FREEDOM of discussion on every subject, whether foreign or domestic, is a right claimed by the citizens of this republic. And it is exercised.

We are at peace with France: she was our ally in our struggle for independence. We have with her existing reciprocating treaties. But this does not prevent the freest and most forcible expressions of opinion on the subject of her late revolutions. Some of our most respectable journals can scarcely find language sufficiently strong to express their disgust of the apathy of the French nation, and their indignation against Louis Napoleon, who is denounced as a perjured traitor, murderer, and assassin. To be sure, this is a business with which the French have rather more to do than we, but we claim the right to express our opinions for all that. Indeed, notwithstanding our national policy not to mix or embroil ourselves with the affairs of the Old World, we do daily discuss them with the greatest freedom. And this is right. The field of man's action and contemplation is the WORLD. We cannot, if we would, remain indifferent to what is passing in any of the civilized states. One great effect of freedom is to fill the heart with an earnest desire that every living being should participate in its privileges. It is this which makes us feel a lively sympathy for the oppressed everywhere. But oppressions are various. There are different aspects of the picture. One individual cannot be expected to regard them all. Some among us are engrossed with attempts to benefit the heathen in distant lands; others feel a profound interest in the enslaved negro, at home; oth

ers think only of the oppressed Hungarians, while others, still, are pitying the unconscious French, or lamenting over the condition of the injured Irish, or the wretched operatives of Great Britain. The serf of Russia, the poor Indian of America, the unfortunate Pole, have also friends and honest "sympathizers" among

us.

We do more than sympathize. We express our sympathy freely, boldly, without the slightest regard to those whom we consider tyrants and despots.

In the case of Hungary, the appeals of a down-trodden nation found an ample response in the hearts of Americans, and the great Magyar was received by us with the most enthusiastic appreciation. Throughout the length and breadth of the land there was one grand ovation to Kossuth, with express reference to the position he had assumed toward Austria. More than that, our Government received him on our shores with discharges of ordnance, and gave him an official welcome to the Capitol. The reanimated leader announced that he was ready to receive lawful contributions in money and arms, and both were freely contributed. Yet Austria and the United States were at peace, and treaties and diplomatic relations existed between them. A short time before, when Ireland seemed about to arouse from her state of degradation and oppression, subscriptions were most generously raised here to aid her chiefs in their efforts, and highly respectable parties-from among our own citizens-acted as a committee to take charge of the fund thus created. Yet Great Britain and the United States were at peace; the most friendly relations subsisted between them;

and no one dreamed of their being disturbed by these manifestations of individual sympathy or outbursts of individual opinion. Farther back, how strongly did we manifest our sympathy for the Grecks, in their struggle for liberty; how generously was our individual aid extended to them; and who does not remember the stirring eloquence of Henry Clay in their behalf, when, in his zeal for the generous cause, he forgot for the time even the constitutional objection against grant ing to Greece national aid.

Such instances are not confined to our own experience. England enjoys constitutional freedom, and she exercises to the largest extent the rights of free discussion. She too has something to say about Louis Napoleon. She too made a hero of Kossuth, and not content with that, some of her sturdy brewers taking the affair into their own hands, took certainly undue liberties with the person of Haynau. Doubtless they did wrong; they broke the laws of the realm; they committed a breach of the peace; but there was a sound and wholesome indignation at the bottom, which, if it does not excuse, goes far to palliate the outrage. Further than this, Great Britain has expressed her sympathy loudly and energetically on the side of the African; she compelled Spain to enter into a treaty by which the slave-trade should be suppressed; and she now endeavors to enforce that treaty by her armed vessels of

war.

So for nearly all the oppressed on the earth, there are ready sympathizers, here and elsewhere: for the Frenchman, the Hungarian, the Pole, the Sclavic serf, the English operative, the Irishman, the African, the Indian; and, now that Russia is casting her malign shadow castward, for the Turk also.

But there is almost within sight of our own shores a province of one of the monarchies of the old world whose inhabitants are suffering under greater and more oppressive burthens, and are governed by a sway more absolute and tyrannical, than has ever been exercised against Sclave, Magyar, Pole or Indian. It is

the Island of Cuba. We propose to present its history briefly, so as to show its actual condition, before taking up the subject of our relations with Spain, or canvassing the various collateral questions which are now daily presented.

Previous to the eighteenth century, the history of Cuba is principally occupied with accounts of the settlements commenced by the first governor, Diego Velasquez. Its advance was extremely slow, and, having exhausted the native Indian population-who were a docile

and gentle race-the island was only held by Spain as a convenient military and naval station on the way to the mines of Mexico. Nothwithstanding this, we notice in the laws and municipal rights of Cuba the same independent and liberal spirit which prevailed in all the settlements of that nation, among the Moors or elsewhere, so far as the Spanish settlers or their descendants were concerned. Even in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries public assemblies of citizens were held to elect the members of the corporations; free and bold charges were made and sustained against governors; and no taxation was permitted which was not sustained by these bodies.

In 1812 the constitution was proclaimed in Spain; the whole people of the colonies were assimilated to the inhabitants of the mother country with respect to representation; and Cuba sent her representatives to the Spanish Chamber of Deputies. In 1818 Señor Arango, the deputy from Havana, obtained a royal ordinance for the abolition of restrictions on Cuban commerce. From this period we may date the prosperity of the island. Before she had been a burthen to the home treasury. Now she began to remit large sums annually to the government; an army of 25,000 men, sent from Spain in a miserable plight, was maintained by her, and in a few years was entirely equipped, clothed and disciplined in the best manner, without expense to the mother country. Indeed, since 1830, in every embarrassment of her government, Spain has been supplied with means from the treasury of Cuba, and it has been a reserved fund for her every pressing emergency. When the civil list failed Queen Christina, Cuba furnished resources for defraying the profuse expenditure of the palace. The contributions wrung from the island formed no small portion of the riches bequeathed by Ferdinand Seventh to his rapacious widow and to his reputed daughters. From Cuba also were derived the means of setting on foot the luckless expedition of Barrados for the reconquest of Mexico; and from 1832 to 1841 it had exchanged thirty-six millions of dollars against an equal amount of government paper. length, so much importance was attached to the revenues of this island, that they served as ample guarantees for loans, foreign and domestic. The wealth, the beauty, the fertility of Cuba proved her ruin. By degrees, she came to be regarded only as a machine for raising money; and to carry out the purposes of the home administration to the fullest extent, it was necessary to destroy the privileges and

At

the liberties which the Cubans had heretofore enjoyed.

Although the standard of Independence was raised across the Gulf of Mexico, and Cuba was invited to join in its defence, and although Mexico and Colombia prepared an expedition which should give liberty to the island, the inhabitants shut their eyes to the alluring prospects, and maintained an unwavering loyalty. They were repaid for their fidelity as tyrants are apt to reward such conduct. On the plea that disturbances in South America might require the exercise of arbitrary power by the governor of Cuba, in 1825, a royal order was issued, and it is still in full force, addressed to the Captain General, which after the usual preamble, proceeds as follows: "The king, our master, in order to keep in quietude his faithful inhabitants, confine within the proper limits such as would deviate from the path of honor, and punish such as, forgetting their duties, would dare commit excesses in opposition to our wise laws; and being desirous of preventing the embarrassments which, under extraordinary circumstances, might arise from a division in the command, and from the complicated authority and powers of the different officers of government, for the important end of maintaining in that island his sovereign authority and the public quiet: it has pleased his majesty, in conformity with the advice of his council of ministers, to authorize your excellency, fully investing you with the whole extent of powers

WHICH BY THE ROYAL ORDINANCES ARE GRANTED TO THE GOVERNORS OF BESIEGED TOWNS. In consequence thereof, his majesty most amply and unrestrictedly authorizes your excellency not only to remove from that Island such persons, holding offices from Government or not, whatever their occupation, rank, class, or situation in life may be, whose residence there you may believe prejudicial, or whose public or private conduct may appear suspicious to you, but also to suspend the execution of whatever royal orders or general decrees in all the different branches of the administration, or in any part of them, as your excellency may think conducive to the royal service."

The sad effects of this royal order were not immediately felt. The island was at that time governed by General Vives, whose policy, during the whole of a long administration, was mild and conciliating; and he was so far from putting into execution the terrible authority with which he was endowed, as to act on his wise conviction, that it would be equally disadvantageous to Cuba and to Spain. This was,

however, merely the good fortune of the inhabitants; the fearful decree stood, in all its terrors, only waiting the presence of a despot to carry it out in its fullest force. Such an one was found in the person of Don Miguel Tacon, who, two years after the retirement of Vives, was appointed Captain General. This was in 1834. It should meanwhile be borne in mind, that during the several crises in Spain, from 1808 to 1837,-and they were seven in number,-we find the "always faithful island of Cuba" receiving and promptly obeying the decrees of the crown. Throughout all the disturbances, in every revolution or change of ministry, Cuba remained the same, always loyal, obedient, uncomplaining.

From the accession of Tacon may be dated a series of injuries, cruelties and oppressions, against the unfortunate island, unparalleled in the history of civilized communities. This man's administration has been frequently lauded by strangers, who regarded him in the light of a reformer of the social disorders which prevailed, at that time, to a frightful extent. Indeed, his coming was hailed with joy by the mass of proprietors, while every well-disposed person beheld with gratification his energies directed to prevent and punish robbery and assassination; to the destruction of dogs in the streets; the cleansing and macadamizing of the principal thoroughfares; the erection of markets, a prison, a theatre, &c., &c. But if Tacon exercised a strong and arbitrary will in carrying out these projects, he soon displayed the same qualities in oppressing persons of every class. The fact is, he was a tyrant. He possessed a jealous nature, was short-sighted and narrow-minded, and had an uncommon stubbornness of character. Never satiated with power, he found in the royal order of 1825 ample authority for every species of despotism. He knew that all they required of him at home was to extort as much money as possible from the inhabitants of the island for the rest, no questions would be asked. It was through his influence that the wealthy portion of the community was divested of the privileges conferred on them by the estatuto. He even doprived the old municipalities of Havana of the power of naming the under-commissaries of police. To sustain his absolute government by trampling on every institution, was a necessary consequncee of his first violent and unjustifiable act. In order to obtain credit in the management of the police, he displayed a despotic and even brutal activity in the mode of exacting, from the inferior officers, distributed in the several wards of the city,

under personal responsibility, the apprehension and summary prosecution of criminals. They soon found that there would be no complaint, provided they acted vigorously in bringing up prisoners. So far from presuming their innocence, or requiring proof of their crimes, those who were once arrested were put to the negative and difficult task of proving their innocence. The more unwarrantable the acts of his subalterns, the more acceptable to him, since they, in his opinion, but displayed the energy of his authority. They trembled in his presence, and left it to persecute, to invent accusations, to imprison, and to spread terror and desolation among the families of the island. It is but just to add, that banditti and thieves and professed gamblers were terrified by his sweeping scythe, and became much more modest than they had been during the brief administration of the weak and infirm General Ricafort, his predecessor. The timid and short-sighted merchant or planter who perceived this reform, did not comprehend or appreciate the illegality of the system, nor its pernicious effects on the future destinies of the country, and was the first to justify the man who interposed himself between the subject and the crown, not permitting any petitions contrary to his pleasure.

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The consequence of all this was, a regular system of espionage. The prisoners were distributed in the castles, because the jails were insufficient to contain them. In the dungeons were lodged nearly six hundred persons, the causes of whose detention nobody knew-a fact authentically proved by a casual circumstance. about eighteen months of his administration Tacon caused one hundred and ninety persons to be deported. Besides these, seven hundred and twenty were sent away under sentence of banishment for life, while in the Gallera, vast multitudes of prisoners, of all grades, the innocent and the guilty, were huddled together in one long narrow hall. The misery of this awful place cannot be exaggerated. Señor Tanco styles it "un infierno de immoralidad." Tacon's only object in building it was to rid the government house of the fumes of pestilence which were engendered in the dungeons of that palace in which he lived. Not content with these acts of horrible cruelty, he destroyed at a single blow all freedom of discussion in the municipal body, usurped its powers, and frightened away such members as he thought would not bow to his will. During the government of Tacon the act of exclusion was passed at Madrid, which shut out the unfortunate island from all representation in the Cortes. This was

in February, 1837, and the act, it should be borne in mind, was in direct violation of the new constitution, which had just been adopted, the 28th article of which stated that the basis was the same for na tional representation in both hemispheres, while by the 29th article, the basis in Cuba was the population of the island, composed of persons who, in both lines, were of Spanish origin. The rejection of the Cuban deputies at Madrid completed this rapid enslavement. The Cubans were henceforth cut off from even the possibility of relief. From the same period also may be dated a new series of wrongs, injuries and oppressions against her unfortunate inhabitants. The Spanish Cortes, jealous of the extensive trade of Cuba with the United States, had already imposed a duty of nearly ten dollars a barrel on flour imported from them into Cuba This was now raised to about ten dollars and three-quarters, thus placing the enormous tax of 150 per cent. on the first necessary of life. When it is considered that all articles of primary necessity come from abroad, and that they are all enormously taxed, this one item of her tariff will be readily appreciated, both in itself and in its relations. At the same time the tonnage dues of Cuban vessels were placed nearly on the same footing with those of foreign vessels. This was of course ruinous to her merchant marine, and was especially aggravating, since the island offered vast advantages in her fine forests for shipping, and up to 1798 had furnished timber for the construction, in the Arsenal at Havana, of one hundred and twentyfive vessels-fifty-three of which were frigates, and six three-deckers. This line of policy once adopted, it was carried out with relentless vigor. The home government now considered, not how large a revenue the island yielded, but how it was possible to get more from it. Ingenuity was racked to devise new objects and measures of taxation. The list of the different Cuban taxes is a curiosity of itself. The prime ministers of other monarchies might learn a lesson from it, were it not that there is no government which would dare avail itself of such an enormous system of oppression.

The pursuit of robbery and plunderit can be called by no milder name-has been reduced to a complete system. Each official reserves to himself a large sum from the amount wrung from the inhabitants, so that while the revenue of the island, from the various sources of taxation, must be at least twenty-five millions of dollars (it is ordinarily incorrectly stated at about twelve millions), only about three millions find their way to

the Spanish treasury. In the mean time the slave-trade is carried on as extensively as ever, and with greater cruelty. Spain will not abolish it. She is determined, in spite of treaties, to pour annually into Cuba a fierce black population which shall intimidate the Creoles from any attempt at freedom. This, and this only, is the secret of the unflinching prosecution of the slavetrade in the face of treaties, and contrary to the wishes of the Creole population. It has been said that the continuance of the traffic is owing to the enormous bribes to the Captain-General, of thirtytwo dollars for each slave, and that this is the only reason it is not abolished. It is ridiculous even to suppose that Spain, if she had no other object but to enrich an unscrupulous official, would run the risk of continually breaking her treaty with so powerful a nation as England, always on the alert if possible to enforce it.

But that no one may have a doubt of the ultimate object of Spain in constantly flooding Cuba with Africans, we translate the following from the Heraldo of Madrid: "It is well for all to know, whether native or foreign, that the Island of Cuba can only be Spanish or African. When the day comes when the Spaniards should be found to abandon her, they will do so by bequeathing their sway to the blacks, just as a commander abandons a battery to the enemy after defending it as long as possible, but taking care, above everything, to spike the cannon, that the adversary shall not make use of them." While the Spanish organ in New-York, the Cronica, holds the following language:-" If, in consequence of the war, signs should be manifested that the hostile elements, now subdued by the interests of our common race, were to be let loose, Spain would arm her Africans, and would guide them as auxiliaries as long as it were in her power to do so, and would grant them full liberty as a reward for their aid, when she should perceive that these means were not sufficiently powerful to enable her longer to resist!"

It will be seen that Spain has not only deprived Cuba of all means of redress, but also that she openly avows a determination to hold her in chains by the most terrible of all menaces, that of encouraging a servile insurrection.

But to proceed: The press, under the most infamous and servile censorship, is a weapon wielded only against her rights. A petition, signed by more than two, is condemned as a seditious act. The corporations, as we have stated, have no longer a representative character, and they are under the immediate control of the

Captain-General, who appoints their members, and dictates at will their resolutions. The Board of Improvement has become a mere arm of the government, to sanction despotic acts, to support additional taxes, and to introduce mixed races into the po pulation. All who have dared to oppose these measures are forced into obscurity, or persecuted, or expatriated.

The Creoles are excluded from the army, the judiciary, the treasury, and the customs, and from all influential or lucrative positions; private speculations and monopolies are favored and established with a view of taking from them their means of wealth; the poor in the country are compelled to serve in the precarious police, which is thus sustained; and fines are imposed, and forced aid for the repairing of the roads, according to the will of the officer in command, or the pliancy of the individual.

The twenty-five millions of taxes, after deducting what is embezzled by the officials, are employed in supporting an army of twenty thousand men, and likewise the entire navy of Spain, in the paying of a vast number of officers residing either on the island or at home; and in remittances for general purposes. In spite of the enormous tithe collected, it is only by subscriptions that the inhabitants can secure to themselves temples for their worship, or cemeteries for their dead; and for a baptism or a burial, or to obtain any of the consolations of religion, the care of which is indirectly under the all-absorbing military authority, a large additional sum must be paid. The military government has taken from the other political and administrative branches the control of education, in order to restrict, to limit, and to embarrass it. The tributary system has drained many sources of wealth. The flour monopoly has put down the cultivation of coffee; and the grazing of cattle has become a ruinous business from the tax on slaughtered animals.

Every inhabitant is compelled to ask for a license, and pay for the same, when he wants to go from the place of his residence. No citizen, however peaceful and respectable he may be, is allowed to walk through the city after ten o'clock in the evening, unless he carry with him a lantern, and obtains leave successively of all the watchmen on his way, the infraction of which law is punished with immediate arrest, and a fine of eight dollars. He is not. permitted to lodge any person in his house for a single night, be the same either native or foreigner, his friend or a member of his family, without giving information of the fact, under the penalty of a like punishment. He cannot remove his