The Sun.
London, England, 1851-09-30 00:00:00

ettl I dna AL
LONDON, TUESDAY, SEVTEXIBER 30, 1851.

Inscrutable as it may appear, there can no longer
be entertained a doubt that the Cuban Expedition
was rendered abortive by a very slight magnetic devi-
ation. From the interesting documents in which one
of the lieutenants of Colonel CRITTENDEN has endea-
voured to vindicate the unfortunate men who shared
with him in the perils of that disastrous adventure, it
will be perceived that General Lopez had originally
projected a descent upon the island as near as possi-
ble to Puerto Principe. In consequence, however,
of an unexpected deflexion in the compass on board
the steamer Pampers, the reckoning of her progress
was so far miscalculated that the vessel struck upon a
coral reef during the night of the 10th of August, at a
point very far removed from the place of destination.
Alarmed at his dilemma, the leader of the invading
forces caused his 453 followers to land forthwith, and
the result of this precipitate movement on his part
seems to have been their speedy and irremediable dis-
comfiture. The circumstance here alluded to is emi-
nently deserving consideration from the startling sin-
gularity by which it is characterised throughout.
According to the deliberate avowal of the apologist
already particularised, the variation in the magnetic
needle was the origin of all the subsequent calamities
experienced by himself and his ill-fated companions.
" lied LOPEZ," says he distinctly, "carried out his
original intention of landing near Puerto Principe,
the result might, perhaps, have been different," adding
by way of elucidation, "he might then, perhaps, have
found friends, and raised a force sufficient to sustain
itself until reinforcements were sent out from the
States," a conjecture not by any means extravagant.
Instead of this, the invaders were debarked in a re-
mote locality, driven to the risk of that debarcation
by the accident above specified. That accident, it
cannot very speedily be forgotten, was the deviation
in the compass—a deviation caused by the very wea-
pons collected together by the buccaneers—the mus-
kets having been incautiously stacked in close
proximity to the needle employed on board the Pam-
pers. Reflective observers cannot fail to be struck by
the astounding peculiarity of this incident—the de-
feat of the assailants of the Cuban Government being
directly traceable to the very implements of warfare
accumulated by them for the accomplishment of their
lawless and detestable enterprise. Those who are
fond of tracking the influence exercised over the
affairs of this earth by an invisible Omnipotence will
find in the particulars here narrated a tempting subject
for investigation.
Apart altogether from the interest attached to the
narrative from which these details have been ex-
tracted, there is visible in every portion of it a
truthfulness that commands belief, and a candour
especially acceptable at a time of such general and
grievous misapprehension. Lieutenant VAN VECH•
TEN has evidenced in every syllable of his vindication of
his as sociates in the expedition a simplicity such as
must perforce command for him a hearing from all
honest and unprejudiced auditors. He recounts the
whole undertaking from first to last, from his ap-
pointment as First Lieutenant of Company B of
Colonel CRITTRNDEIV'S Regiment to his ultimate libe-
ration from confinement, with a scrupulous regard
for exactitude, and crowns the whole of his enthralling
communication by an acknowledgment of the folly
and in some respects also the atrocity of the entire
enterprise. There is a tone of manly pathos in this
confession which irresistibly secures to itself our
sympathies, the writer lamenting in a natural burst
of passion the valour which has been expended by his
unlucky comrades upon an exploit proving after all to
be the contrivance of a set of infamous speculators,
having an eye solely to their own personal aggran-
disement. Before the body of adventurers left the
American continent for Cuba every man engaged
in the undertaking appears to have been really and
conscientiously persuaded that the people of that
island were anxiously awaiting their arrival to de-
clare their political independence—believing them-
selves (and that most implicitly) to be enacting
the part of liberators rather than of ma-
rauders. Even Lopes himself must in some
measure be allowed to have been deceived in his
expectations—his judgment having been eclipsed by
an ambition long known to be one of inordinate
magnitude. Upon the heads, therefore, of those
execrable and most despicable individuals who prac-
tised the deception should descend the infamy of the
whole transaction ; those anonymous conspirators
who published, during a considerable period anterior
to the setting out of the expedition, the specious
falsehoods and ingenious forgeries which, if true,
would have been allowed to comprise within them its
complete justification. Meanwhile the brunt of the
vengeance wreaked upon the deluded invaders of
Cuba by the forces of its Government, has been ex-
clusively borne by any one rather than those who
were really and morally responsible for their atrocity.
LOPEZ and CRITTENDEN have been each of them sa-
crificed, their hapless followers have been hunted by
bloodhounds, and sentenced to ignominious and per-
manent transportation, their unoffending families
have been plunged into the bitterest affliction by the
news of their most lamentable misfortunes ; and all
this, as Lieutenant VAN VECHTEN observes with such
profound and evident indignation, to enable the infa-
mous projectors of the enterprise to chink the blood-
money in their pockets, and to chuckle over the re-
sults of their speculation. There is something very
touching in the manly and unaffected manner in
which the fortunate survivor of all these calamities
pronounces his opinion upon the merits and demerits
of his commanders, speaking of one in terms of ear-
nest eulogium for his valour, and mentioning the
other in language of the very warmest admiration.
Speaking of CRITTENDEN, he exclaims, for example,
with no trivial emotion—" Attached to his command,
in hourly contact with him, I knew him, and do not
hesitate in saying that a braver, nobler, more ho-
nourable man than WILLIAM L. CRITTENDEN never
lived." Alluding elsewhere to General LOPEZ, he
avers, in the most explicit manner conceivable, that
" his courage was as conspicuous under every emer-
gency as his ambition was great, and his enthusiasm
contagious." Nevertheless, while thus avowing his
opinion in reference to captains so very recently and
ignominiously executed, Lieutenant VAN VECHTEN
shows himself by no means blind to the errors com-
mitted by them in the course of their disastrous expe-
dition, mentioning in epithets of stern condemnation
the way in which CRITTENDEN failed to join the chief
at Las Poses, and reprobating with no less earnest
words of dispraise the blunders by which Lopez jeo-
pardized the fortunes of the enterprise, blunders which
ultimately led to his being himself garroted in the
presence of the infuriated inhabitants of Havannah.
It is impossible to peruse this mournful narrative
from the hand of VAN VECHTEN without lamenting
the miseries experienced by the wretched men en-
gaged in the undertaking in consequence of the criti-
cal position into which they were entrapped by the
interested misrepresentations of the parties trafficking
in the chance of their destruction. Immediately after
their first putting foot on the coast of Cuba their suf-
ferings seemed to have commenced. From the beach
where they landed they received the earliest shots of
their antagonists. Every where afterwards they en-
countered either the regular forces or the armed pee-
d the island in overwhelming numbers.
sTheyantry
could scarcely commence a hurried meal
before they were startled into self-defence by
a withering discharge of musketry. The strag-
glers were butchered, the wounded were con-
the place of
veyed Still bleeding to inearce-