PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



43 



subject of private administration. Unfortunately 

 for our own citizens abroad, our government, con- 

 scious of its own respect for the rights of the foreigner 

 here, assumes that every other government is ani- 

 mated by the same feeling, and has pursued a system 

 of international intercourse the reverse of that fol- 

 lowed by European governments ; — inquiry being 

 substituted for belief, and delay for action. Thus 

 the wrong is often consummated, and submitted to 

 by the citizen, because the seeking of redress is 

 more ruinous to him than submission, and the affair 

 is forgotten, — no administration being anxious to 

 assume and correct the omissions of former ones. If 

 any representative abroad embroils himself with the 

 subordinates of a foreign power, in seeking redress 

 for our citizens, his communications to the cabinet 

 at Washington remain unanswered, and he is not 

 unfrequently abandoned to the degrading sense of 

 having urged an unsustained demand. For the sup- 

 port of these assertions, we do not hesitate to appeal 

 to every one of our citizens, who has been in public 

 position abroad as a representative of the United 

 States. 



These circumstances have tended to complicate 

 our political relations with Cuba, for the nature of 

 the Spanish character has been so orientalized, by 

 the seven hundred years of Moorish dominion in 



