Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

Russell referred to the same subject with the re-external-though around Cuba the Spanish gov mark that the late changes in Spain were favor- ernment has a very considerable squadron, and in able to a diminution of the Cuban Slave Trade. Cuba it has upwards of 25,000 troops, whenever In short, whether to those who would save Cuba the slave-trade interest chose, it was able to revive for Spain, or to those who are only eager for the the slave-trade, and import as many Africans as it excuse to precipitate a separation, the probable pleased. influence upon this question of the events now going on at Madrid has become justly matter of the deepest interest.

all the influence of authority at home, and in the colony, will be exercised against, instead of for, the detestable traffic.

The supremacy of Espartero is of course adverse to all this. Christina has now not only to wind up all her Cuban affairs, but to be made It is to be hoped that Lord John Russell's re-accountable for them; and, for the time at least, mark is more likely to be confirmed than the anticipation of President Pierce. In the first place, Espartero is the only Spanish statesman of any eminence who really desires, on moral grounds, There is hope, then. But to suppress effectuto see the suppression of the Slave Trade; and it ally and permanently the slave-trade, Espartero, was during his regency, when Valdez was Cap- should his rule continue, must do much more tain-General of Cuba, that a check was once than even this. More than even the "earnestness given to it. One of his first acts, too, on his re- of purpose," of which Lord John Russell spoke as appearance on the Spanish stage of power, has the "only" thing necessary, is very certainly rebeen the reappointment of General Concha, who, quired. The Spanish and Cuban governments next to Valdez, returned to Havanna with hands can do much, but not everything; and unless comparatively undefiled. Thus we have assur- they enlist the sympathies of the intelligent and ance that the policy which distinguished the Re- proprietary classes in Cuba, they will do little that gency will continue to characterize his second is permanent. The only way in which this can administration-if Espartero should succeed, as be achieved is by a complete revision of the Spanwe trust he may, in holding his ground at Mad-ish colonial system in the island. At present Curid. He might have sent back to Cuba the ba is governed despotically by a Captain-General, greedy and rapacious O'Donnell, whose viceroyalty is said to have yielded him a fortune of not less than a hundred thousand pounds. A return to the post whence British reclamations chiefly drove him, would probably have suited that chief; and it is certain that Espartero would so have got an awkward rival out of the way at home. It therefore augurs well that Concha was preferred to O'Donnell, and that the risk was run of the latter's presence at Madrid, rather than the certain misfortune incurred of his rule in Cuba.

and for the last half-century has had almost as many Captain-Generals as there are years in that period of time. The despotism of Cuba has therefore been a continually varying one, in which there has been neither system nor policy. Material prosperity alone has carried the island through such a government. Happily, however, that prosperity has developed a very high state of general intelligence, and in this respect Cuba is far in advance of any other West India island. It has

66

gone ahead," in modes of cultivation, in mechanical substitutes for labor, in improved manufactures, in roads, in railways, in harbors, and ports, in amendments, luxuries, refinements, and enjoyments -until, in point of fact, Cuba has become (to all but Africans) a sort of West India paradise.

The greater part of the Cuban proprietary is resident; the island is the home of its planters; all their hopes, their thoughts, their interests, their families, are bound up with it. They are educated, they are wealthy, they are attached to the transatlantic home. In short they are, in every respect, much better suited for constitutional government than Spain itself is. Is it then possible, even if it were expedient, to prolong despotic government in Cuba?

In the second place, the pestiferous influence of the Queen Mother of Spain on the Cuban Slave Trade is at an end. It was from that island that the greater part of her ill-gotten wealth came; and but little of it honestly. There she had agents, partners, bankers, through whom she operated in a hundred ways. Supported by unrivalled capital, and unrestrained by moral scruples, all that the corruption of the Home and Colonial governments could give in the way of contracts, grants, preferences, or monopolies, was hers; and all that the most unscrupulous use of money could yield, redoubled her remorseless adventures. Her infamous wealth supplied funds to fit out slavers, to insure slavers, and to promote and encourage the slave-trade in every way that was profitable. And her example brought, from This is a question which the liberal rulers of Biscay and Italy, capital and capitalists even Spain, if their tenure of power be established, canworse than herself- ruffians who bettered her in- not postpone the consideration of. Freedom, the struction. Thus the Queen Mother was the cen- constitution, and morality for Spain, must either tre and mainstay of a foreign slave-trading inter- involve similar blessings for Cuba, or precipitate est which, by its enormous capital and its pro- a separation of Cuba from the Spanish crown. fuse credit, established a power over the whole America shows herself eagerly on the watch. island. It paralyzed the Spanish navy, which But let Espartero take encouragement, and a lesguarded the coasts of Cuba; it converted the royal son from Canada. It was disaffected, and it also steam mail service into a subsidiary slave-trade was threatened with "annexation." It is now system; it undermined the morality of all the of-prosperous and loyal because it enjoys freedom. ficials in the island; and it weakened the power of an honest Captain-General in the same proportion in which it whetted the cupidity of a dishonest one. And thus, in spite of force both internal and

The ex-Irish patriot, of vitriol and broken glass celebrity, Mr. John Mitchell, who now edits a paper at New York in the interests of democracy, the slave-trade, and the universal rights of man,

tum fera), are, for the purpose of moral instruction, feigned to act and speak with human interests and passions."-As a summer journey is all the pleasanter, when not undertaken in accordance with a fixed schedule of places and distances, Gay's Fables are doubtless quite as much liked for not adhering closely to this precise de

informs Europe, by the last mail, that the question of the annexation of Cuba as a new slaveholding state, is only a question of time; but he informs it also, with no attempt to conceal his own mortification, that there is no longer any hope of annexing Canada, because Britain has granted her what she wanted. In other words, Britain has made her free; and this is the ex-finition. ample we commend to Espartero. We shall be Gay was also the author of the "Beggar's told of the difference between the English and the Opera," a play which was immensely successful: Spanish races. We recognize it-but the still re- it is said to have been received with greater apcurring answer is, that Cuba cannot continue in plause than was ever before known. It was actits present state. Changes, great changes, must ed sixty-three nights in London without interoccur; and those changes involve Liberty. The ruption, and was renewed the next season with only question is, whether it shall be sent from equal favor: and in many of the large towns Spain or imported from America. England, of England it was played thirty or forty times, wishing well to Espartero, and hoping that he in Bath and Bristol, fifty. It was also performed may establish a constitutional government, looks in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. "The ladies to him to prevent the loss of Cuba, by trying carried about with them the favorite songs of it what freedom will do to preserve the connection. in fans, and houses were furnished with it in And the especial interest which England has screens. The fame of it was not confined to the in Cuban freedom is this: that it, and not mere author only. The person who acted Polly, till earnestness of purpose in the government, is the then obscure, became all at once the favorite of only security for the entire extinction of the slave-the town; her pictures were engraved, and sold trade. "Earnestness of purpose," under despot-in great numbers; her life written, books of letism, may keep the traffic down a little; but it is ters and verses to her published, and pamphlets freedom alone that can effectually suppress it. made even of her sayings and jests. FurtherBrazil is an example of this. It is to the change more it drove out of England, for that season, in popular sentiment which there found expres- the Italian opera, which had carried all before it sion in popular legislation, that humanity owes for ten years." The piece was purposely writthe suppression of its slave trade. And if it be ten to ridicule the Italian opera. We dare say true, as is asserted, that the planters in Cuba are some of our readers would gladly welcome a also not less adverse to the continuance of the modern Gay who should undertake to repeat at African slave-trade, why let the planters have the the present day the experiment, which proved like means of giving expression to this opinion in so successful more than a century ago. that island, and there also Liberty will permanently suppress the slave-trade.

This is the "only" remedy.

NEW BOOKS.

Akenside wrote a good deal of fine poetry. His principal piece, the "Pleasures of Imagination," is given in this edition both in the original and in the revised form. The volume concludes with a very pretty song.

Parnell and Tickell were of that judicious class of authors who wrote but little poetry, and their works of this description are contained in s

We have received the following new books single volume. Tickell will always be rememfrom the publishers :—

The Better Land: or The Believer's Journey and Future Home. By AUGUSTUS C. THOMPSON, Pastor of the Eliot Church, Roxbury, Mass. Boston: Gould & Lincoln.

British Poets. - Four more volumes of Messrs.

Little, Brown & Co.'s faultless edition of the British Poets, have been issued. These contain the poems of Gay, in two volumes; those of Akenside, in one volume; and those of Parnell and Tickell, together, in one volume.

bered and liked, on account of Addison's friendship for him.

These volumes form an essential part of the series, and, like the others, are of the most elegant mechanical execution.-Daily Advertiser.

[We have not read this handsome volume, but confidently recommend it from the reputation of the writer-and from our impressions of a few of his sermons, which we had the pleasure of hearing some years ago.]

The volumes containing Gay's poems follow, in most respects, the text of Park, which professes to have been collated with the best edi- A curious fact has been noticed with respect to tions. Gay is most generally known by his gutta-percha, which may be interesting to elec"Fables," which are pleasant enough, the more tricians: this substance, as is well known, acso perhaps from the very circumstance which quires a bluish tinge after having been kept for troubled Dr. Johnson, that they do not always some months; and when in this state, it can no conform to the accurate description of this spe- longer be negatively electrified, as before, by alcies of composition which he gives in these most any substance with which it may be rubbed. words:" A fable, or apologue, such as is now Its electricity is found to be positive; and the under consideration, seems to be, in its genuine only substances which will electrify it negativestate, a narrative in which beings irrational, and ly are mica, diamond, and fur. - Chambers's sometimes inanimate, (arbores loquantur non tan-Journal.

[ocr errors]
« VorigeDoorgaan »