to death or deportation.  But Vives realized the folly of adding more fuel to the flames, and the sentences were in all cases either mitigated or revoked.  This seems to have brought that particular series of conspiracies to an end.  It was a time of active political agitation and conspiracy, with occasional local riots that were quickly suppressed.  While much of it was revolutionary in its aims and purposes, none of it may with any fitness be called a revolution, unless a prevalence of a lively spirit of opposition and rebellion is to be so classed.  The agitation settled down for a number of years, but broke out in local spasms occasionally.  There were riots and disorders, but that is not revolution.  It is to be remembered that the cause of all this disturbance was, in the main, an entirely creditable sentiment, quite as creditable as that which led the American colonists to resist the Stamp taxes and to destroy tea.  It was a natural and righteous protest against oppression, a movement lasting for seventy-five years, for which Americans, particularly, should award praise rather than blame or carping criticism.  Having done, in our own way, very much what the Cubans have done, in their way, we are not free to condemn them.  The only real difference is that their methods were, on the whole, a little more strenuous than ours.  Cuban blood was stirred by the successful revolutions in Mexico and in Spanish South America, and conditions in the island were contrasted with those in the then somewhat new United States.  Something of the part played by this country in the experiences of the time is presented in another chapter, on the relations of the two countries.

The next movement worthy of note came in 1849, if we omit the quarrel, in 1837, between General Tacon and his subordinate, General Lorenzo, and the alleged proposal of the slaves in the neighborhood of Matanzas to rise and slaughter all the whites.  Neither of these quite belongs in the revolutionary class.  In 1847, a conspiracy was organized in the vicinity of Cienfuegos.  Its leader was General Narciso Lopez.  The movement was discovered, and some of the participants were imprisoned.  Lopez escaped to the United States where he associated himself with a group of Cuban exiles, and opened correspondence with sympathizers in the island.  They were joined by a considerable number of adventurous Americans, inspired by a variety of motives.  The declared purpose of the enterprise was independence as the alternative of reform in Spanish laws.  An expedition was organized, but the plans became known and President Taylor, on August 11, 1849, issued a proclamation in which he declared that “an enterprise to invade the territories of a friendly nation, set on foot and prosecuted within the limits of the United States, is in the highest degree criminal.”  He therefore warned all citizens of the United States who might participate in such an enterprise that they would be subject to heavy penalties, and would forfeit