or the independence of Cuba. That officer of course rejected
their demands, and on their retirement sent Colonel Perico Perez after
them with 500 troops, to capture or disperse them. But Perez and his men
did neither. Instead, they joined the insurgents under Henry Brooks, and
were among the foremost to do effective work against the Spaniards. Maso
Parra recruited a strong band near Manzanillo, but instead of fighting
there proceeded to Havana Province, accompanied by Enrique Cespedes and
Amador Guerra, in hope of raising the standard of revolution where
Sanguilly had failed. The Spanish forces were so strong there, however,
as to overawe most of the Cubans, or at any rate to make it seem more
expedient to put forward their chief efforts in other places. In
Matanzas the earliest engagements were fought by troops under Antonio
Lopez Coloma and Juan Gualberto Gomez, with indifferent results. Another
sharp conflict occurred at Jaguey Grande, and there were yet others at
Vequita; at Sevilla, where the patriots defeated 1,500 Spanish regulars
commanded by General Lachambre; at Ulloa, at Baire, and at Los Negros. A
belated uprising in Pinar del Rio under General Azcuy came speedily to
grief, as did another near Holguin. By the early days of March the
entire movement seemed to have subsided save in the southern parts of
Oriente.

The Spanish authorities had acted promptly and vigorously. The
revolution began on February 24. The very next day a special meeting of
the Spanish Cabinet was held at Madrid, as a result of which the
Minister for the Colonies, Senor Abarzuza, authorized Captain-General
Callejas to proclaim martial law throughout Cuba. This was in fact done
by Callejas before Abarzuza's order reached him, and he also put into
operation the "Public Order law" which provided for the immediate
punishment of anyone taken in the performance or attempt of a seditious
act. The Captain-General had at his disposal at this time nominally six
regiments of infantry and three of cavalry, two battalions of garrison
artillery and one mountain battery, aggregating about 19,000 men, and
nearly 14,000 local militia, remains of the notorious Volunteers of the
Ten Years' War; a total of nearly 33,000 men. But these figures were
delusive. Callejas himself reported, on his return to Spain two or three
months later, that half of the regular forces existed only on paper, and
that the militia was altogether untrustworthy. He had learned the lat