Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1853-11-05


sassination the people of the whole community should
they revolt should Disguised world revolt for them
Priests sing their hymns to the gaoe and pray for the
slave hp That island lies in sight Of Florida in Ame
rican waters and there and such is the status quo Lord
John Russell would protect with entire liberty and with
British fleets"
Ii there be language in which human horrors can
be depicted with more terrible distnctncss have
not seen it. And all this is done that the "opnon"
intimated by the Union as to the insincerity of
Lord John Russell may appear to be confirmed. 1t
graciously condescends to repudiate it a calum
ny upon the very name of our country's mother
land" that her Sovereign should desire to perpetuate
such a condition of misery and Indebtedness and
hopeless suffering to any people; whence fol-
lows as an irresistible inference that the British
gotiators have been making false pretencc to our
Government!
The Union must be very little acquainted with
the nature of her Majestys Government If 1t
supposes that any Ministry Of England would dare
to play the double dealers in negotiation with any
foreign Government. The Ministers, like our Pre-
sident are responsible to tho People, and, even If
the Sovereign disposed to overlook SO fragrant
act of treachery, Aey would soon demand, in tones
too loud to be disreg@ded, their dismissal. But it
was not the intention of the Union, its reputation
of the calumny Notwithstanding, to exoncrate the
British Government from its full share in the du-
plicity "intimated" agaimt Lord John Russell
owe know WE'LL" it says, I" that they are in
triguing, and have been fer months, and perhaps
years, for the establishments Cuba of the Jamaica
negro-apprenticeship and Emancipation scheme, to
the end that that island may be powerless in the
hands of the Creole population and useless or actu
ally hostile to the United States
i We ask, in the name of common sense, what it is
that Great Britain promise to herself by doing
any thing that may injure, retard or destroy the
prosperity of the United States? We now furnish
her with the means of trade to the amount Of one
hundred and fifty millions of dollars per aanum
In proportion as our prosperity increases will the
amount of benefit to her be increased and the con-
verse of the proposition is equally true for there is
no other country under the sun which could keep
her mills and her looms at work were any thing to
occur to make our country less productive, to in
terrupt the commercial relations at present existing
between the two people. The statesmen of Great
Britain are not SO ignorant as not to know this fact
nor are they so unpatriotic as not to be influenced
by it in all the measures of policy which may be
suggested by them in their diplomatic intercourse
with the United States Every blow levelled against
our prosperity would rebound with tenfold force
against themselves.
But let us recur to the "prcsent condition" of
Cuba, supposing it to be in reality what the Union
states it to be- Suppose the Inquistion to be still
applying its thumbscrew and its whole inventory of
torturing inventions; supposng the Moro Castle to
be an ingenious compound OF dark dungeons and
darker cells, from top to bottom and that "the
black and ghoule-ke soul of the Escurial is still
dominant" there; so long the spirit of Philip H.
shall confne its wanderngs TO the shores of Cuba,
rousing nights black agents to their prey" in the
Moro; so long as no citizen of the United States,
having right to claim the interference of his Gov
eminent to save and protect him, is there held in
durance, we ask again, in the Of common
sense what it is to Us, than matter of regret
that any nation of the present day protesting the
Christian religion should be so deaf to the voice of
mercy, blind ito host interests, thus to
convert It's subjects who might by different treat.
ment become its friends, into unforgivng and ruth
less though helpless enemies? What is it to us
more than a subject of philanthropc sympathy,
more than it is to any other nation in Chrstendom,
every one of which is quite well acquainted with
the "present condition" of Cuba as the organ Of
our Government?
But the Union seems to think that we arc more
especially called upon to make our sympathy dctve
because "that island lies in sight of Florida in
american waters" This might be good plea for
our interference if the United States constituted
america, and Cuba were really in our "waters."
But, so long this is not the case so long as we
are bounded by our present limits-wide enough, in
all conscience, for the exercise of sympahes and
all other philanthropic emotions-wc are neither
called upon by position, by sound policy, by State
necessity, any other of the usual motives of &c
ton of prudent Governments, to show our teeth and
snarl as if part Of our own territory were to be
torn from II mere proximity could justify in
reference, should be compelled to yield claim
to the better right Of Yucatdn for Cuba lies
nearer to that State by hundred miles than it
does to the nearest point of Florida But VIC still
hope that the Congress Of the United States will
take more sober view Of the question than, as it
seems, the rcputcd organ Of the Administration is
disposed to do. There will be some statesmen in
that Congress whose Democracy is not quite so pro-
grcssive as that Of which the Union is the mirror
and we will not doubt that their deliberations, upon
all measures Of foreign policy at least will be calm
and full and dispassionate before they stamp them
with their sanction.