es of life and limb
that characterize our war, it is a mere bagatelle; and the magnitude of
the prize is to be set off in contrast to the price which it cost. Some
of the regiments employed, however, were destined to suffer severely
from the effects of their visit to Cuba; for, being sent to New York,
the severity of a North-American winter was too much for constitutions
that had been subjected for months to the heats of the tropics. They
were Irishly decimated, losing about nine-tenths of their men.[6]

If we can believe the Spaniards,--and we see no reason for doubting the
substantial correctness of their assertions,--Lord Albemarle's
government was one of much severity, and even cruelty. He ruled the
Havana with a bundle of _fasces_, the rods being of iron, and the axe
sharp, and which did not become rusty from want of use. It was enough
that a man was "guilty of being suspected" to insure him a drum-head
court-martial, which tribunal sent many men to the scaffold, sometimes
denying them religious consolations, an aggravation of punishment
peculiarly terrible to Catholics, and which seems to have been wantonly
inflicted, and in a worse spirit than that of the old persecutors, for
it had not even fanaticism for its excuse. The spirit of the
capitulation seems to have been quite disregarded, though its letter may
have been adhered to. There may be some exaggeration in the Spanish
statements, too,--men who are subject to military rule generally looking
at the conduct of their governors through very powerful glasses. It is
impossible for them to do otherwise; and the mildest proconsul that ever
ruled must still be nothing but a proconsul, even if he were an angel.
Every man thus placed is entitled to as charitable construction of his
conduct as can conscientiously be made; but this the English do not
appear to understand, when the conduct of men of other races is
canvassed. With their own history blotched all over with cruel acts
perpetrated by their military commanders, they set themselves up to
judge of the deeds of the generals of other peoples, as if they alone
could furnish impartial courts for the rendering of historical verdicts.
Their treatment of some American commanders, and particularly General
Butler, is not decent in a people whose officers have wantonly poured
out blood, often innocent, in nearly every country under the sun. There
was more cruelty practised by the English in any one month of the Sepoy
War t