the protection of their country.  He also called on “every officer of this Government, civil or military, to use all efforts in his power to arrest for trial and punishment every such offender against the laws.”  The party was captured as it was leaving New York.  The best evidence of the time is to the effect that there was in Cuba neither demand for nor support of such a movement, but Lopez and his associates, many of them Americans, persisted.  A second expedition was arranged, and a party of more than six hundred men, many of them American citizens, assembled on the island of Contoy, off the Yucatan coast, and on May 19, 1850, landed at Cardenas.  But there was no uprising on the part of the people.  The Spanish authorities, informed of the expedition, sent ships by sea and troops by land.  After a sharp skirmish, the invaders fled for their lives.  Lopez and those who escaped with him succeeded in reaching Key West.  He went to Savannah, where he was arrested but promptly liberated in response to public clamor.  But even this did not satisfy the enthusiastic liberator of a people who did not want to be liberated in that way.  He tried again in the following year.  On August 3, 1851, he sailed from near New Orleans, on the steamer Pampero, in command of a force of about four hundred, largely composed of young Americans who had been lured into the enterprise by assurance of thrilling adventure and large pay.  They landed near Bahia Honda, about fifty miles west of Havana.  Here, again, the Cubans refused to rise and join the invaders.  Here, again, they encountered the Spanish forces by whom they were beaten and routed.  Many were killed, some were captured, and others escaped into the surrounding country and were captured afterward.  Lopez was among the captured.  He was taken to Havana, and died by garrote in the little fortress La Punta.  His first officer, Colonel Crittenden, and some fifty Americans were captured and taken to Atares, the fortress at the head of Havana harbor, where they were shot.  For that somewhat brutal act, the United States could ask no indemnity.  In violation of the laws of the United States, they had invaded the territory of a nation with which the country was at peace.  In the initial issue of the New York Times, on October 18, 1851, there appeared a review of the incident, presenting a contemporaneous opinion of the experience.  It was, in part, as follows: 

“Nothing can be clearer than the fact that, for the present, at least, the inhabitants of Cuba do not desire their freedom.  The opinion has very widely prevailed that the Cubans were grievously oppressed by their Spanish rulers, and that the severity of their oppression alone prevented them from making some effort to throw it off.  The presence of an armed force in their midst, however small, it was supposed would summon them by thousands to the standard of revolt, and convert the colony into a free republic.  Men high in office, men who had lived in Cuba and