26 



humboldt's cuba. 



of her colony. The countervailing policy of France 

 in the Spanish peninsula, more than any other cir- 

 cumstance, enabled Spain to resist the demands of 

 England ; but the advent of Louis Napoleon, and his 

 hearty union with the British cabinet in a policy, 

 which the Earl of Clarendon describes as affecting 

 the policy of those nations in both hemispheres, 

 changed the relative position of those governments 

 toward Spain. England claimed the right, under 

 treaty stipulations, to interfere in the domestic affairs 

 of Cuba, and as this claim and the attendant negotia- 

 tions involve some of the most important questions 

 relative to the future of Cuba, we give the following 

 extracts from the official correspondence on the sub- 

 ject. They will best exhibit the relative positions 

 and aims of the two governments, and perhaps throw 

 some light upon a matter which is still involved in 

 the obscurity of diplomatic intercourse. The possible 

 stipulations of Spain with England on this subject? 

 have awakened the liveliest alarm in Cuba, and have 

 been the subject of much warm discussion in this 

 country. 



In 1841 England endeavored to establish by treaty 

 a British tribunal in Cuba, with power to decide the 

 status of the negroes making application to it. ^ Lord 

 Aberdeen, in a dispatch of 31st December 1843, to 

 Mr. Bulwer, then British Minister in Spain, holds the 



