Such sympathy had been shown in the Southeast toward the Cuban cause that Gen. Lopez instructed me to go to Savannah, Ga., and establish myself there. I did so, and in the spring of 1851 obtained from the warm-hearted Georgians all the assistance that could be desired. Companies of volunteers were formed in different parts of the State, material of war procured and thousands of dollars contributed, which I sent to Hon. J. L. O'Sullivan, our agent in New York, wherewith he was enabled, to a great extent, to obtain the steamer Cleopatra, which was to be our transport. The armament saved from the expedition of the previous year was brought from the Gulf to Savannah, and from Savannah was secretly sent to the Satilla River, on the coast of Georgia, below Darien, and secreted on the plantation of my friend, Mr. David Bailey. Everything being ready I telegraphed from Savannah to Gen. Lopez, who started with his staff from this city, and on the same day he, myself and the Georgia companies all met in Macon, Ga., to proceed by railroad toward the coast. I received a telegram from our Savannah friends stating that the collector and United States marshal would be at the depot in Savannah to arrest us on our arrival there. I telegraphed back, to send a carriage to Station No. 1 on the Georgia Central (ten miles from Savannah). The expedition (about 400 men) was put on the train, and when we reached Station No. 2 (twenty miles from Savannah) was landed and sent under sealed orders to the Satilla River. Gen. Lopez and staff went down to the next station, where we found the carriage, and entered Savannah by country road in the evening.⁽¹⁾ Of course the collector and marshal inquired for us at the depot but could get no satisfaction from the conductor.

we were driven by Mr. George McCloskey to Thunderbolt, some five miles from Savannah. There we took a rowboat and went about as many miles down Augustine River and landed on Wilmington Island, at the plantation of Mr. Elias Barstow, a Northern man, married to a Georgia lady. Mr. McCloskey rapped and Mr. Barstow came to the door, wondering what could be the matter at such an unusual hour. Mr. McCloskey stated who we were. "I am a Whig," said Mr. Barstow, "and opposed to the expedition; but as my guests you are welcome, and my house is yours." On the next day a dispatch was received from Mr. O'Sullivan, announcing that President Fillmore had seized the Cleopatra in New York, and there was and end of the expedition. It was very trying to have

and to lose the benefit of so much devotion and sacrifice, but there was no help for it. Gen. Lopez returned to this city and the men to their homes. Orders were given by the government for my arrest. I determined to go, for greater safety, to Sapelo Island, on the Georgia coast, the property of my friend Mr. Randolph Spaulding. When the steamer Magnolia, Capt. McNulty, passed down the river I hailed it; a boat was lowered to take me on board, but as soon as it came within hearing the boatswain roared out to me: "Go back, go back! the collector and the marshal are on board to arrest you." I went back, and was sent to the woods, where I remained all day,⁽²⁾ in a continuous rain, with a negro guide, who sat by me, and brought me my meals. Meanwhile, the United States officers, who had witnessed their discomfiture from the steamer, caused the captain to land them, and the latter steamed away and left them. They came up to the house and asked for me. Said Mrs. Barstow: "Do you see that lunch on the table? Well, that is what he has been partaking of."

To which Mr. Barstow added: "Have you, pray, a search warrant?"

"We have not," replied the officers.

"That's satisfactory," said Mr. Barstow; "make yourselves at home."

Baffled in their endeavor, and having no means to get away, they had to beg Mr. Barstow to send them back to Savannah, which he did

that they would not inquire for me until they got to town. On the next day Mr. Barstow took me in his boat to Screven's ferry, opposite to Savannah, on the South Carolina shore, where Mr. S. Prioleau Hamilton, son of Gen. James Hamilton, former Governor of South Carolina, took charge of me and took me down the Savannah River. As we were going down we passed the custom-house boat with the collector on board, who had gone to look for me on Dawfawsky Island, Mr. Mongin's place. Mr. Hamilton, who knew him and his craft, made me lie flat on the bottom of the boat, covered me with an overcoat, and we went unnoticed. We arrived at dusk at our landing-place, near the mouth of the river, and thence on horseback to his father's plantation, where we arrived, after a weary journey, at midnight. In a lonely pine land, in a small wooden house, one mile from the rice fields, I remained secreted for one month in charge of the overseer, an old bachelor. Desirous of inspecting my armament on the Satilla River, and the excitement having subsided, I went down to St. Mary's, Ga., on the Florida boundary, for Mr. Bailey's place was only accessible from there by land. I hired a buggy and a negro guide. It was a long journey through a wilderness of pine woods. At mid-day we were caught in a furious rain and thunder storm and drenched, and what was worse,

My guide proposed, as the only expedient, to take a by-road to the right leading to a cotton plantation where assistance might be procured. We did so, and presently arrived, at a walk, to an opening of cotton fields. We approached a fine mansion, with a wide piazza, raised from the ground in the Southern style. A tall gentleman was standing on it to receive me. I walked up the steps, introduced myself and stated my case. The gentleman looked at me for a moment. "It so happens," said he to me, that I have

from the President of the United States. I am the collector of St. Mary's; but," said he, with a smile, after a moment's pause, and seeing that I made no remark, "here I am simply Mr. Dilworth,⁽³⁾ the owner of this place, and I am most happy to make your acquaintance and to welcome you to my house. I sympathize deeply with your cause; had I seen you at St. Mary's I would certainly have arrested you."

A true type of the Southern gentleman. "Noblesse oblige." It was a singular accident that I should have come so fortuitously upon the only man south of Savannah who had the authority to hold me. A fine dinner was prepared for me. I spent a most agreeable evening with himself and family, and next morning I started with a fresh horse and guide for my destination.

on the coast of Georgia and in that of South Carolina, at the time when I knew nothing of quinine as a prophylactic (so useful to us later during the Civil War), brought on a severe bilious fever. It came on me at Bluffton, S.C., at the house of Col. Gaston Allen. Dr. Pope, of that place, got me through it, but I was so weakened and prostrated that I notified Gen. Lopez of my condition. He advised me at once to go to the mountains of West Virginia, that I might recuperate in the shortest possible time and be ready for the fall. I went, accordingly, to the White Sulphur Springs.

Gen. Lopez had agreed with me that he would, in the fall, start with an expedition from New Orleans and land on the south-eastern coast of Cuba, and that I, my health being recruited, with the Georgia and Florida contingent of the previous spring, would land on the northeastern coast and form a junction with him. The standard being raised, Gov. Quitman, of Mississippi, would come to our support with thousands of men from the West and Southwest. Here commenced

which, link by link, led to the final disaster. It is to be believed that they were brought about, to a great extent, by the consummate artfulness of the wily Concha, Captain General of Cuba. Joaquin Agüero and the Arteagas rose prematurely in Puerto Principe, on the 4th of July, 1851, with about fifty men. The plea for precipitating the movement (as their friends themselves acknowledged) was that as soon as it was inaugurated in Cuba the United States Government would not interfere with assistance from this country. (See Havana letter to Gen. Lopez, July 17, in New Orleans Delta of July 23, 1851.) This rising was followed by that of Armenteros, with about the same number of men, in the Province of Trinidad. A great meeting was held in this city on July 23, in Lafayette Square, to express sympathy for the Cubans. It was addressed by its president, M. M. Cohen, W. S. Warfield, Gen. Felix Huston and others.

Says the New Orleans Delta in an editorial of July 25:

But one feeling, one voice, one hope prevails among all classes, that of success in the glorious struggle. Were it practicable one tithe of our fighting population would rush to the aid of the Patriots. The wealthy planters of the South are among

of Cuba. Our sugar planters, whose interests, it has been falsely alleged, would be jeopardized by the independence of Cuba, are too sensible to be deceived by such arguments, or too patriotic to be restrained by them.

On the 26th

was held at Bank's Arcade. President, Capt. James Stockton; vice presidents, J. L. Carman, Gardner Smith, S. W. Cutter, Patrick Irwin, James Smith, Dr. Wedderburne, J. L. Levy, N. C. Hall, Joseph W. Burke, C. D. Yancey, T. P. White; secretaries, T. W. Hall, L. L. Dillard, Durante da Ponte, Alexander Walker. Judge Walker read the Cuban "Declaration of Independence," followed by an eloquent speech. Gen. Felix Huston also spoke, after which Gen. Lopez addressed the meeting with his usual fervor. Then letters from Havana poured in to New York, Savannah and New Orleans containing the wildest accounts of victories of the Patriots, desertions en masse of Spanish troops, etc. Even the New York Tribune, a bitter foe to Cuba, chimed in with misleading accounts of the favorable condition of Havana itself, and falsely stating that the Spanish men-of-war were cruising east, when the truth was that there were eight west of Havana, besides merchant steamers. Concha's plan was to "precipitate" the movement in Cuba, crush it and induce Gen. Lopez to land quickly, not in the East, but in the West, near Havana, where he could throw upon him in a few hours, by land and water, the whole garrison of that capital of

and the game was played to his hand. Gen. Lopez, deceived as to the real state of things on the island, caught fire and hurriedly left New Orleans with 500 men in the steamer Pampero, Capt. Lewis. He failed to carry out the plan agreed with me, to which I have referred, and did not even write or communicate with me, then in West Virginia, considering the condition of the island so favorable, as all the papers stated, that he would miss the opportunity of marching in triumph into Havana. Col. Pragay, distinguished in the Hungarian war, was his chief of staff; Major Rugendorf, a Hungarian, commanded the engineers. There was a company composed exclusively of Cubans and Spaniards, including

to Gen. Lopez at Cardenas, all under command of Felipe Gotay, a gallant and commanding son of Porto Rico, who had joined us at Cardenas the previous year. Its lieutenant was Miguel Lopez, the sergeant of the Spanish garrison at Cardenas, who had also come with us with his men in 1850. There was a company commanded by Oberto, a Cuban and a gallant and experienced soldier, who had been an officer in the Spanish army. The rest of the command were Americans, mostly from this city and Mississippi, young men of good standing and habits. They were commanded by Col. Crittenden, a nephew of the Attorney General of the United States, a graduate of the Military Academy, and by Col. Donovan, of Georgia, with Major J. A. Kelly and Capts. Saunders, Brigham, Stewart, Ellis, Victor Kerr and others. The Savannah Georgian says in an article of Aug. 24, copied in the New Orleans Delta of Aug. 31, among other things:

We are rejoiced to learn by the arrival of the steamer Mathews, from Florida, of the safety of the Pampero and a number of the particulars of the expedition of Gen. Lopez from the time of his departure from New Orleans to his landing at Bahia Honda.

having left New Orleans, proceeded to Key West. Near there she remained for several days for the purpose of evading the vigilance of the Spanish ships. Having learned from the Key West wreckers that the inhabitants of the District of Venelsa [Vuelta] Abajo (nearly opposite Key West) were up in arms, Gen. Lopez determined to avail himself of this information and make his landing among them. Steering for Bahia Honda, his purpose was to land at a small port called Mariel. When about eighteen leagues from Havana the machinery of the Pampero got out of order, the consequence of which was that she floated for two hours along the current of the Gulf Stream, approaching all the while toward that city. Before the accident was repaired she was carried full in view

and even in sight of the soldiers on the water battery. Getting up steam again she bore away for Bahia Honda, intercepting on the way a coasting vessel, from which Gen. Lopez obtained two pilots. * * We will only add that we have these particulars from one who was on board the vessel from the time of her departure from New Orleans.

A Havana correspondent of the New Orleans Picayune, under date of March 16, 1851, writes:

has been quashed and three of the insurgents, Armenteros, Hernandez and another, have been ordered to be shot. On the 11th instant the steamship Pampero appeared off this port, and was signaled from the Morro. On the same afternoon Lopez took two pilots out of the schooner Cecilia, and that night they brought the schooner to and made her fast to the first buoy in this harbor, immediately under the guns of the Morro Castle! At midnight the expeditionists landed at Morrillos, twelve miles west of Bahia Honda, and took possession of the town of Las Pozas. That night the frigate Esperanza sent a boat to Mariel with an express to Havana, stating that she had seen a suspicious steamer steering west.

The war steamer Pizarro left here at 8 o'clock on the morning of the 12th, with 800 men, having a schooner in tow containing sixty horses. The merchant steamers Almendares and Habanero were also sent down with reinforcements. Gen. Enna was in command of these troops. They landed at Bahia Honda at 10 o'clock that night. At 1 o'clock next day the Spanish troops attacked the Patriots at San Miguel, a small town between Bahia Honda and Las Pozas. The engagement lasted about ten minutes, when the Spaniards retreated, leaving sixty-eight dead upon the field, and having 167 wounded. * * On the night of the 13th the Habanero returned, asking for more troops and artillery. At 1 o'clock the Almendares returned for more troops. All of these were sent as required.

On the 14th the Almendares again returned

for more artillery, as the Spanish troops refused to attack the Patriots. There are but 700 troops left in Havana, etc.

Other accounts give the loss of the Spaniards as much greater.

It appears that Gen. Lopez left Col. Crittenden with his battalion of 120 men on the coast to guard the baggage and ammunition, and proceeded inland. Crittenden was attacked, and repulsed the Spaniards, but was worsted in the next onset, when his men dispersed and he, with fifty more, took to boats to escape. He was met by the steamer Habanero, and captured and taken to Havana.

of his adjutant, R. C. Stanford:

Havana, Aug. 16.

Dear Huling--We arrived on the Island of Cuba after the most horrible passage you can conceive of, cooped on board with 400 or 500 men. We arrived on Sunday last, I believe--dates I have almost forgotten. The next morning Lopez, with Gen. Pragay and all the commanding officers, left us (I mean Crittenden and his battalion). We heard no more of him for two days, when Crittenden dispatched a note. He then requested that we should join him at a little town six or eight miles off, leaving us in the meantime to take care of all baggage, etc.

We started for him on Wednesday morning at 2 o'clock a.m., and had proceeded only three miles when we were attacked by 500 Spanish soldiers. In the first charge I received a very severe wound in the knee. We repulsed them, however. They made another charge and completely routed us. We spent two days and nights the most miserable you can imagine, in the chaparrals without anything to eat or drink. We made the best of our way to the seashore, and found some boats with which we put to sea. Spent a night upon the ocean, and next day about 12 o'clock were taken prisoners by the Habanero, were brought to Havana last night, and condemned to die this morning. We shall all be shot in an hour.

Good-bye, and God bless you. I send the Masonic medal inclosed in this to my father. Convey it to my sister, Mrs. P--n, and tell her of my fate. Once more, God bless you.

Stanford.

The New Orleans Delta makes editorially, the following remarks upon this letter:

The letter of Mr. Stanford, which will be found on our first page, affords the only satisfactory explanation we have yet had of the manner in which Col. Crittenden's party was captured. By comparing this account with

we are able to arrive at something like a conjecture of the state of the facts as they occurred after Lopez's landing. When the party was landed the general, no doubt, discovered that he had been observed by the enemy, and apprehended that he might be reached by them before he could gain the mountains. He, therefore, left to proceed into the interior, and constituted Crittenden's command as the rear guard to bring up the baggage and hurry on after him. The quick arrival of the Spanish troops caused the communications of the two bodies of Lopez's party to be cut off, and thus Crittenden found a large Spanish force intercepting his advance. Then ensued the two engagements referred to in the Spanish bulletins, which were, no doubt, between Crittenden's party and the Spaniards to the number of 800 or 1,000. The account of the Spanish general admits that their first charge was not successful, but states that when certain reinforcements reached them they could return to the charge and destroy the enemy. This is the charge that Mr. Stanford says, routed the Patriots, who were overwhelmed by a vastly superior force. They were then dispersed in small parties, and were captured in an attempt to escape by sea.

The following are the names of

Col. W. L. Crittenden, Capt. Frederick S. Sawyer, Capt. Victor Kerr, Lieut. James Brandt, Lieut. J. O. Bryn, Lieut. Thomas C. James, Surgeon John Fisher, Capt. T. B. Veary, Corporal K. A. Tourniqent, Sergeant J. Whiterens, Sergeant A. M. Cotchett, R. C. Stanford, Private Wm. Chilling, G. A. Cook, S. O. Jones, M. H. Ball, James Bulet, Sergeant Napoleon Collins, Private Robert Caldwell, Sergeant G. M. Green, Sergeant J. M. Salomon, Privates C. C. William Smith, A. Ross, P. Barrourk, John Christides, William H. Homes, Sam Mills, L. Rulman, William Little, George W. Arnold, B. J. Wregy, Robt. Cantley, John G. Sanka, William Niceman, E. T. Collins, James Stanton, Thomas Harnott, Anselmo T. Hernandez, Patrick Dillon, Alex. McIlcer, Thomas Hersey, Samuel Reed, J. Stubbs, James Ellis, H. T. Vienne, William Hogan, M. Phillips, Charles A. Robinson, James L. Manville.

Here is the letter of Victor Kerr to his friends, written in a bold masculine hand:

August 16, 1851, 6:30 o'clock

My Dear Friends--I leave you forever, and I go to the other world. I am a prisoner in Havana, and in an hour I shall have ceased to exist. My dearest friends, think often of me. I die worthy of a Creole, worthy of a Louisianan, and of a Kerr. My dearest friends, adieu for the last time. Your devoted friend,

Victor Kerr

To N. Larose, H. Bouligny, Leon Fazende, Wm. G. Vincent, Felix Arroyo.

Crittenden and his men (fifty-one) were all shot in the back, on the slope of the Castle of Atares, at the bottom of the Bay of Havana. They were sentenced by a drumhead court-martial, on board the frigate Esperanza. Havana correspondents of American newspapers North and South report their bodies to have been mutilated and thrown pele-mele into a ditch. A youth of fifteen begged

for some one to be sent to him who understood English, and was refused. The consul of the United States in Havana, A. F. Owens, of Georgia, betrayed humanity and his country by absolutely refusing to plead for the victims or even to visit them. His name will live forever infamous. The following are the Delta's remarks on some of the executed:

That beautiful artillery corps, the Washington Artillery Company, Capt. Smith, contributed three heroes to the fifty who were butchered in Havana on the 16th. They were all young men of excellent character, chivalric bearing and gallant hearts.

Thomas Hearsay was one of the best artillerists in the company. Capt. C. C. Wm. Smith was a youth of seventeen, a boy in age and almost in size, but a man in heart and in deeds. He was an ardent soldier, full of military ambition and chivalry of character.

In a letter to his mother, he writes a calm account of his acts in the engagement with the Spaniards, and concludes with the remark: "For this I die a glorious death in a glorious cause." Both Hearsay and Smith were born in New Orleans. A. M. Colchett was a South Carolinian by birth. He was the standard bearer of his company, and, from his gallantry and firmness, was well selected for that duty. The company in this city have gone into mourning for these young men, in whose character all their brother soldiers felt a pride, and whose untimely and bloody end they all deplore with the most poignant grief.

pervaded every part of the Union. The New York Journal of Commerce, although opposed to Cuba, commented upon these acts as follows:

Supposing the result of this second invasion to be as disastrous to Lopez and his companions as we apprehend, the next thing to be looked at is its effects in the United States. Nothing is better fitted to arouse the vengeance of that large class of Americans who sympathize with the movement of Lopez (we are not of the number) that the wholesale massacre perpetrated at Havana on the 16th instant. The massacre of Fanin's regiment in Texas prepared the way for the battle of San Jacinto, the capture of Santa Anna, the independence of Texas, the war between the United States and Mexico, and all the consequences which have since followed. It aroused the vengeance of men, who, combining a high sense of honor with a desperate spirit of adventure, coveted precisely the mission which fell to them, of meting out the penalty due such an atrocity. Something of this spirit, we fear, will be kindled now. But it must be discountenanced and resisted.

Gen. Lopez, after leaving Crittenden on the coast, proceeded inland with his 300 and odd men to a village called Las Pozas, where he was attacked by a Spanish column of 800 or 1,000 men, which he defeated, killing Cols. Justez, Nadal, etc., but losing most of his staff and officers. He then retreated to Cafetal de Frias (a coffee State), formerly belonging to his wife's family,

by Major Gen. Enna, second in command of the Island of Cuba, with a very large force of infantry, cavalry and artillery. The small band left him received the attack at an avenue of mango trees, and then took a position behind a stone fence. Their fire was so murderous and the loss inflicted on the enemy so great that Gen. Enna, his troops being demoralized, was compelled to head himself a charge with a few men. He fell, mortally wounded, and Gen. Lopez is said to have exclaimed: "Oh! for fifty horses, and there would not be one of them left!" Then came a fearful hurricane, which added to his difficulties. The successor of Gen. Enna adopted the policy of surrounding the patriots and starving them out. Probably 400 men, in separate columns, confronted in every direction the 100 and odd remaining. Gen. Lopez's horse was killed for food, and the General then asked his men to seek their safety and leave him to his fate. The subjoined editorial from the New Orleans Delta of Sept. 5, 1851, gives a graphic account of the sad, last incident of this painful episode:

We have received from Mr. Degournay, a citizen of this city, of unimpeachable veracity, a true and reliable statement of all the facts connected with the defeat, capture and execution of Gen. Lopez. As the Spanish papers are filled with the most false, calumnious statements in regard to this matter, which, we have no doubt, will be in this city, we hasten to anticipate them, by presenting the facts, from a gentleman who has resided here for a number of years, who has the confidence of all who know him, and who possessed peculiar advantages for learning the truth. Mr. Degournay was in Havana during all the events of the expedition down to the execution of Gen. Lopez. He says that the failure of the expedition was due to the unfortunate delay caused by the separation of Crittenden's command, which kept Gen. Lopez for two days at Las Pozas, and led his friends in the country to believe that he had been defeated; that subsequently Lopez had several actions, in which he was victorious, placing at least 2,000 Spaniards hors du combat, and suffering some loss himself. The rapid concentration of the troops in the neighborhood cut off his communications, and prevented the people from joining him.

At last, by repeated attacks and marches, their ammunition being exhausted, and reduced to the lowest stage of suffering and starvation, the men were divided, but thirty remaining with Lopez. These wandered about for some time, until at last they were begged, by the General, to abandon him, as they might have some chance of making terms with the government if they surrendered, but there was no chance if caught with him. He also added that his fate was certain--he would be garroted, it would no doubt help the cause--but he desired that they should escape. Finally he left them, accompanied by one faithful friend. Wounded in the shoulder, faint and exhausted from fatigue and loss of blood, he wandered about until at last he was pursued with bloodhounds and captured by some sixteen Catalans. He surrendered, exclaiming: "Kill me, but pardon my men!" When captured he had scarcely the strength to stand erect. He was taken to Bahia Honda and kept there until the garrison could be reinforced by drawing men from that place.

On the 31st he was taken in the Pizarro to Havana and the order of his execution issued. When he arrived there he was so weak that he could scarcely sit up. On the day of his execution a large military force was drawn up and all the cannons of the fort fully manned and directed to the place of execution. When the general was taken from the steamer and placed on shore, to the surprise of his guards, he stood up erect and marched to the place of execution with a bold and manly port. His demeanor evinced the utmost coolness, manliness and dignity.

Just before his death he made a short address, in which he stated that his intentions looked to the advancement and happiness of the people of Cuba; that the imputation of plunder and piracy was a calumny; that he had meditated no greater crime than that of seeking to secure a free institution for that people, and he was willing to meet his fate. Before, however, he had concluded he was forced into the garrotte and his last words, which were uttered in a loud tone, were: "Adios Cuba Querida"--"Adieu dear Cuba." Such is the relation to us of Mr. Degournay, whose honor and truth will not be doubted in this city, which he learned partly from actual knowledge and observation, partly from some of the prisoners and partly from the guards at the execution of the general.

The whole available naval force, including merchant steamers pressed into service, was concentrated on a slip of coast twenty odd miles long, west of Havana, so as to have utterly prevented Gen. Lopez from being reinforced or assisted from abroad. The news of his disaster promptly reached the United States. Had it been delayed, inevitable capture and execution awaited those who would have tried to join him at such a place. The feeling in the United States in behalf of Cuba had been universal, and many of our greatest statesmen joined in it. I cannot forego the reproduction, as a matter of history, of the following from the New Orleans Delta of Aug. 31, 1851:

The Charleston Mercury contains a letter from our gallant and accomplished friend, Gen. Gonzalez, a Cuban patriot, which very effectually puts to rest the suspicion attempted to be cast on the memory of John C. Calhoun, of indifference or hostility to the independence of Cuba. We give the letter with the prefatory remarks of the Mercury:

We publish a letter from Gen. Gonzalez, touching a single point in our remarks of Saturday. It was no part of our object to press Mr. Calhoun's authority into the discussion, and we alluded to his opinions solely for the purpose of correcting the statement that he had been opposed to the annexation of Texas. The grounds of his opposition to the acquisition of any of the populous portion of Mexico, we took from his public speeches, and applied it to the case of Cuba, only by way of inference, because the reasons were the same. We do not know that he ever made any public declarations on this subject, and we should interpret with some grains of allowance the impressions which his private conversations may have made on men who were eager for the sanction of his approval. It does not need either argument or evidence, to those who knew the comprehensive and generous nature of his statesmanship, to prove that he took a deep interest in Cuba, and earnestly desired the freedom and independence of that beautiful land. But this does not necessarily involve annexation.

"Charleston, August 24, 1851.

"To the Editor of the Mercury:

I saw some days ago in the New York Journal of Commerce, a letter from its Washington Correspondent, stating that the late Hon. John C. Calhoun had expressed himself, in writing, against the admission of Cuba into the Union. Had such a statement proceeded no further than the columns of the Journal, a paper so uncompromisingly, and at times so unscrupulously, inimical to Cuban liberty, I would not have felt inclined to notice it. But I find in Saturday's Mercury a long editorial sustaining, much to my astonishment, Mr. Calhoun's alleged position in regard to Cuba. I do not intend to enter into the merits or demerits of the acquisition of that Island, or even those of her independence, as bearing upon the future development, safety, grandeur, and peace of the United States. The immense majority of the American people have already, with their usual sagacity and common sense, "made up their minds" upon this subject. I am thus far relieved. But when I see even the great name of the South Carolina Statesman thrown into our adverse scale, I feel that I have, however reluctantly, one word to say in this connection. When Gen Lopez made a visit to Washington in the spring of 1849, the Hon. J. C. Calhoun was the first gentleman in that city who called on the General. He even carried his civility to the extent of making a second call before his first had been returned. In his conversations with General Lopez, through Mr. Sanchez and myself, he expressed himself as warmly in behalf of Cuba and her annexation, as has any other man in the country, either before or since.

"A short time after a prominent Southern Senator favored me with an appointment in the recess room of the Senate, Mr. Calhoun was invited thereto, as were also four other Senators, three Democrats and one Whig. The purpose of the gentlemen, as it seemed to me, was principally to learn Mr. Calhoun's views upon a subject of such vital importance to the country. Mr. Calhoun then expressed himself as decidedly as to the justice of our cause, the assistance which would be lawfully proffered by the American people in case of insurrection, and his non-apprehension of European interference, as he had done on former occasions. The gentlemen present fully coincided with his views. Such, Messrs. Editors, were the opinions and sentiments of John C. Calhoun in the spring of 1849.

"The Wilmot provisto question then assumed increased gravity, and as the contest became fiercer, Mr. Calhoun's views underwent a visible change. He was no longer for action, but for procrastination. He felt, no doubt, that the Cuba question would draw the minds of the people from an internal to an external contest, and that his issue, his "threshold" issue, might be postponed, if not abandoned. Then but not until then, did Mr. Calhoun express himself as quoted by the correspondent of the Journal of Commerce. But Mr. Calhoun's hopes were not realized. The South did not unite even in the absence of the Cuba excitement. Were he now living, every consideration invites the belief, that having failed to unite the South upon the admission of California, he would strive to do so, with greater probabilities of success, upon the Cuba platform, thus obtaining for her that "equilibrium" with which alone can this Union be preserved, through the Union of the South.

"I am, gentlemen, very respectfully, Your obedient servant,

AMBROSIO JOSE GONZALEZ, of Cuba."

After the lapse of thirty-five years I will add what I then withheld, to wit: That in a personal

after his remarking that the population of Cuba was about the same as that of Virginia and in the same proportion of whites to black and that two or more Southern States could be carved out of it, he said these very words:

"You have my best wishes, but whatever the result, as the pear, when ripe, falls by the law of gravity into the lap of the husbandman, so will Cuba eventually drop into the lap of the Union."

The cause of Cuban annexation by the action of the people came to a stand-still; then commenced the action of our government (a Democratic one) bent on preserving the Union. President Franklin Pierce appointed Mr. Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, minister to Great Britain; Hon. John Y. Mason, of Virginia, minister to France, and Mr. Soulé, of Louisiana, minister to Spain. His administration had in view the purchase of Cuba from Spain.

Messrs. Buchanan, Mason and Soulé were instructed by the President to meet at Ostend, in Holland, for a conference looking to the purchase of Cuba from Spain. The failure thereof, owing to the hostility of England and France, is a matter of history.

In the meantime Garibaldi, with every assistance that the Cabinet and people of Great Britain could afford him, landed in Sicily with 1,000 men of all nations, many of them Englishmen. I know of a Cuban gentleman of wealth who went with him as a private soldier. He succeeded. Louis Napoleon helped his coadjutor, Victor Emmanuel, on the plains of Magenta and Solferino. Garibaldi and his compeers have been and are now lauded by all British statesmen. No voice was raised in Europe against his patriotic movement, but Gen. Lopez and his Cuban and American friends have been animadverted against, because he, Garibaldi, labored for the "unity of Italy," while the latter only strove for the unity--political and geographical--of the United States.

A tripartite agreement was afterward entered into between England, France and Spain to prevent the acquisition of Cuba by the United States, and on the heels of it England, France and Spain entered into a combination to establish an empire in Mexico. England and Spain made a timely retreat, and Maximilian and Bazaine were left to their fate. No tripartite treaty was devised in Europe against this action.

No voice, single or treble, has been raised in the Old World against the occupation by Great Britain of the Island of Cyprus, which she innocently took because it commands the entrance to the Suez Canal. No objection to her occupation of Egypt and to her present seizure of ports in the Red Sea reaches our ears. France can claim Tonquin, Madagascar, the Congo region and some of the South Sea Islands; Russia may go to Merv; Austria seize Bothnia and Herzegovina; but the United States, it seems, have no rights, and no interests to make good.

Taking a survey of this Cuban question in its national and international aspects, it behooves the men in whose hands are the destinies of the United States to consider that at the time when those events occurred which I have rapidly reviewed, the Union had a population of but 30,000,000 souls, and that our next census will show one of 65,000,000 freemen; that then the Southern Pacific Railroad was not constructed; that the jetties had not placed the mouths of the mighty Mississippi where they virtually are, at present, in the Straits of Florida, and that the military power of the United States (only revealed to the world twenty years ago through our civil war) was not dreamed of before.

Cuba still lies at the entrance of the Gulf of Mexico; it is still the clasp that holds the southern part of North America; it still lies in the path of our coasting trade; but it is of more vital importance than it was then, when we look on the coming ship railroad across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the projected canal of Nicaragua and the already commenced canal of Panama; all of which she threatens in foreign hands, all of which she protects in our own.