tain cases, the introduction of new slaves; but being prohibited by treaties, this efficacious means of preservation fails slavery at the moment when the development and progress of agriculture render it every day more necessary."

Necessary slavery, a necessary slave-trade, these were proclaimed in 1854 by the Spanish government.

But, thank God! it is emancipation that is necessary. What humanity has not inspired, necessity commands. Cuba has not changed masters, but it has changed neighbors. In all the countries which border upon Cuba, from Mexico to Florida, from Panama to Guiana, in all the West Indies, less than a century ago, reigned almost everywhere Spain, everywhere slavery. The centre of Insular America, of North America, and of South America, the Queen of the Antilles, Cuba to-day is without institutions or races about it bearing resemblance to its own. Mexico, Central America, Columbia, St. Domingo, the English, French, Danish, and Swedish West Indies, have ceased to hold slaves. Louisiana and Florida possess them, but these belong to the invading race of Americans. The broad, beautiful, and opulent island of Cuba seems to the Southern slaveholders of the American Union like a territory detached from their continent, which they wish to reconquer from the sea. To augment the number of Slave States by a country divided into two States, is to re-establish the balance of power in both houses of Congress, and to re-establish and strengthen the influence of the South. America is to the Americans what Italy is to the Italians. Cuba ought to be the prey of the United States; it will be; the first attempts failed with Lopez; they will be begun anew. The covetousness of the South has become a political scheme. Clad in official language, Cuba shall be bought, given, or taken.

Spain will surrender her last vessel and her last dollar

before losing the only jewel which is left her of her ancient American crown. Already in the Cortes solemn defiances have answered the threats and entreaties of the Cabinet at Washington.* The two hundred thousand free mulattoes, whom the morrow of annexation would hurl back into a rank nearly akin to slavery, will resist with Spain. A powerful party will endeavor to reconquer the independence of the island. Nevertheless, the example of Texas is sufficient proof that America will advance step by step, and that, sooner or later, the usurpation is infallible. For, on the one hand, there is a party in the United States that is paving the way for it; on the other, there are planters in the island who desire it, in order to be relieved from paying so many taxes and the expense of so many functionaries to Spain, and, by uniting themselves to fifteen Slave States, to secure the perpetuity of their own property in slaves. Lord Palmerston once said: "The colonists of Cuba cling to Spain only through fear of an insurrection, and through the privilege of the slavetrade." But America would henceforth better protect their security and traffic. The besiegers, therefore, have allies in the place, and good-will is secured by the complicity of interests.

Unless Europe oppose it, this century is probably destined to see the broad hand of the United States open and shut upon a new conquest, as large as England, richer in the gifts of God than any country on the globe, the Gibraltar of the American Mediterranean, the sentinel posted at the entrance of the Mississippi, the keeper of the future channel of Panama, the Queen of the Antilles, shared by the maritime powers, which the same greed, inflated by its triumphs, will dare menace in turn. Spain, led by wrong-doing to a false and desperate position, has already attempted to obtain a guaranty from

* See Book I. Chap. I. The United States.

England and France for her possessions. In 1852 a treaty was proposed to the United States, which agreement involved nothing less than an obligatory declaration on the part of the three nations, equivalent to securing to Spain the perpetual possession of the island of Cuba, without any guaranty on its part with respect to the inhabitants of the colony.* The United States refused a treaty which deceived their ambition without satisfying humanity.

Since this epoch, as we have already said, plans have become public, and threats audacious.

Happily for Spain, Providence accords it a respite and an opportunity to uprise. Under cover of the crisis in which the United States are writhing, Spain, by a bold movement, has recovered St. Domingo, and is disposed to intermeddle with the revolutions of Mexico. The owner or protector of two countries without slaves, how will it preserve the third and fairest, how secure to itself the possession of Cuba?

.

The only means is to emancipate its slaves.

The Southern United States will no longer have the same interest in annexation; should they attempt it, the subjugation of a free country to re-establish slavery there will strike the whole world with horror, and Spain will more easily obtain the support of Europe. Four hundred thousand negroes and two hundred thousand mulattoes will defend the right of Spain with their freedom. Emancipation will take away slaves to give it defenders. The slaveholders will be indemnified, and if they complain over-loudly, the treaties can be brought in opposition to their complaints, which authorize freedom to be granted to every slave to whom they cannot prove a title; if these treaties were carried out to the letter, how many would be left them?

I repeat, with a distinguished writer: "The abolition of

*La Question de Cuba, 1859, p. 57.

slavery is the most infallible means of securing the possession of Cuba to Spain." *

Of all the nations of Europe, Spain was the first to people the world which it conquered with slaves; will it be the last to renounce a crime which has lasted more than three centuries?

* M. Cucheval-Clarigny, Patrie, Jan. 17, 1859.

BOOK THIRD.

PORTUGAL.*

PLACED at the southwestern extremity of Europe, one of the smallest kingdoms of this part of the world, Portugal had the honor to be chosen by Providence to bring the rest of the globe under the empire of Christian civilization. We know what a brilliant series of discoveries followed the wise initiation, in the beginning of the fifteenth century, of the illustrious prince, Henry the Navigator, one of the sons of King John I., who founded the royal dynasty of Aviz, and transferred the capital of the kingdom from Coimbra to Lisbon. From 1415 to the death of Henry, in 1460, and after him, Madeira, the Cape Verde Islands, the Azores, Guinea, Congo, were so many beacons on the road which was to carry Bartholomew Diaz (1486) beyond the Cape of Good Hope, and Vasco de Gama (1498), then Almeida and Albuquerque, as far as the East Indies. Glorious enterprises were these, which brought to Portugal, with immortal glory, immense possessions, erelong increased by the discovery of Brazil (1500) and the cession of Macao (1557)!

Portugal was for some time the vanguard of Christian civilization in the conquest of the world. The Sovereign Pontiffs encouraged and authorized its undertakings. Sextus IV. declared it master of all the territories situated beyond Cape Bajador (1481), and Alexander VI. (1493) divided the New World by an imaginary line between Spain

* See the interesting work of M. Charles Vogel, entitled Le Portugal et ses colonies. Paris, Guillaumin, 1860.