CUBA 239 



no captain-general has ever returned to Spain after a four years' 

 intendancy except as a millionaire. 



Above all the numerous edicts, decrees, customs, and police 

 regulations, the fundamental law of the island is the will of the 

 captain-general, enforced by the following decree of May 28, 1825, 

 which is still in force : . ' 



' ' His Majesty, the King, our Lord, desiring to obviate the inconveniences 

 which might result, in extraordinary cases, from a division of command, 

 and from the interference of powers and prerogatives of the respective offi- 

 cers; for the important end of preserving in that precious island (Cuba) 

 his legitimate sovereign authority and the public tranquillity, through 

 proper means, has resolved in accordance with the opinion of his council 

 of ministers to give to your excellency the fullest authority, bestowing 

 upon you all the powers which by the royal ordinances are granted to the 

 governors of besieged cities. In consequence of this His Majesty gives to 

 your excellency the most ample and unbounded power, not only to send 

 away from the island any persons in office, whatever be their occupation, 

 rank, class, or condition, whose continuance therein your excellency may 

 deem injurious, or whose conduct, public or private, may alarm you, re- 

 placing them with persons faithful to His Majesty, and deserving of all 

 the confidence of your excellency ; but also to suspend the execution of 

 any order whatsoever, or any general -provision made concerning any 

 branch of the administration, as your excellency may think most suit- 

 able to the royal service." 



Under this law, which has been utilized with terrible effect, 

 misfeasance has developed beyond description and freedom has 

 been a mockery. Year after year the least liberty of thought or 

 expression of opinion or suspicion of liberal ideas on the part 

 of the individual or the press has resulted in imprisonment, 

 death, or deportation. Furthermore, the elsewhere obsolete 

 punishment of torture has added horror to the cruelty of this 

 edict. In 1844 over 3,000 people were executed under this law. 

 During the ten years' war it is estimated that fully 20,000 people 

 suffered its enforcement. The official records show that 4,672 

 people were executed during the first half of that war. The 

 first act of the Spaniards upon the outbreak of the present rev- 

 olution was to arrest, imprison, deport, shoot, or otherwise pun- 

 ish every man who was suspected of disloyalty. This class 

 included all who were suspected of liability to become revo- 

 lutionary sympathizers, such as the leading men of the learned 

 professions — doctors, lawyers, editors, and the faculty of the 

 University — who during the past three years have been im- 

 prisoned in the dungeons of Ceuta, Africa, where 730 leading- 

 Cuban citizens are now confined, or upon the Isle of Pines. Man}*- 



