Year: 1873

II Is said that we are waiting for the govern
ment Of the Spanish Republic to get out Of
trouble TO secure itself against the menace of
an active intrigue, and that our case in the
negotiation is not pressed solely because pres
sure at this moment would overwhelm the
Power with which we are in negotiation. and
we might then find ourselves compelled to
deal with less tractable persons. Senior Cas-
telar was prepared several days ago. as the
story runs, to release the Virginius, and our
Secretary of State was satisfied that he would
release her. To the CONSERVATION and
chagrin of the Secretary, when the proper
moment came the event did not
occur; the order was not given by the author
tiles in Madrid or was not obeyed by the
authorities in Cuba, and the yirginius re-
mained where she was. This was because just
as the Spanish Ministry was about TO ''act
officially" and send the order for the release
of the ship it was compelled to stop in
consequence of ''certain contemplated acts OF
hostility" on the part of its political OPP
ponents in Madrid. That is to say, its in
tention to do justice to the United States and to





it the sympathy of the Spanish public to
such degree that it feared to carry out
its intention lest the Ministry and the Re-
public should both go down together in the
storm of popular odium; and justice is not
done us because of this popular clamor and
its apprehended consequences. 1t is. Of
course, obvious that the contemplated acts
of hostility referred to in this explanation
are the acts by which it was proposed to make
Serrano Dictator or Regent for Don Alfonso,
the son of Isabella, in whose favor it was said
Isabella was to abdicate-a revolutionary
scheme whose outline we gave and whose
likelihood we considered few days since.
And this, with as much more of the same
sort as the public appetite may require, is
given out by a considerate government to ex-
plain the halting gait of its diplomacy, for
the government having vainly endeavored
to keep the country ignorant of the steps
of the negotiation, justly deems that its
present impotent attitude needs to be
accounted for.


There are some points of a certain impor-
tance in which this story does not altogether
agree with known facts. 1t is quite possible
that there is on the tdpis in Madrid a mo-
narchical combination to oust the republican
government, but we have only heard of it
from Washington, and the people at Washing
ton have carefully given it out, in order that the
public mind, being properly instructed, should
not go astray; but they first heard it through
somebody attached to the person of the Brit
ish Minister. 1t was little suspicious that
we should be 50 carefully told how this news
first came to Washington; and inasmuch as
it now appears that the State Depart
ment must have known of Serra-
nos reported combination directly from
the Spanish Ministry-for that Ministry was
pleading this combination in its appeal for
delay-it is more suspicious still that in giving
an explanation of the source of its informa-
ton it should have given one that was mac
curate. Was this because the State Depart
ment in its great delicacy did not care to tell
| the country that it was suspending an impor-
tant negotiation out of regard to o certain
state of facts, and that it had no knowledge
of these facts save what was supplied by





ton? Did it suppose that the facts
would make better figure before the
public if they came on the authority of
some one not directly interested in secur-
ing the delay that they were relied upon to
justify? If this was its position it must have
been that it was not fully confident of the
good faith of the Spanish government in this
representation in regard to apprehended "acts
of hostility" and we cannot venture to init
mate that the State Department did the
Spaniards injustice in case it really suspected
their motives; for in q matter in which the
Department is or should be tolerably well in
] formed we should presume to differ with it
only after mature reflection. Considering that
no direct information has come from Europe
to the press in regard to the monarchial con-
spiracy; that no journal has had any special by
cable on the subject, and that the regular
press messages from London have made
no reference to it; that, in fact, it
has been heard of on this side the
Atlantic only by way of the State Department
it must be assumed that the friends of Ser
rano and Don Alfonso have not carried their
operations very far; have, in fact, kept to the
secrecy of intrigue and opinion have nov
taken any step to justify any arrests of their
party nor even gone so far that their purposes
or maneuvres have become a part of the
public political gossip of Madrid. Ii we did
not know that such q movement as the one
indicated is thoroughly in the order of Spanish
probabilities, the fact that it has made so
singularly little noise in the world as only to
be heard of in our State Department might
lead us to doubt whether this conspiracy was
not, at least, as mythical as Mrs. Harris
whether, indeed, it was not diplomatic buga-
boo conjured up by the ingenious men of
Madrid in order to frighten the nervous old