n for any
other reason. From hence Marti dispatched his small fleet of cutters
to operate between Key West and the southern coast of Cuba, sometimes
extending his trips to Charleston, Savannah, and even to New Orleans.
With the duty at ten dollars a barrel on American flour legitimately
imported into the island, it was a paying business to smuggle even
that prosaic but necessary article from one country to the other, and
to transport it inland for consumption. By this business Marti is said
to have amassed a large amount of money. He is described as having
been a tall, dark man of mixed descent, Spanish, Creole, and mulatto.
His great physical strength and brute courage are supposed to have
given him precedence among his associates, added to which he possessed
a large share of native shrewdness, cunning, and business tact. His
masquerading capacity, if we may believe the current stories told of
him, was very remarkable, enabling him to assume almost any disguise
and to effectually carry it out, so as to go safely among his enemies
or the government officials and gain whatever intelligence he desired.
Little authentic information can be had of such a man, and one depends
upon common report only in making up a sketch of his career; but he is
known to have been one of the last of the Caribbean rovers, finally
turning his attention to smuggling as being both the safer and more
profitable occupation. The southern coast of Cuba is so formed as to
be peculiarly adapted to the business of the contrabandists, who even
to-day carry on this adventurous game with more or less impunity,
being stimulated by the excessive and unreasonable excise duties
imposed upon the necessities of life.

When Tacon first arrived in the colony he found the revenue laws in a
very lax condition. Smuggling was connived at by the venal
authorities, and the laws, which were so stringent in the letter, were
practically null and void. It is said that Marti could land a
contraband cargo, at that time, on the Regla side of Havana harbor in
broad daylight without fear of molestation. The internal affairs of
the island were also in a most confused condition; assassinations even
in the streets of Havana were frequent, and brigandage was carried on
in the near environs of the city. The Governor seemed actuated by a
determination to reform these outrages, and set himself seriously
about the business. He found that the Spanish vessels of the navy sent
hither to s