young cul- 
 prits, who have lost their lives by having trusted their faith to the infa- 
 mous falsehoods of the New Orleans papers. 
 
 ; Lieut. Henry Rogers, U. S. N., in command of the steamship 
 
 Falcon, wrote a letter to M. O. Eoberts, announcing his being 
 
 brought to by the firing across his bow, and questioning the 
 
 right of the Spanish authorities to stop his vessel on the open 
 
 sea for examination. 
 
 The following copies of letters from some of the Americans 
 
 executed in Havana, have been published. "We preface copies 
 
 of them by letters received at the same time from other parties 
 
 in Havana : 
 
CITBA IN 1851. 65 
 
 Havana, August 18, 1851. 
 
 You will hear everything. I write to impress you with the conduct 
 of our Consul, Mr. Owens, of Georgia. He has been called upon by 
 several Americans, to go to the Captain-General, who would not have 
 refused him to be present while these poor fellows lived, and obtain 
 their dying request. He refused, absolutely, to have anything to do 
 with it. It appears that one Antonio Costa, a Spaniard, of New Or- 
 leans, was present, in order to obtain what he could, as a spy to the 
 Spanish government, to find out of these unfortunate men how things 
 were, &c. I send you a Faro of the 14th, from which you will see he 
 has offered his services and one hundred men from New Orleans, to 
 protect the government. 
 
 They shot several men on the 5th, (one a German doctor, and the 
 other an American engineer,) so I am well informed. Sixteen others 
 shot, positively. 
 
 The Albany left us this morningj, in, alarm and. without protection. 
 
 [Correspondence of the New Orleans Crescent.] 
 * * * . * * * They died bravely, those gallant and unfortu- 
 nate young men. When the moment of execution came, many, Colo- 
 nel Crittenden and Captain Victor Kerr among them, refused to kneel; 
 with their backs to their executioners. " NO," said the chivalrous, 
 Crittenden, "AN AMERICAN KNEELS ONLY TO HIS GOD, 
 AND ALWAYS FACES HIS ENEMY." They stood up, faced 
 their executioners, were shot down, and their brains then knocked out 
 by clubbed muskets. . 
 
 Other prisoners have been made and executed near the field, or in 
 the vicinity of Bahia Honda — fifteen on boai-d the steamer Pizarro — a 
 good deal of cold bloodshed, which will probably give a not acceptable ■ 
 return to those who have proved their chivalry in vain ; but who can 
 unflinchingly look the dead mali in the face — but not, I believe, with- 
 out the sense of shame. The number we shall know, if the govern- 
 ment choose to publish. 
 
 The Creoles here are cowards — they have fled far from their promi- 
 ses. At the East, it is said, they maintain themselves as heroes, and 
 Lopez is not yet defeated. The only hope is, that in divided counsels, 
 want of food, &c., he may fail. Spanish chivalry has been beaten 
 back in every action attempted, with great loss, by a handful of men. 
 
 LAST WORDS OF AMERICAN PRISONERS. 
 From Victor Kerr to his Wife and Friends. 
 [From the NeW Orleans Delta, August 22-] 
 The following letters from that gallant young creole hero, Victor 
 Kerr, are among the last which he ever wrote. They were written in 
 a bold and masculine style of chirography, and will sufficiently refute 
 the unfounded rumors touching their tenor, put into circulation, yester- 
 day, by the enemies of Cuban liberty : 
 5 
 
66 CUBA m 1851. 
 
 My Dear Felicia :— Adieu, my dear wife, this is the last letter 
 that you will receive from your Victor. In one hour I shall be no 
 more. 
 
 Embrace all my friends for me. Never marry again ; it is my de- 
 sire. My adieus to my sisters and brothers. Again, a last adieu. I 
 die like a soldier. 
 
 Your husband, VICTOR KERR. 
 
 August 16, 1851—6 o'clock. 
 
 Mr Dear Friends : — I leave you forever, and I go to the other 
 world. I am prisoner in Havana, and in an hour I shall have ceased to 
 exist. My dearest friends, think often of me. I die worthy of a Cre- 
 ole, worthy of a Louisianian, and of a Kerr. My dearest friends, 
 adieu for the last time. 
 
 Your devoted friend, VICTOR KERR. 
 
 To N. Larose, H. Bouhgny, Leon Fazende, William G. Vincent, 
 Felix Arrayo. 
 
 August 16, 1851— 6| o'clock. 
 
 Capt. Kerr was a native of ISTew Orleans, and the son of Dr. 
 Kerr of that city, who died the present year, aged about 53 or 
 •54. Some have confounded this name with that of Dr. Wm. 
 Kerr, who was surgeon under Gen. Jackson at the battle of l^ew 
 Orleans. Capt. Yictor Kerr was the son-in-law of Mr. Michell, 
 who published a card, thanking a friend for having secured and 
 returned the body of the Captain to his friends in ISTew Orleans. 
 
 Capt. Kerr served in the war with Mexico, and his command- 
 ing officer speaks of him in the following language : 
 
 New York, August 25, 1851. 
 I will also state, that Victor Kerr Avas one of the gallant Creoles of 
 Louisiana, enlisted in the company (G) I had the honor of recruiting 
 and commanding during the Mexican war. He was at the battle of 
 Tolome, fought by Colonel Mcintosh, U. S. A., June 6, 1847, and dis- 
 tinguished himself in the highest degree. I have the honor to be, very 
 respectfully, your obedient servant. 
 
 A. M. DUPERU, 
 late Captain co. G, 3d Dragoons. 
 
 From Thomas C. James. 
 
 Spanish Frigate Esperanza. ) 
 
 Harbor of Havana, August 15, 1851. ) 
 
 My Dear Brothers and Sisters : — This is the last letter you will 
 
 ever receive from your brother Thomas. In one hour more I will be 
 
 launched into eternity, being now a prisoner, with fifty others, aboard 
 
 of this ship, and now under sentence of death. All to be shot ! This 
 
CUBA IN 1851. 67 
 
 is a hard fate, but I trust in the mercy of God, and will meet my fate 
 manfully. 
 
 Think of me hereafter, not with regret, but as one whom you loved 
 in life, and who loved you. Adieu, forever, my brothers, sisters and 
 friends. ^ THOMAS C. JAMES. 
 
 Robert, our poor friends, G. A. Cook, and John 0. Bryce, are with 
 me, and send their last regard to you ; also Clement Stanford, formerly 
 of Natchez. 
 
 From Adjutant Stanford. 
 
 Havana, August 16, 1851. 
 
 DearHuling: — We arrived on the island of Cuba after the most 
 horrible passage you can conceive of, cooped on board with 400 or 500 
 men. 
 
 We arrived on Sunday last, I believe — dates I have almost forgotten. 
 The next morning, Lopez, with General Praguay and all the command- 
 ing officers, left as — (I mean Crittenden and his battalion.) We heard 
 nothing more of him for two days, when Crittenden dispatched a note. 
 He then requested we should join him at a little town some six or 
 eight miles off, leaving us in the mean time to take care of all the bag- 
 gage, &c. 
 
 We started for him on Wednesday, morning at two o'clock, and had 
 proceeded only three miles when we were attacked by 500 Spanish 
 soldiers. In the first charge I received a very severe wound in the 
 knee. We repulsed them, however. They made another charge, and 
 completely routed us. We spent two days and nights, the most miser- 
 able you can imagine, in the chapparal, without anything to eat or 
 drink. 
 
 We made the best of our way to the sea-shore, and found some boats 
 with which we put to sea. Spent a night upon the ocean, and the 
 next day, about 12 o'clock, were taken prisoners by the Habanero, 
 were brought to Havana last night and condemned to die this morning. 
 We shall all be shot in an hour. 
 
 Good bye and God bless you. I send the Masonic medal enclosed in 
 
 this, belonging to my father. Convey it to my sister, Mrs. P -n, 
 
 and tell her my fate. Once more, God bless you. STANFORD. 
 
 From J. Brandt. 
 
 Havana, August 16, 1851. 
 
 My Dear Mother : — I have but a few moments to live. Fifty of 
 us are condemned to be shot within a half hour. I do not value life, 
 but deeply regret the grief it will cause you to hear of my death. 
 Farewell, then, my dear mother, sisters and all ; we may meet again 
 in another world. Think of me often ; forget the causes I have given 
 you for grief: remember only my virtues. Farewell, again, dearest 
 mother, and believe me to be your affectionate son, 
 
 Mrs. Maria E. Brandt. J. BRANDT, 
 
68 CUBA m 1851. 
 
 JFroin IT. Vienne. 
 
 On Board the Man-of-War Esperanza, ) 
 August 16, 1851. \ 
 
 My Dear and Affectionate Sisters and Brothers : — Before I 
 die, I am permitted to address my last words in this world. 
 
 Deceived by false visions, I embarked in the expedition for Ctibx. 
 We arrived, about four hundred in number, last week, and in about an 
 hour from now, we, I mean fifty of us, will be lost. I wa% taken pris- 
 oner after an engagement, and with fifty others, am to be shot in an 
 hour. 
 
 I die, my dear brothers and sisters, a repentant sinner, having been 
 blessed with the last rites of our holy religion. Forgive me for all the 
 follies of my life, and you, my dear and affectionate sisters, pray for 
 my poor soul. 
 
 A , go to my dear mother and console her. Oh ! my dear 
 
 child, kiss her a thousand times for me. Love her for my sake. Kiss 
 my brothers and all your dear children. To Father Blackney, my last 
 profound respect ; to Father Lacroix and Father D'Hau, a mass for the 
 repose of my soul. 
 
 My dear mother-in-law, farewell ! Poor Tacite is shot and dead by 
 this time ! 
 
 I give and bequeath mj dear child to you and you alone. Good-bye, 
 H — >— — ; good-bye, G and T— — . I did my duty. Good- 
 bye, all. 
 
 Your dear Son and Brother, 
 
 HONORE TACITE VIENNE. 
 
 Mr. Antonio Costa has promised to do a\\ he can to obtain my body . 
 If so, please have me buried with my wife. 
 
 Fro?7i Gr. A. CooTc. 
 
 Havana, on Board a Man of War, ) 
 
 8 o'clock A. M., August 16, 1851. ] 
 Stanton & Co. 
 
 My Dear Friends : — About fifty of us — Col. Crittenden's command 
 — were taken prisoners yesterday ; have not received our sentence yet, 
 but no doubt we will be shot before sunset. Zqpes, the Scoundrel, has 
 deceived us ; there is no doubt that all those reports about the Cuban 
 rising were trumped up in New Orleans. Lopez took nearly his com- 
 mand and deserted us. We were attacked by some 500 or 700 of the 
 Queen's troops the second day after we landed. Our own gallant Col. 
 Crittenden did all that any man could do — but we saw we had been 
 deceived and retreated to the sea-shore with the intention of getting off^ 
 to our country if possible. Got three boats and got, off" with the inten- 
 tion of coasting until we fell in with an American vessel, and were 
 taken prisoners by the steamboat Habanero. 
 
 Explain to my family that I have done nothing but was instigated by 
 the highest motives, that I die with a clear conscience and like a man 
 
CUBA IN 1851. 69 
 
 with a stout heart. I send my watch to you, it is for httle Benny, my 
 nephew. Good bye, God bless you all. 
 
 Truly yours, GILMAN A. COOK. 
 
 NOTICES OF THE LIVES AND CHABACTEES OF SOME OF THE SUFFEEEES. 
 
 COL. WILLIAM S. CRITTENDEN. 
 .''AN AMEBIC AS KNEELS ONLY TO HIS GOD, AND 
 ALWAYS FACES HIS ENEMY." 
 
 This noble declaration, and last speech of the gallant Critten- 
 den, would have immortalized a hero, in the best days of Greece 
 or Rome. 
 
 [From the Louisville Courier, Aug. 25.] 
 The Colonel Crittenden who was one of the Americans executed at 
 Havana was, doubtless, William Crittenden, formerly of this city, and 
 brother of John A. Crittenden, late Marshal of the Chancery Court 
 here. Patrick Dillon, Dr. Fisher, and Manville, who were also exe- 
 cuted at the same time, were from this city, and we understand some 
 two or three others of the unfortunates were from Indiana. 
 
 [From the New Orleans True Delta.] 
 
 Lotig and well did we know him. We knew him first in the Mexi- 
 can war, and in many a bivouac shared his blanket. Educated at West 
 Point, he graduated with honor. At the opening of that war, he occu- 
 pied the position of adjutant of the 1st infantry, and for several months 
 discharged the highly responsible duties of post adjutant at Vera Cruz, 
 with merited honor. He was the son of a brother of the distinguished 
 gentleman who now fills the office of attorney-general of the United 
 States. His father emigrated to Arkansas, when that state was in its 
 infancy, and died in early life, filling a community with universal re- 
 gret for the loss of a man as highly endowed with the loftiest virtues, 
 as he was gifted with the rarest genius. 
 
 Will Crittenden, as he was familiarly named by his friends, was 
 worthy of the stock whence he sprung. A nobler specimen of the 
 Kentucky gentleman, a worthier servant or citizen of the Republic, we 
 have never met. A Hon heart, a love of truth, of honor and of liberty, 
 were his. An accomplished soldier, a votary of letters, he was as gen- 
 tle as he was brave. At the close of the Mexican war, he resigned his 
 military office, and became a citizen of New Orleans, where he resided 
 until he embarked with Lopez. 
 
 Our blood has boiled to hear the base inuendoes of the agued lip- 
 lovers of Cuban freedom against him, as well as his companions, for 
 permitting themselves to be captured. The dying missives of his com- 
 patriots reveal the causes that compelled his heroic soul to yield. If 
 
YO CTJBA IN 1851. 
 
 ever a man fell a victim to atrocious deception, it was he. A few days 
 before he left, we met him, and a wish that we would accompany him 
 was expressed. — We earnestly advised him against embarking in the 
 enterprise ; we spoke our incredulity of the reports that the Cubans 
 had risen. He answered that he was no freebooter ; that he could not 
 be induced to join the expedition, were not the people of Cuba in arms 
 against their rulers. 
 
 That a revolution had actually commenced, that the Cubans were in 
 the field, he assured us he knew from statements of parties who had 
 given him their confidence. Against this faith, we had nothing but our 
 incredulity to present, and we parted never to meet again. We have 
 felt it a solemn duty to state this, to remove the impression that he, 
 from his position in the expedition, was a party to the cruel artifices 
 practiced by the unseen heads of the scheme. 
 
 LIEUT. THOMAS C. JAMES. 
 
 [From the Wilmington (N. C.) Herald, August 23.] 
 Among the victims of the recent execution in Havana, a report of 
 which will be found in another column, we were pained to discover the 
 name of Lieut. Thomas C. James, formerly of this place. We knew 
 him well in days gone by, for he was a school-fellow of ours, and we 
 can bear willing testimony to the many excellent qualities of his mind 
 and heart. He was of an ardent, impulsive temperament, fond of ex- 
 citement and adventure, and was deservedly esteemed while a resident 
 here. But he has fallen in the full flush of manhood, and whatever 
 may be the shades of opinion with regard to the character of the cause 
 in which he was enlisted, still the warmer emotions of our nature can 
 not but revolt at the inhuman sacrifice which robbed him and his daring 
 associates of life. One consolation, at least, remains to his kindred and 
 friends — and it is that he died like a hero, without a sign of fear. 
 
 [From the New Orleans Delta, August 26.] 
 W give below a letter sent to us by Colonel R. W. James, brother of 
 that gallant young man, Thomas C. James, who was one of the fifty so 
 cruelly murdered in Havana. Col. James was also the intimate friend 
 of Mr. G. A. Cook, (another of the murdered patriots,) having accom- 
 panied him through a long and perilous service in the reconnoisance of 
 the Isthmus of Tehuantepec : — 
 
 New Orleans, August 25, 1851. 
 Though oppressed with grief for the loss of a beloved brother, and of 
 my dear friend Gilman A. Cook, who were brutally murdered in Ha- 
 vana, on the 16th instant, by the Spanish authorities, 1 cannot refrain 
 from performing an act of duty, by stating what my intimacy with Mr. 
 Cook enables me to say — that, in going to Cuba, he was neither de- 
 ceived nor persuaded by any one, but acted from his owa noble impul- 
 ses, which M'ere always on the side of the oppressed. His determina- 
 tion to accompany my brother, with whom he had passed through many 
 dangers, and to whom he was warmly attached, was made but a few hours 
 
CUBA m 1851. 71 
 
 before the expedition sailed. He had no knowledge whatever of the 
 plan of operation. My brother and myself, from motives of friendship 
 and regard, knowing that he was the'only surviving son of a large fami- 
 ly, endeavored to dissuade him from going ; but his mind was made up, 
 and he said he would shrink from no dangers which his old friend 
 Thomas 0. James might encounter. I am satisfied that he could have 
 had no consultation with Gen. Lopez before he left. I would also add 
 my belief, as one who felt deeply the effects of the calamity, that the 
 command of Col. Crittenden could not have been deserted by General 
 Lopez, but that the gallant old man no doubt did all that mortal could 
 do to save the very flower of his little army, and that their destruction 
 was effected somewhat in the manner described by Gen. Huston, in 
 Sunday's Delta — -by the unexpected interposition of a large Spanish 
 force between the party with Gen. Lopez and the command of Col. 
 Crittenden which had charge of the baggage. In justice to the old hero, 
 I would oppose to the charges of his assailants in this city, who accuse 
 him of treachery, my own, and what I believe is the sentiment of near- 
 ly our whole people, that his conduct Svas brave and honest. 
 Respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 E. W. JAMES. 
 
 [From the New Orleans Crescent, July 26.] 
 A letter from Alex. McAleer, one of the Havana victims, to Mr. John 
 McGinn, was shown to us yesterday. Mr. McA. writes that on the 
 12th August they had a fight with the Spaniards, killing thirty of them 
 and losing three men ; that they then returned to take a vessel for New 
 Orleans, but not arriving in time, took four boats and put to sea, and 
 were captured. The remainder of his letter is in reference to private 
 matters. 
 
 — ' « 
 
 [From the Washington Southern Press, August 3d.] 
 
 We learn that Alexander M. Colchett, one of the victims of Cuban 
 vengeance, was the son of a wealthy and highly respectable merchant 
 of Charleston, South Carolina, and a brother of John M. Colchett, of 
 the firm of John M. Colchett & Co., of New Orleans. He was between 
 20 and 21 years of age, and a respectable member of" one of the most 
 wealthy and respected families of South Carolina. He had resided for 
 some time in New Orleans, and was a member of the Washington Ar- 
 tillery, of that city. 
 
 The St. Louis Kepublican states that S. C. Jones and T. C. 
 Teasy, included in the list of the persons shot at Havana, were 
 two young and promising lawyers of that city, but does not give 
 further particulars. 
 
 Several persons among the slain were known to have gone 
 from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. "We 
 
T2 CUBA m 1851. 
 
 regret tliat our materials for giving sketches of tlie lives of those 
 executed are not more abundant. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Amidst the conflicting statements daily published, it has been 
 difficult for the most impartial to arrive at satisfactory conclu- 
 sions regarding the real extent and strength of the revolution. 
 One thing must force itself upon the conviction of the most 
 skeptical, and that is, if the revolution among the Creoles is of 
 that brief and contemptible character represented in the Spanish 
 accounts, why has it continued in existence so long at the east 
 end of the island ? 
 
 We know it first commenced on the 3d July, and, according 
 to advices as late as the 25th August, it still continued unsubdued. 
 
 It may also be remarked, that a United States soldier in Kew 
 York, who was present at the execution in Havana, confirms the 
 fact, that the bodies of the slain Americans were barbarously 
 insulted and mutilated as stated. 
 
 The accounts received up to this period, September 6, 1851, 
 represent that two battles had been fought between Xopez and 
 the Spanish troops ; one on the 17th, and the other on the 21st 
 August. The first was stated to have been fought near Caram- 
 bola, and at a coffee plantation formerly owned by the lady of 
 General Lopez. It is said the Spanish troops were drawn up in 
 two columns, and at first refused to advance upon the patriots, 
 who lined the fences in the vicinity. 
 
 General Enna then took thirty Cazadors and charged upon the 
 patriots, who succeeded in killing every one of their assailants, 
 with the exception of an aide-de-camp. In the charge. General 
 Enna was mortally wounded. 
 
 After the fall of General Enna, General Eosales collected to- 
 gether five hundred of the Spanish troops and fled, leaving 
 seventy wounded upon th« field of action. 
 
 General Resales was to be superseded, for cowardice, by 
 •General Pavis, of Matanzas. 
 
 After this engagement Lopez is said to have advanced to 
 
CUBA IN 1851. 73 
 
 Guanajay, a point nearer Havana, near which, probably, the 
 second battle was fonght, which may possibly have decided his 
 fate, if the last news per Cherokee, by telegraph, proves true. 
 In the first engagement, it is said, the Spanish officers were dis- 
 mayed at the rapid firing of the Americans, who are said to 
 have fired four times to the Spaniards' once. 
 
 General Enna was said to have been buried with great pomp 
 at Havana, on the 21st August. 
 
 The Faro Industnrial^ published at Havana, says : 
 
 We are authorized to publish the following account of the forces of 
 the traitor Lopez, from a document found among papers taken from one 
 of the prisoners : Six companies of infantry, including officers, 219 ; 
 three artillery, 114 ; one Cuban patriots, 49 ; one Hungarian, 9 ; one 
 German, 9. 
 
 List of Officers. — General-in-Chief, Narcisso Lopez ; second in 
 command, and chief of the . staff, John Pragay ; officers of the staff. 
 Captain Emmrich Radwitch ; Lieutenants Joseph Lewohl, and Jigys 
 Rodendorf ; Adjutants Colengen and Blumenthal ; Captain Ludwig 
 Schlessenger ; Lieutenants Ludwig and Miller ; Surgeon Hega Lemm- 
 gue. Commissary, G. A. Cook. 
 
 Staff of the Regiment of Infantry— Colonel R. L. Dorman, Lieu- 
 tenant Colonel W. Scott Harness, Adjutant George A. Graham ; Com- 
 missary Joseph Bell. Adjutant of the Regiment, George Parr. 
 
 Company A. — Captain, Robert EUis; Lieutenant, E. McDonald; 
 Sub-Lieutenant, J. L. La Hascan ; ditto, R. H. Beslinbridge. 
 
 Company B. — Captain, John Johnson ; First Lieutenant, James 
 Dunn; Second do., J. F. Williams ; Third do., James O'Reilly. 
 
 Company C. — Captain, J. C. Bridgham ; First Lieutenant, Richard 
 Vrwden ; Second do., J. A. Gray ; Third do., J. N. Baker. 
 
 Company D. — Captain, Philip Golday ; First Lieutenant, David L. 
 Rassan ; Second do., John H. Landingham ; Third do. James H. 
 Vowden. 
 
 Company E. — Captain, Henry Jackson ; First Lieutenant, Wm. 
 Hobbs; Second do., J. A. Simpson ; Third do., James Crangh. 
 
 Company F. — Captain, Wm. Stewart ; First Lieutenant, James L. 
 Down ; Second do., John L. Bass; Third do., Thomas Hudwall. 
 
 Regiment of Artillery. — Officers of the Staff. — Chief, Wm. L. Crit- 
 tenden ; Adjutant, R. L. Stanford ; Second Master of Commissariat, 
 Felix Hustin ; Surgeon, Ludovic Vinks. 
 
 Company A. — Captain W. A. Kelly ; First Lieutenant, N. 0. James ; 
 Second do., James A. Nowens ; Third do., J. 0. Bryce. 
 
 Company B. — Captain, James Saunders ; First Lieutenant, Philip 
 Van Vechten ; Second do., Beverley A. Hunter ; Third do., Wm. H. 
 Craft. 
 
 Company C. — Captain, Victor Kerr ; First Lieutenant, James Brandt ; 
 Second do., Wm. T. Vienne. 
 
74 ouBA IN 1861. 
 
 Begiment of Cuhan Patriots. — Company A., Captain, Ilde Fousee 
 Overto ; First Lieutenant, De Jiga Hernandez; Second do.-, Miguel 
 Lopez; Third do., Jose A. Pianos ; Fourth do., Henry Lopez. 
 
 Regiment of Hungarians. — Major, George Botilla ; Captain, Ladislaus 
 Polank; Lieutenants, Sermerby, Johan Petroce, Adambert Kerskes, 
 and Conrad Richner. 
 
 German Regiment. — Captain Hugo Schlyct ; Lieutenants, Paul 
 Michael, Biro Cambeas ; Captain, Pietro Muller ; Lieutenant, Giovano 
 Placasee. 
 
 The following telegraph, despatch, received in l^&w York on 
 
 the night of the dth September, contains the latest items of news 
 
 respecting the death of General Lopez and his brave followers : 
 
 New Orleans, Sept. 3d, 1851. 
 The steamship Cherokee, with, probably, news from Havana to the 
 31st of August, is telegraphed below the city. We have a brief an- 
 nouncement of her news, to the effect that General Lopez and most of 
 his command have been captured by the Spanish troops, and executed. 
 
 FISTAi RESULT OF THE EXPEDITION UNDER GENERAL LOPEZ, AND HIS 
 PUBLIC EXECUTION IN THE CITY OF HAVANA. 
 
 It will be perceived that in the progress of this work contra- 
 dictory news and reports were arriving almost daily ; and, be- 
 fore the defeat and death of General Lopez was announced, by tele- 
 graph, from New Orleans, on the 5th September, we had already 
 put to press the greater part of our book. Hence, should any dis- 
 cre2:)ancy appear between our previous remarks, and the final 
 developments and closing scenes of the expedition under Lopez, 
 they can be reconciled with the fact that we wrote from the in- 
 formation before us at the time. 
 
 It will be perceived from our previous suggestions respecting 
 the charges preferred against Lopez for deception, cowardice, 
 &c., that Lopez himself might have been deceived, and overrated 
 the sympathy and ability of the Creoles to aid him. And again, 
 that it might not have been in his power to have rejoined and 
 succored Colonel Crittenden. In confirmation of these views we 
 refer to Mr. James's letter, the brother of Lieutenant James, 
 shot at Havana, received in JSTew York on the 4th September, 
 and which we have inserted beneath the notice of Lieutenant 
 James, from a North Carolina paper, and Lopez' last expres- 
 sions are said to indicate that he himself was misled. 
 
 We, throughout, have not been sanguine of his success. It is 
 apparent that he either over-estimated the aid to be expected 
 from the Creoles, or, that he was guilty of great rashness. That 
 he fully desired the liberty of Cuba his dying words attest. The 
 great fault he and his followers committed was landing so near 
 
CUBA m 1851. T5 
 
 the stronghold of the Government with such a feeble force, and 
 to commit the fanlt of separation from Colonel Crittenden, They 
 should have remained together, and fought together. Losing 
 his artillery and the services of some of his ablest men was disas- 
 trous. 
 
 For him to have successfully accomplished the revolution of 
 the island, he and his friends were unwise to have landed with 
 less than ten thousand men, well supplied with artillery, and 
 cavalry equipments, provisions, and other stores. Should such 
 a force once land on the island, with an experienced military 
 American in command, the conflict would neither be long nor 
 doubtful. 
 
 In extending all aid of this kind to the Creoles, their co-opera- 
 tion could not be expected unless supplied freely with arms, and 
 taught to some extent the use of them. We presume one reason 
 Lopez failed in securing their services, resulted, in some degree, 
 from his inability to supply them with arms to any useful extent. 
 It is well known the Spanish Government has, for a long time, 
 deprived the Creoles of arms of every description. 
 
 Again, it is likely that Lopez erred in judgment. At a dis- 
 tance from the scene of action, and unacquainted with his views, 
 one would suppose it would have been most prudent for him 
 with so small a force to have sought a landing at some point of 
 the eastern department, where the standard of revolt had been 
 already raised by the peoj)le, and disaffection more widely 
 spread, where, by seeking a junction with them, he could have 
 kept up a guerilla warfare in the mountains for a month or two, 
 until further and more effective aid could have reached him 
 from the States. We imagine that his talents were better fitted 
 for guerilla contest than operations in an open field. 
 
 When, failures attend enterprises, it always strikes those who 
 witness their results, that if they could have directed affairs, re- 
 sults would have been different. 
 
 We believe that Lopez was brave, but rash. The heroism with 
 which he met his fate, shows that he was not destitute of manly 
 nerve. 
 
 He has now passed from the tribunal of this world, and let us 
 hope that he may find repose and peace in that endless state 
 upon which he has entered. 
 
 We are advised that the revolutionists in the eastern depart- 
 ment of the island still maintain themselves in the field against 
 the government. This however, requires more detailed accounts 
 to prove how far it is formidable or successful. That they exist 
 in some form, can hardly be doubted. 
 
 Perhaps some future author will close his account of Cuba, 
 with a different story than the one we have just related. 
 
76 CUBA IN 1861. 
 
 We shall close, by adding a few brief items relating to tbe 
 biography of Gen. Lopez, which we suppose may at the same 
 time be considered a sort of obituary notice. 
 
 GEN. NAECISSO LOPEZ. 
 
 It is said that he was executed, or garoted, on the Plaza at 
 Havana, on the 1st September, at 7 o'clock A. M., 1851, before 
 an immense concourse of people. 
 
 In the absence of fuller accounts due by the mails, we annex 
 the following particulars respecting the capture and execution of 
 Lopez, from telegraph reports received from 'New Orleans on the 
 4th September, without, however, vouching for their correct- 
 ness. The news was received at New Orleans on the 3d or 
 4th September, by the Cherokee, and telegraphed to New York. 
 
 " Lopez was captured near San Christoral, a place about sixty miles 
 southwest of Havana. 
 
 " Thence he was escorted to Havana, and publicly garoted on 
 THE 29th of August. 
 
 " It is also added, in the Philadelphia despatch, that all Lopez's men 
 were likewise captured and executed. 
 
 " The punishment of the garote is the placing of the victim in an 
 easy chair, clamping his limbs, placing a band around the neck, and 
 gradually pressing a screw until the neck is broken. 
 
 " Passengers who witnessed the execution of Lopez, state that he 
 ended his life manfully. 
 
 " The failure of the expedition is attributed to the separation of Col. 
 Crittenden's command from the main body under Lopez. 
 
 " The Patriots are stated to have deserted Lopez, and fled to the 
 mountains. 
 
 " Just previous to the capture of Lopez, he had but thirty remaining 
 followers, and they finally deserted him, so that he had not one remain- 
 ing friend. 
 
 " He wandered alone for some time, and was finally run down by 
 bloodhounds. His last words were, 'Adieu, dear Cuba, !' 
 
 " The Spanish accounts state, that of the whole number of patriots 
 landed by the Pampero, and from other quarters^ 556 have already 
 been killed, and 436 are now in prison. 
 
 " Previous to the death of Lopez, he declared that he had been 
 greatly DECEIVED, in regard to promised aid in Cuba. 
 
 " A meeting of passengers was held on board the steamer Cherokee, 
 at which Gen. Lane, of Oregon, presided, and the following resolution 
 was unanimously passed : 
 
 " 'Resolved, That Mr. Owen, the American consul at Havana, has 
 forfeited every right and title to be regarded as an American citizen. 
 
 " 'That he has outraged every sentiment of humanity, and deserves 
 the execration of every friend of liberty.' 
 
 " Another requests his?recall by the American government. 
 
 " We learn by the . Cherokee, that Gen. Pragay had been killed at 
 Posas," 
 
GENERAL LOPEZ. 
 
 It is stated that these accounts were brought by passengers on 
 the steamer. We give the whole dispatch, including the censure 
 of the American Consul by a meeting of passengers. 
 
 Gen. Lopez was born in Yenezuela, South America, in 1798-9, 
 and hence, at the time of his execution, must have been about 
 62 years of age. He was the only son of a wealthy inhabitant 
 of the country, who subsequently lost his property by the civil 
 wars which sprung up. 
 
 He commenced his military career at 15 years of age, after the 
 
'?'8 CUBA IN 1851. 
 
 partial destruction of Ms family and loss of fortune ; lie passed 
 through, some severe conflicts in the pseudo service of Bolivar, 
 whom he at first favored, and from whom he afterwards separated. 
 Being J^oung and without any prospect of advancement and des- 
 titute of fortune, he enlisted in the Spanish army, and not long 
 after rose to a Colonelcy and received the cross of San Fernando. 
 
 In 1823, on the evacuation of Yenezuela by the Spanish troops, 
 he removed to Cuba on the conclusion of peace, where he mar- 
 ried and became a citizen of the island. 
 
 He remained in retirement until the death of King Ferdinand 
 YII., when his Queen, Christina, succeeded in placing her 
 daughter, the present Queen, on the throne, in opposition to Don 
 Carlos, the brother of the King. The Queen Christina, to gain 
 the support of the liberals, re^dved the constitution of 1812, or 
 professed to do so. Lopez being on a visit at Madrid, on busi- 
 ness with his wife, espoused the cause of the liberals and assisted 
 in disarming the Carlist or loyalist troops. From the courage he 
 displayed in this service, he soon after joined the Liberal army 
 as Aid-de-camp to the Commander-in-chief, Gen. Valdez. 
 
 He distinguished himself by many brave exploits, and, at the 
 end of the war, had reached the rank of General, and had re- 
 ceived many grand crosses of honor as marks of his distinguished 
 services. He, under all circumstances, adhered to ^the party 
 called in Spain the " libercd exaltadoP- Gen. Yaldez afterwards 
 became Captain-General of Cuba, and was always regarded by 
 Lopez as an upright and virtuous man. 
 
 He was placed in command as Governor of Madrid on the 
 flight of the Queen mother to Paris in 1840, which he afterwards 
 resigned into the hands of Espertaro, the Queen's Regent. 
 
 He before this had been appointed a Senator for the city of 
 Seville. In his ofiicial capacity as Senator he is said to have 
 labored for the advancement of the colonies, and especially for 
 Cuba, the country of his adoption. 
 
 Failing of success equal to his wishes, it is said he became dis- 
 gusted and resolved, if possible, to liberate Cuba from the Span- 
 ish yoke. The repulse of the Cuban representatives from the 
 Spanish Cortes gave a strong impulse to his feelings. 
 
 He resigned his office as Senator and asked leave to return to 
 Cuba, which was with some difficulty obtained from the Eegent. 
 He is said to have returned to Cuba in 1840 or '41, under tlie 
 Captain-Generalship of Yaldez. 
 
 On the fall of Espartaro and rise of JSTarvaez, Gen. O'Donnel 
 superseded Yaldez in the Government, and Lopez was deprived 
 of his office which he had held under Yaldez, as Governor of 
 Trinidad and Commander-in-chief of the Central Department. 
 
CUBA IN 1851. 79 
 
 He was still left -with the commission of General, thongli not 
 on duty. He from this time, it seems, commenced studying 
 schemes for the independence of Cuba. He associated freely 
 with the people and joined them in their amusements, and ren- 
 dered himself as popular as he could by various acts of social 
 kindness in sickness and difficulties of various kinds. 
 
 By 1848, he had arranged plans for a sort of general rising. 
 Shortly before the time fixed upon, he wrote a letter to the Queen, 
 resigning his commission. His plans, however, were acci- 
 dentally discovered, and he barely escaped with life to the 
 United States. After his escape he was condemned to death. 
 His subsequent movements have become more or less familiar to 
 the world. 
 
 Many acts of daring and courage are related which he dis- 
 played during various stages of his military services. 
 
 "tVe annex the following from the Savannah News. Those who 
 wish to read a fuller account of his life are referred to the De- 
 moGratic Review of February, 1850 : 
 
 THE HEROISM OF GENERAL LOPEZ. 
 
 During the celebrated Carlist war in Spain, General Lopez and about 
 seven hundred others were taken prisoners and carried to Cantavieja, 
 a fortification among the mountains of Arragon. The governor of the 
 castle was said to have been a heartless wretch, revelUng in bloody 
 massacres, and delighting in acts of torture. During the dreadful con- 
 finement of these prisoners, the royal army, commanded by General 
 San Miguel, marched to Cantavieja, for the purpose of raising the siege. 
 The place was defended admirably by nature in a narrow defile of the 
 mountains ; but the Spanish general, undismayed by the apparent im- 
 pregnability of the fortress, continued to besiege it, until evidences of 
 his success were soon discovered by his enemies. The governor, 
 thereupon, resolved upon a scheme which could only have entered the 
 mind of a tyrant in whose eyes the sight of blood was a gratification 
 He determined to put all the prisoners to death, from General Lopez 
 down, and requested the general to notify San Miguel of his intention, 
 hoping, by this threat, to stop the siege. Lopez announced this bloody 
 resolution in his letter, but requested General San Miguel not to allow 
 this threat to interfere with the prosecution of the siege. The gover- 
 nor, finding that the letter produced no effect, and that the works were 
 rapidly advancing to consummation, announced to his prisoners that he 
 had ordered their execution ; but that he would allow Lopez to go to 
 San Miguel in person, and explain the circumstances in which they 
 were placed, first receiving his word of honor to return after delivering 
 the message. Lopez was soon in the midst of San Miguel's troops, 
 who hailed his appearance with great demonstrations of jo^^. He ex- 
 plained the threat of the governor, discussed the plans for the siege, 
 gave all the information he possessed as to the weakest points of the 
 
80 CITBA IN 1851. 
 
 fortification, and then rose up to return to his fate. San Miguel ob- 
 jected ; the army loudly opposed his going from their midst to be put 
 to death by the brutal governor ; but the noble Lopez overcame all 
 their entreaties, and surrounded by his sorrowing but admiring friends, 
 he bade them all a kind farewell, wishing them success, even though 
 he himself might be the sacrifice ! The siege proceeded vigorously, 
 for San Miguel knew that he could only save Lopez and the other pri- 
 soners by accomphshing his purpose with as much speed as his means 
 would allow. The governor and those defending the castle had no 
 time left to put their prisoners to death, as they were kept in constant 
 occupation with the work of resistance and defence. The town was 
 soon taken. The governor and the garrison were dismayed ; but 
 Lopez, the patriot and hero, with his gallant band, was saved. 
 
 The following additional intelligence has been received by the 
 Mwpire City : 
 
 The steamers Habanero, Almendares, Pizarro, and Isabella Catholica, 
 were on Sunday dispatched to Bahia Honda and Mariel to bring up the 
 troops, preparatory to the execution of Lopez. 
 
 There are killed and wounded of the Spanish troops 2,000 ; 1,500 
 killed and 600 wounded. 
 
 In every engagement with Lopez the troops were routed with severe 
 loss. 
 
 General Enna, the bravest officer in the army, was shot at the head 
 of an advancing column — ^he was second in command to Concha. At 
 that charge every man was shot down. The Spanish Generals said it 
 was impossible to rally their troops to charge on the assailants. 
 
 Lopez was garoted on Monday morning, September 1, at 7 o'clock. 
 The scene of execution was at the " Ponto" opposite the " Moro." 
 There were assembled from eight to ten thousand troops and as many 
 citizens. 
 
 A few minutes before seven, Lopez was brought forward, and as- 
 cended the platform with a firm and steady step. Facing the multitude 
 he made a short speech, and his last words were, " I die for my be- 
 loved Cuba." 
 
 He then took his seat — the machine was adjusted, at the first twist 
 of the screw his head dropped forward — and he was dead. 
 
 Thus ended the career of General Lopez, so long the dread and ter- 
 ror of Cuban authorities. 
 
 In the preparation of this work we were indebted to Hunt's 
 Merchant's Magazine, Simpson's Map of Cuba, McCuUough's 
 geographical Dictionary, Stryker's Eegister, &c., for many 
 statis^tical items. 
 
 Erratum — Page 27, 13th line from bottom, for faUing off in cofiee, 
 instead of 1849, read 1827.