The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-11-13

people of Cuba as long as he could the news
of the revolution in Spain and the dethrone-
ment of Queen Isabella. Known, as he was,
to be devoted partisan and supporter of the
defunct dynasty, his suppression OF the
news from Spain was eminently calcu-
lated to excite suspicion in the Cuban
mind, and to awaken gloomy
forebodings as to his ulteror intentions Then
there Is distrust of the Home Government
the fear that in the elevation Of another royal
ruler to the Spanish throne in the place of
Isabella Cuba would only be getting one
! despot for another-that in the advent of new
men to the supreme administration she would
| be only exchanging one set of selfish and ex-
acting taskmasters for another. Aud, lastly,
there is the growth of republican feeling in
! Cuba, which, fostered by the extensive inter
course now existing between that island and
the United States, is every day spreading and
becoming stronger.
The principal seat o. the instruction is the
! Eastern province, one of the richest and most
populous of the three provinces into which
Cuba is divided. The districts of Puerto Prin-
cipe, Nuevitas, st. Jago de Cuba Bayamo,
HolguiD, Manzanillo, Jiguani, Las Tunas, and
| Guantanamo are included in this province,
and in all of these the insurgents have ap-
peared in considerable force, occupying some
important strategic points, and holding the
capitals of Bayemo and Jiguani, besides seve-
raj other towns. Three-ffths of the territory
who have captured the Lieutenant Governor
OF the district and a Lieutenant colonel of the
army, besides some thirty officials, military
and civil, among them Lieutenant 0rmeachs,
nephew of Captain General Lersundi. In
Bayamo they have established a provisional
government, the head of which is one Pedro
Aquilero, man WORTH It is said. some
s3,OOO,oOO in money and real estate. The in
surreetionary forces IRE now numbered by
thousands, ana sre Increasing every day. In
several enc"sunters which they have had with
'ne government troops the latter have been
worsted.
ANNEXATION TO THE UNITED STATES.
Independence is sought by the patriot
party OF Cuba not as end in itself, but simply
as means to an end. They wish to throw
Off Spanish rule in order that they might
unite their fortunes with those of the Ameri-
can people--in order that they might place
their country under the Stars and Stripes, as
one of the States of the Union. And this
question Of the annexation of Cuba to the
United States is not q new one. 1t was Sc
riously mooted twenty years ago, when Presi-
| dent Polk authorized the American Minister
at Madrid to offer to purchase the island for
the sum of $780, 000, 600. 1t filled the public
mind during the revolutionary attempts of
Lopez in 1850 and 1851; it was revived in
1854, in which year the United States Ministers
/
statement popularity known as the Ostend
Manifesto, in which they argued that
the island ought to belong to the
United States, and that its sale
would be highly advantageous to Spain;
and the subject was again brought up short
time before the outbreak of the Southern Re-
belliop, in the shape of proposition made in
Congress by Mr.. Slldell, OF Louisiana, during
the session of 1S5S$59 to place $50, 600 900 in
the hands of the President for the acquisition
of the island. The motive at the bottom of
these projects for gaining possession of Cuba
was the desire OF the slavery party in this
country to increase their power in the Union,
and strengthen the peculiar institution" by
gaining another slave State. The emancipa-
ton of the slaves in the Southern States has
materially changed the "situation'' since the
period when the latest effort was made by
American statesmen to acquire Cuba, which
could now only come into the Union on the
condition of being rid of slavery. But
this price the party of independence would
readily and gladly pay. Tue feeling with
which they regard slavery may be gathered
from the way in which it is spoken of in
the manifesto lately issued by the Revolu-
tionary Junta at Havana. "Wounded to
death. !" says that proclamation, "as the hor-
rible institution of slavery now is, after the
colossal struggle in our neighboring American
republic for its entire abolition, it would be
insanity to think of perpetuating it in Cuba;
and, outside of the motives of justice, right,
and humanity, which call loudly for its ex-
tinction, it would be contradiction, an un-
pardonable alteration on the part of the Fede-
raj republic VIGOROUSLY proclaimed by our
brothers of the Peninsula-(it was believed at
the time that republic had been proclaimed
in Spaip)-to keep for any length of time
that stain which olings to US like an ignomini-
ous legacy of monarchy" Strong as may be
the desire Of the Cubans for annexation, it is
certain, however that that eoHsummation can
never be hastened or any way helped forward
by tilibustering enterprises, hich can only end
in disaster to those engaging in them, and in
entailiDg trouble on the United States.
The idea of the acquisition of Cuba by the
United States has never been an agreeable one
to the Spanish Government, which has
pleaded, as an estoppel to all negotiation, for
that it would be derogatory to the honor Of
Spain to part voluntarily with the sever
faithful isle." The truth is that no offer suffi-
GENTLY large has ever been made to induce
Spain to relinquish Cuba, whose value to her
in pecuniary point Of view has been of late
years greater than that of any other single
colonial possession owned by any European
power. During the last thirty or forty years
Cuba has been to Spain what the island Of
Jamaica was at one time to Englaud-the
fountain of immense wealth to the mother
countTy-a great reserve in which the Spanish
people found far richer pastures than any
presenting themselves in their native land.
EXTENT, POPULATION, AND RESOURCES OF CUBA.
The island of Cuba is prize worth gaining.
1t has been well designated "the Queen of the
Antilles, - for there is no island in the Western
Hemisphara In cOmnara with If Its Oraataat