republic again established and promising to support him in such a movement.  The names of 20,000 of the best citizens of Spain were signed to this request, and it was an element of danger to the monarchy that was well recognized.  Finally, the partisans of General Weyler, who comprised a large element of the proudest and most influential people of Spain, showed distinct signs of a desire to establish a dictatorship with that ferocious general as the supreme authority.  He had been recalled from Cuba as a rebuke and in order to alter the policies which he had established there.  His friends were ready to resent the rebuke and offer him higher place than he had had before.

Don Carlos and the Carlists.

Spain has been the scene of many revolutions, a fact easily understood when the character of the government is known.  Dishonesty and oppression in an administration always breed the spirit of rebellion.  Don Carlos, who regards Alfonso as a usurper, and believes himself the true King of Spain, issued, April 13, from his retreat in Switzerland, a manifesto to his supporters.  In this he arraigned the government, sought to inflame the excited Spanish populace against the Queen Regent, her son and her ministers, and declared that they had permitted the Spanish standard to be dragged in the mud.  He said in part: 

Twenty years of patriotic retirement have proved that I am neither ambitious nor a conspirator.  The greater and better part of my life as a man has been spent in the difficult task of restraining my natural impulses and those of my enthusiastic Carlists, whose eagerness I was the first to appreciate, but which nevertheless I curbed, although it rent my heart to do so.  To-day national honor speaks louder than anything, and the same patriotic duty which formerly bade me say “Wait yet a while,” may lead me to cry, commanding the Carlists, “Forward,” and not only the Carlists, but all Spaniards, especially to the two national forces which still bravely withstand the enervating femininities of the regency, the people and the army.

If the glove which Washington has flung in the face of Spain is picked up by Madrid I will continue the same example of abnegation as before, wretched in that I cannot partake in the struggle other than by prayers and by the influence of my name.  I will applaud from my soul those who have the good fortune to face the fire, and I shall consider those Carlists as serving my cause who embark in war against the United States.

But if everything leads me to fear that the policy of humiliation will again prevail, we will snatch the reins of government from those who are unworthy to hold them and we will occupy their places.

While their leader was talking in this strain, his supporters were preparing to act.  They believed that the conditions for a revolution were more favorable than they had been for years, that the present dynasty was doomed, and that Spain would be forced to choose between republicanism and Don Carlos.  The only chance, they said for the retention of the present dynasty, would be for Spain to defeat the United States, and they were not so blind as to believe that such would be the outcome of a war between the two powers.