82 



humboldt's ctjba. 



The European manner of mis-stating that complex 

 combination of questions of American international 

 and civil policy, generally known as the Cuban 

 Question, is thus adroitly and characteristically prac- 

 tised, by one of the British reviews, most zealously 

 liberal, after the manner of European liberalism. 



" If then the slave States do gain Cuba, they may 

 possibly gain a loss. If they conquer her they will 

 find her emancipated or desolated ; if they purchase 

 her they will buy a colored population more in- 

 subordinate than any they have now ; and even if 

 these dangers do not realize themselves, an economi- 

 cal result, as Mr. Robertson well explains, 1 may 

 follow, by which the abolitionists may, after all, be 

 the real gainers. "Were Cuba once peacefully pos- 

 sessed by enterprising Americans, the cultivation 

 of her soil, and with it the demand for slaves, 

 would be greatly increased, while one great source 

 of supply, the African slave-trade, would be stopped. 

 At the same time the insular population would de- 

 crease rather than increase, by reason of the disparity 

 of the sexes ; the sole resource, therefore, would be 

 the slave-breeding States of Virginia, North Carolina, 

 and Maryland ; and the inducement to them to sell 



1 " A Few Months in America, by James Robertson." London, 

 1855. 



