94 



humboldt's cuba. 



acquiesced in a present seeming friendship. But 

 the retention of the frontier forts after the revolu- 

 tion ; the intrigues in Europe against our early com- 

 mercial treaties ; the orders in council ; the war of 

 1812 ; the treaty of Ghent, and the fishery question 

 at that time ; the northeastern boundary ; the Ore- 

 gon question ; the efforts against our acquisition of 

 Texas; the intrigues in the war and treaty with 

 Mexico ; the South Carolina correspondence ; the 

 intrigues in Nicaragua and Dominica against us; 

 the questions of free trade with Canada, and of the 

 rights of our fishermen, afford demonstrations as 

 clear as any in Euclid of the animus that moves them. 



The Cuban question is the same disease in its 

 most aggravated and worst form. While Spain, un- 

 der the instigation of England, and supported by 

 that power and France, is giving life and energy to 

 her hatred and their hostility to us, in the policy she 

 has adopted in Cuba, the British cabinet may well 

 put on the mask of friendship, and assure us, as she 

 has already done on one occasion, that all will be 

 right with her fond ally Spain. And when the evil 

 is done, when the work of hate is consummated, 

 when Cuba has perished before the sirocco breath of 

 European philanthropy, and the seeds of dissension 

 and disunion are sown broadcast through the length 

 and breadth of this great confederacy, then may 



