Until then we will not be able to see clearly, and I consider it to be a loss of time and an advance by the wrong road, the sending of emissaries to the rebel field, the negotiating with the autonomists, not yet declared to be legally constituted, and the discovery of the intentions and purposes of this government.  The exiles will return one by one, and when they return will come walking into the sheepfold, and the chiefs will gradually return.

Neither of these had the courage to leave en masse, and they will not have the courage to thus return.  The President’s message has undeceived the insurgents, who expected something else, and has paralyzed the action of Congress, but I consider it bad.

Besides the natural and inevitable coarseness with which he repeats all that the press and public opinion of Spain has said of Weyler, it shows once more what McKinley is—­weak and catering to the rabble, and, besides, a low politician, who desires to leave a door open to me and to stand well with the jingoes of his party.  Nevertheless, as a matter of fact, it will only depend on ourselves whether he will prove bad and adverse to us.

I agree entirely with you that without military success nothing will be accomplished there, and without military and political success there is here always danger that the insurgents will be encouraged, if not by the government, at least by part of the public opinion.  I do not believe you pay enough attention to the role of England.  Nearly all that newspaper canaille, which swarm in your hotel, are English, and while they are correspondents of American journals, they are also correspondents of the best newspapers and reviews of London.

Thus it has been since the beginning.  To my mind, the only object of England is that the Americans should occupy themselves with us and leave her in peace, and if there is a war, so much the better.  That would further remove what is threatening her, although that will never happen.  It would be most important that you should agitate the question of commercial relations, even though it would be only for effect, and that you should send here a man of importance, in order that I might use him to make a propaganda among the senators and others, in opposition to the Junta and to win over exiles.  There goes Amblarad.  I believe he comes too deeply taken up with political matters, and there must be something great or we shall lose.  Adela returns your salutation, and we wish you in the new year to be a messenger of peace and take this new year’s present to poor Spain.  Always your attentive friend and servant, who kisses your hand,

Enrique Dupuy de Lome.

As soon as this letter was made public, De Lome cabled his resignation to the Spanish government, and withdrew his passports from the State Department in Washington, thus saving himself the mortification of a dismissal.  The Spanish government at Madrid sent the following communication to Minister Woodford regarding the affair: