sooner arrive in the island than the deception of the recruiting
sergeants becomes glaringly apparent. They see themselves isolated
completely from the people, treated with the utmost cruelty in the
course of their drills, and oppressed by the weight of regulations that
reduce them to the condition of machines, without any enjoyments to
alleviate the wretchedness of their situation. Men thus treated are not
to be relied upon in time of emergency; they can _think_, if they are
not permitted to act, and will have opinions of their own.

Soldiers thus ruled naturally come to hate those in authority over them,
finding no redress for their wrongs, and no sympathy for their troubles.
Their immediate officers and those higher in station are equally
inaccessible to them, and deaf to their complaints; and when, in the
hour of danger, they are called upon to sustain the government which so
cruelly oppresses them, and proclamations, abounding in Spanish
hyperbole, speak of the honor and glory of the Spanish army and its
attachment to the crown, they know perfectly well that these
declarations and flatteries proceed from the lips of men who entertain
no such sentiments in their hearts, and who only come to Cuba to oppress
a people belonging to the same Spanish family as themselves. Thus the
despotic system of the Spanish officers, combined with the complete
isolation of the troops from the Creole population, has an effect
directly contrary to that contemplated, and only creates a readiness on
the part of the troops to sympathize with the people they are brought to
oppress. The constant presence of a large military force increases the
discontent and indignation of the Creoles. They know perfectly well its
object, and regard it as a perpetual insult, a bitter, ironical
commentary on the epithet of "ever faithful" with which the home
government always addresses its western vassal. The loyalty of Cuba is
indeed a royal fiction. As well might a highwayman praise the generosity
of a rich traveller who surrenders his purse, watch and diamonds, at the
muzzle of the pistol. Cuban loyalty is evinced in an annual tribute of
some twenty-four millions of hard money; the freedom of the gift is
proved by the perpetual presence of twenty-five to thirty thousand men,
armed to the teeth![25]

The complete military force of Cuba must embrace at the present time
very nearly thirty thousand troops,--artillery, dragoons and
infantry,--nearly twenty th