34 



humboldt's cuba. 



This correspondence, which was continued during 

 the succeeding year, did not attain the desired result, 

 and in December, 1852, Lord Palmerston,. in a dis- 

 patch to Lord Howden, thus forcibly depicts the rea- 

 sons which animate the Spanish government to resist 

 the demands of England. 



" First, in order to afford income to a number of 

 ill-paid public officers, or to appointed favorites, by 

 means of bribes given by slave-traders ; and 



" Secondly, for the purpose of retaining a hold 

 upon the island ; because it is thought at Madrid, 

 that as long as there is in Cuba a large number of 

 negroes, the white population will cling to the 

 mother country for protection against the black 

 race. 



" But both these motives are founded in error, for 

 it can never be the interest of a government to de- 

 moralize its own officers, and to accustom them to 

 violate the law ; and a mother country will have but 

 a feeble hold of a colony, if the strongest tie which 

 connects them, is the fear on the part of the planter 

 of an insurrection of the negroes. 



" It is obvious that protection against such danger 

 might be found by other means, and in other quar- 

 ters ; by the suppression of the slave trade, which 

 many Cuban proprietors desire ; or hy annexation 



