was led by Juan Fernandez Ruiz and one by Rafael Portuondo;
several led by Rafael Cabrera, one by General Carlos Roloff, and one by
Juan Ruiz Rivera. One came from France, under Fernando Freyre y Andrade,
bringing 5,000 rifles and 1,000,000 cartridges. President Cleveland
issued a warning, that all violators of the United States neutrality
laws would be prosecuted and severely punished, and General Weyler
offered large rewards for information leading to the capture of such
expeditions, but the chief effect was to stimulate Cuban patriots to
greater efforts, if also to increased precautions.

Much attention was meanwhile paid to Cuban affairs by the United States
government, not only in trying to check filibustering but also in
looking after the rights--and wrongs--of American citizens, and also in
seeking an ending of a war which was commercially ruinous and humanely
most distressing. Several joint resolutions were introduced in the
Congress at Washington, for recognizing the Cubans as belligerents, for
inquiry into the state and conditions of the war, for intervention, and
for recognizing the independence of the Cuban Republic. There were
finally adopted on April 6 resolutions favoring recognition of Cuban
belligerency and the tender of good offices for the settlement of the
war on the basis of Cuban independence. It was of course necessarily
left to the discretion of the President to execute these designs. He did
not deem it expedient to recognize Cuban belligerence, but he did
promptly, on April 9, direct the American Minister at Madrid to make the
tender of good offices for ending the war on the basis of reforms which
would be satisfactory to the Cuban people. True, it had been made clear
that the great mass of the Cuban people would accept nothing short of
independence; but the American Secretary of State, Mr. Olney, believed
that if a genuine measure of Home Rule were granted and put into effect,
the Cubans and their friends in the United States would withdraw their
support from the revolution and thus constrain the revolutionists to
yield and accept the compromise. To this overture of the United States
government Spain made no reply; nor did it to a similar suggestion
offered by the Pope. But Tomas Estrada Palma, speaking for the Cuban
Junta in New York and for Cubans and Cuban sympathizers throughout the
United States, declared that they were not at all interested in any such
scheme, and that they would consider