into a national party and urged administrative and economic changes upon Madrid felt the lack of understanding among Spanish statesmen.  The concessions asked were not a broad application of civil liberties.  When their programme was rejected in its entirety they ceased to ask favors.  They inaugurated the Ten Years’ War.”  Regarding this action by the Cubans, Dr. Enrique Jose Varona, a distinguished Cuban and a former deputy to the Cortes, has stated that “before the insurrection of 1868, the reform party which included the most enlightened, wealthy, and influential Cubans, exhausted all the resources within their reach to induce Spain to initiate a healthy change in her Cuban policy.  The party started the publication of periodicals in Madrid and in the island, addressed petitions, maintained a great agitation throughout the country, and having succeeded in leading the Spanish Government to make an inquiry into the economic, political, and social conditions in Cuba, they presented a complete plan of government which satisfied public requirements as well as the aspirations of the people.  The Spanish Government disdainfully cast aside the proposition as useless, increased taxation, and proceeded to its exaction with extreme severity.”  Here not seek its independence; the object was reform in oppressive laws and in burdensome taxation, a measure of self-government, under Spain, and a greater industrial and commercial freedom.  It is most difficult to understand the short-sightedness of the Spanish authorities.  The war soon followed the refusal of these entirely reasonable demands, and the course of the Cubans is entirely to their credit.  An acceptance of the situation and a further submission would have shown them as contemptible.

The details of a conflict that lasted for ten years are quite impossible of presentation in a few pages.  Nor are they of value or interest to any except special students who can find them elaborately set forth in many volumes, some in Spanish and a few in English.  Having tried once before to cover this period as briefly and as adequately as possible, I can do no better here than to repeat the story as told in an earlier work (Cuba, and the Intervention).  On the 10th of October, 1868, Carlos Manuel Cespedes and his associates raised the cry of Cuban independence at Yara, in the Province of Puerto Principe (now Camaguey).  On the 10th of April, 1869, there was proclaimed the Constitution of the Cuban Republic.  During the intervening months, there was considerable fighting, though it was largely in the nature of guerrilla skirmishing.  The Spanish Minister of State asserted in a memorandum issued to Spain’s representatives in other countries, under date of February 3, 1876, that at the outbreak of the insurrection Spain had 7,500 troops, all told, in Cuba.  According to General Sickels, at that time the American Minister to Spain, this number was increased by reinforcements of 34,500 within the first