delight to honor.

For precisely the same conditions prevailed, only to a much wider extent, in the Thirteen Colonies at the beginning of the American Revolution, when Washington and Franklin and Jefferson and Jay were American Autonomists, inexorably opposed to independence. Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill were fought not for independence but for autonomy under the British Crown and in perpetual union with the British Empire. When the First Continental Congress met in the spring of 1774 there was no word, at least, of independence. On the contrary, according to some of the very foremost members of that historic body, the idea of independence, at least in the Middle and Southern colonies, was "as unpopular as the Stamp Act itself." Not only did that Congress complete its course without saying a word for independence, but it adopted an address to the people of Great Britain declaring that the reports which had got abroad that the Colonies wanted independence were "mere calumnies," and that nothing was desired but equality of rights with their fellow subjects in the British Isles. The Second Colonial Congress met after Lexington and Concord and just before Bunker Hill. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were members of it. But they spoke no word for independence. Instead, Jefferson drafted a declaration, which Congress adopted, to the effect that the Colonies had "not raised armies with designs of separating from Great Britain and establishing independent states"; and in other addresses which the same Congress adopted after the battle of Bunker Hill it was explicitly stated that the Colonists were loyal to the British Crown, that they wished for lasting union with Great Britain, and that they had taken up arms not to find liberty outside of the British Empire but to vindicate and defend liberty within that Empire. After the adjournment of that Congress in August, 1775, less than a year before the Declaration of Independence, so representative a man and so ardent a patriot as John Jay publicly denounced the imputation that the Congress had "aimed at independence" as "ungenerous and groundless," and as marked with "malice and falsity." Not until the spring of 1776 was there any significant turning toward independence as the inevitable resort.

If I have thus dwelt at length upon well-known facts which pertain to the history of the United States rather than to that of Cuba, it is in order to remind American readers, on the strength of a precedent which they, at any rate, must regard with the highest respect, how reasonable it was for Cubans even as late as in 1897 and 1898 to cling to a policy and a hope substantially identical with those which were cherished by the foremost representative American patriots in 1774 and 1775. We can see now, they themselves can see now, that they were in error and that their hopes were vain. But they were no more in error than were the immortal American Autonomists of the beginning of the American Revolution.

Similarly it was necessary that Cuba should not only be entirely separated from Spain but also should be made independent, and not be annexed to the United States. On that point, too, many good men were in error. As we shall see, the first important Cuban revolutionist—although not himself a native Cuban—had in view not independence but annexation to the United States, and so did many another sterling patriot after him. Probably the general feeling was that the one thing supremely essential was to be sundered from Spain, and since annexation to the United States seemed to promise the effecting of that most promptly, most easily and most surely, it was to be accepted as the best solution of the problem. Of course, too, the annexation sentiment in Cuba was greatly encouraged and promoted by the advocates of annexation in the United States, who were numerous, and aggressive, and actuated by a variety of motives.

For three fundamental reasons, however, annexation would have been a deplorable mistake, for both parties. One was, that the Cuban people at heart wanted independence and would permanently have been satisfied with nothing less. Every other Spanish colony in the Western Hemisphere had attained independent sovereignty, and it would have been a reproach to Cuba to have been satisfied with any less status than theirs. The second reason was that Cuba and the United States were incompatible in temperament, and could not have got on well together. That is to be said without the slightest reflection upon either. The two countries were of different racial stocks, different languages, different traditions, different civic ideals. It was and is possible for them to be the best of friends and neighbors, but that is quite different from being yoke-fellows.

The third reason was, that Cuba would not have thought of annexation without Statehood in the Federal Union, to which the United States would not or at any rate should not have admitted her. Nor is that any reflection upon Cuba. The principle was established by governmental utterances, nearly half a century before Cuban independence was achieved, and indeed before any important efforts were made by the United States to purchase Cuba, that outlying territories not contiguous with the continental Union of States, were not to be considered as fitting candidates for statehood. Had Cuba been acquired by the United States at any time it is certain that her admission as a State would have been vigorously opposed on that historic ground. The sequel would have been either that Cuba would have been excluded from the Union, to her entire and intense dissatisfaction, or the United States would have abandoned a highly desirable policy and would have established a precedent under which grave abuses might thereafter have occurred.

The redemption of Cuba from Spanish rule was long delayed, for a number of reasons. One was, obviously, the difficulty of achieving it alone. The South and Central American provinces had revolted simultaneously, or in rapid succession, so that each was of assistance to the others. But at that time Cuba remained faithful to Spain; and when years afterward she sought to follow the example of the others, she found that she had to do so single-handed against the undivided might of the Peninsula. Another very potent reason was, the strength of the pro-Spanish sentiment and influence in the island, caused by the flocking thither of many Spanish loyalists from the Central and South American states and from Santo Domingo. Here, too, American readers may interpret Cuban conditions through reference to their own history. At the close of the American Revolution multitudes of British Loyalists left the United States and settled in Upper Canada, with the result that that Province of Ontario became proverbially "more British than Great Britain." We shall see in our narrative how strong the Spanish loyalist party in Cuba was, and to what extremes it went in its opposition to Cuban independence. In that we may perceive simply a repetition of conditions which prevailed at the close of the American War of Independence. It is probable, too, that the insular position of Cuba, with her coastal waters controlled by the Spanish fleet, and her central position, making her an object of intense international interest and intrigue, also contributed to the same end. Of course, too, since Cuba and Porto Rico were her last remaining possessions in the Western World, Spain made extraordinary efforts to retain them and to prevent the success of any revolutionary movement.

One other influence must be noted, that of the United States. If at any time the counsels of that country had been harmonious and united, they would have had a powerful, perhaps a preponderating, effect upon Cuban affairs. But as we have intimated, and as we shall more fully see in our narrative, they were strongly, often violently, divided. Some were for intervention, some were