orrespondence, the presence of a slave
population, we can only wonder that any effort has been made, any step
taken in that fatal pathway of revolution which leads infallibly to the
_garrote_.

If Cuba lies at present under the armed heel of despotism we may be sure
that the anguish of her sons is keenly aggravated by their perfect
understanding of our own liberal institutions, and an earnest, if
fruitless desire to participate in their enjoyment. It is beyond the
power of the Spanish government to keep the people of the island in a
state of complete darkness, as it seems to desire to do. The young men
of Cuba educated at our colleges and schools, the visitors from the
United States, and American merchants established on the island, are all
so many apostles of republicanism, and propagandists of treason and
rebellion. Nor can the captains-general with all their vigilance,
exclude what they are pleased to call incendiary newspapers and
documents from pretty extensive circulation among the "ever faithful."
That liberal ideas and hatred of Spanish despotism are widely
entertained among the Cubans is a fact no one who has passed a brief
period among them can truthfully deny. The writer of these pages avers,
from his personal knowledge, that they await only the means and the
opportunity to rise in rebellion against Spain. We are too far distant
to see more than the light smoke, but those who have trodden the soil of
Cuba have sounded the depths of the volcano. The history of the
unfortunate Lopez expedition proves nothing contrary to this. The force
under Lopez afforded too weak a nucleus, was too hastily thrown upon the
island, too ill prepared, and too untimely attacked, to enable the
native patriots to rally round its standard, and thus to second the
efforts of the invaders. With no ammunition nor arms to spare, recruits
would have only added to the embarrassment of the adventurers. Yet had
Lopez been joined by the brave but unfortunate Crittenden, with what
arms and ammunition he possessed, had he gained some fastness where he
could have been disciplining his command, until further aid arrived, the
adventure might have had a very different termination from what we have
recorded in an early chapter of this book.

Disastrous as was the result of the Lopez expedition, it nevertheless
proved two important facts: first, the bravery of the Cubans, a small
company of whom drove the enemy at the point of the bayonet; and,
seco