Annexation desired.

General Lee writes on December 13: 

“The contest for and against autonomy is most unequal.  For it there are five or six of the head officers at the Palace and twenty or thirty other persons here in the city.  Against it, first, are the insurgents, with or without arms, and the Cuban noncombatants; second, the great mass of the Spaniards bearing or not bearing arms—­the latter desiring, if there must be a change, annexation to the United States.  Indeed, there is the greatest apathy concerning autonomy in any form.  No one asks what it will be, or when or how it will come.

“I do not see how it could even be put into operation by force, because as long as the insurgents decline to accept it, so long, the Spanish authorities say, the war must continue.”

General Lee then describes the efforts to form an autonomistic cabinet in Cuba and the public disapprobation of the people.

On January 8 General Lee makes the following report: 

“Sir—­I have the honor to state, as a matter of public interest, that the reconcentrado order of General Weyler, formerly governor-general of this island, transformed about four hundred thousand self-supporting people, principally women and children, into a multitude to be sustained by the contributions of others, or die of starvation or of fevers resulting from a low physical condition and being massed in large bodies, without change of clothing and without food.

“Their homes were burned, their fields and plant beds destroyed, and their live stock driven away or killed.

“I estimate that probably two hundred thousand of the rural population in the provinces of Pinar del Rio, Havana, Matanzas, and Santa Clara have died of starvation or from resultant causes, and the deaths of whole families almost simultaneously, or within a few days of each other, and of mothers praying for their children to be relieved of their horrible sufferings by death are not the least of the many pitiable scenes which were ever present.  In the provinces of Puerto Principe and Santiago de Cuba, where the ‘reconcentrado order’ could not be enforced, the great mass of the people are self-sustaining. ...

“A daily average of ten cents’ worth of food to two hundred thousand people would be an expenditure of $20,000 per day, and, of course, the most humane efforts upon the part of our citizens cannot hope to accomplish such a gigantic relief, and a great portion of these people will have to be abandoned to their fate.” ...

On January 12, 13, 14 and 15 General Lee sent brief cablegrams to the department in regard to those rioting and the demonstrations against autonomy and Blanco and the three newspaper offices.

January 13 he said some of the rioters threatened to go to the United States consulate.  “Ships,” he said, “are not needed, but may be later.  If Americans are in danger ships should move promptly for Havana.  Uncertainty and excitement widespread.”  The rioting ceased the next day and General Lee reported all quiet.