restoration of the Bourbon line in Alfonso X I I .
T h e actual rising in Cuba started at Yara under the
lead of Cespedes, and a declaration of independence
was proclaimed under date of October 10, 1868, at
Manzanillo. In April, 1869, a constitution was
adopted at Guaimaro, and Cespedes was made president
of th e “ Cuban Rep ublic .’ ’ Slavery was abolished
and freedom of worship guaranteed.
For two years the insurgents struggled hopefully
and had practically full possession of the eastern
half of the island, but they were ill supplied with
arms and unable to move aggressively into the
western provinces. Filibustering expeditions came
rather feebly to their aid, the most effective béing
that of General Thomas Jordan from the United
States. The Spanish forces were gradually strengthened,
and under the command of Count Valmaseda
carried a devastating and barbarous war of suppression
into the east, without effectually quelling the
revolt. A n irregular and desultory struggle was
kept up year after year, but slowly the heart seemed
to be dying out of the cause of Cuba Libre. In the
autumn of 1873, Cespedes was deposed by the Cuban
Congress, and was shortly afterwards found dead,
killed, it was supposed, by the Spaniards. Then
Salvador Cisneros y Betancourt, Marqués de St.
Lucia, a scion of the old Spanish nobility, was made
president in the hope of keeping the cause alive
and getting recognition from the United States.
T he conflict dragged on until General Martinez
Campos was sent out as captain-general of the
Spanish forces and governor-general of Cuba. A s
early as 1870 our Government had made a tender of
its good offices to bring about an adjustment on
a basis of emancipation and a fair measure of self-
government, but Spain would not entertain the offer.
Special sympathy was excited in the fall of 1871
when some young students of the university at
Havana were summarily tried by a court-martial of
volunteers and shot, having been charged with the
offence of defacing a public tomb in which the body
of a deceased volunteer had been ostentatiously
placed. A t about the same period reports of the
barbarities of Valmaseda stirred a feeling of resentment.
But the incident which aroused the sentiment
of the United States against Spain most violently is
that known as the ‘ ‘ Virginius affair.
T h e Virginius was an irresponsible tramp steamer
which had been a blockade runner, and was cruising
about in a suspicious manner, with a mongrel crew,
partly made up of Americans. But she was registered
as an American vessel, carried the American flag, had
regularly cleared from Kingston, Jamaica, for Port
Limon, Costa Rica, October 23, 1873, and was engaged
at the time in no clandestine or illicit operations,
so far as appeared. She was seized off the
coast of Jamaica by the Spanish cruiser Tornado, and
brought into Santiago, November 1st, charged with
piracy. On this absurd charge the governor of
Santiago de Cuba proceeded, in spite of the vigorous
protests of the American vice-consul, to try
members of the crew one after another and to have
them shot, until in six days fifty-three had been disposed
of in that way, including several American