364 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



Union. He was moved by the threatened loss of Cuba by 

 Spain to instruct Mr. Nelson, the American Minister at 

 Madrid (1823) : - 



. . . These islands from their local position are natural append- 

 ages to the North American continent, and one of them [Cuba] 

 almost in sight of our shores, from a multitude of considerations, 

 has become an object of transcendent importance to the com- 

 mercial and political interest of our Union. ... In looking for- 

 ward to the probable course of events for the short period of half 

 a century, it is scarcely possible to resist the conviction that the 

 annexation of Cuba to our Federal Republic will be indispensable 

 to the continuance and integrity of the Union itself. 



Mr. Adams did not then consider the .moment auspicious 

 for the annexation of Cuba to the Union, but he believed, 

 nevertheless, that 



. . . There are laws of political as well as physical gravita- 

 tion ; and if an apple, severed by the tempest from its native tree, 

 cannot choose but fall to the ground, Cuba, forcibly disjoined 

 from its own unnatural connection with Spain, and incapable of 

 self-support, can gravitate only towards the North American 

 Union, which, by the same law of nature, cannot cast her off from 

 its bosom. 



Jefferson was still of the opinion that possession of Cuba 

 by Great Britain " would indeed be a great calamity to us," 

 but he advocated the acquisition of Cuba by peaceful means 

 only. 



The publication of President Monroe's message of 1823 

 may have had a decided influence upon France in checking 

 her alleged Cuban designs ; nevertheless, abundant rumors 

 of French plots to acquire the island continued to vex 

 Presidents Adams and Jackson. The continued withholding 

 of Spanish recognition of Colombian and Mexican indepen- 

 dence determined those states to attempt the seizure of Cuba 

 and Porto Rico, should Spain persist in her stubborn policy of 

 maintaining war against them. The possibility of thus trans- 

 ferring the theatre of Spanish- American hostilities to Cuba 



