Character of Walker--A private's devotion--Anecdote--After fate of
the filibusters--Henningsen's epitaph--Last Cuban expedition--The
_Virginius_ tragedy--An Englishman to the rescue--Finis.
As Walker was the last, so he was the greatest of American filibusters.
He was not a great man, nor by any means a good one; but he was the
greatest and the best of his class. His fault was ambition. It was a
fault with him because it was a failure. From such a verdict there is
no appeal. No apology can be offered for ambition ungratified; and
successful ambition needs none. But the world's estimate of his
personal character and actions has been needlessly severe. He was not
the insatiable monster of cruelty that his enemies have painted. He was
a man of deep, if narrow, learning, fertile resources, and grand
audacity. He was calm and temperate in words and actions, and
mercilessly just in exacting obedience from the turbulent spirits who
linked their fortunes with his. He lacked worldly wisdom; nothing could
induce him to forego the least of his rights to gain a greater ultimate
advantage. He would maintain the dignity of his office, though it cost
him the office itself. The lawyer belittled the lawgiver in his attempt
virtually to confiscate the lands of Nicaragua by the help of an
unworthy legal device; while his design for the restoration of slavery
was as impolitic as it was futile, unjust, and barbarous. The action
was, doubtless, the result of an honest belief in that "divine
institution," as well as of a desire to show his sympathy with his
devoted friends in the United States; but the effect was only to put
another weapon into the hands of his foreign enemies, without
materially strengthening him at home. It was a defiance to his powerful
British opponents, and a wanton outrage upon the free states of Central
America, alienating the sympathies of all who hoped from the evil of
conquest to extract the good of civilization. Judged, as he wished to
be judged, by his public policy, Walker was unequal to the office of a
Liberator. It would be unfair to criticize the domestic administration
of one who held his office by the sword, yet it is true that he
preserved order and enforced justice with more success than any ruler
of Nicaragua who has filled the position since the independence of the
country. Doctor Scherzer, the intelligent German traveller, writing at
a time when Walker's success seemed assured, heartily rejoices in the
new and grand career opening before Central America. He warmly commends
Walker's administration of justice, without palliating his errors, and
sees "the morning star of civilization rising in the Tropic sky."
Walker was humane in war, and allowed retaliatory measures to be
taken against the Costa Ricans only after the latter had shamelessly
abused his lenity by repeated massacres of defenceless prisoners and
non-combatants. The tales of his cruelty to his men have uniformly
proceeded from the lips of worthless and disgraced adventurers,
who were mainly deserters. Had he been the cold and haughty tyrant
painted by his enemies, the infatuated devotion of his followers is
unaccountable by any human rule. Neither ambition nor recklessness
can explain the conduct of men who followed him through life, with
unswerving loyalty. "Private Charles Brogan" is recorded among the
surrendering men at the end of the Sonora campaign. As "Private Brogan"
his name figures among the _Vesta's_ passengers. So again, it appears
on the army register and in the lists of wounded, all through the
Nicaraguan campaign. Yet again, in 1857, when the second descent on
Nicaragua ended ingloriously at San Juan del Norte, "Private Charles
Brogan" heads the list of captured rank and file. Did he see his chief
perish bravely at Trujillo? or had he himself gone before and escaped
the tragic sight? This chronicler knows not, and history, alas! has
forgotten greater men than the poor follower of the half-forgotten
filibuster. All honour here to thee, Private Charles Brogan, whom no
vision of fame or fortune tempted to serve so loyally and long the
ill-starred chieftain of a contraband cause!
The truth is, Walker's attitude towards his officers of high rank was
one of studied formality, which the necessities of his position made
imperative. Familiarity in his intercourse with such volunteers would
have been death to discipline. But towards his humbler followers he
showed the kindness and consideration of a friend, and won their
respect by sharing their dangers. "I have known him," says Henningsen,
"to get up from a sick bed, ride forty miles to fight the Costa Ricans,
whipping soundly a force of thrice his numbers, and then, after giving
his horse to a wounded soldier, tramp back his forty miles, without, as
the boys used to say, 'taking the starch out of his shirt collar.'" The
men who did their duty spoke well of him always; but it was, of
necessity, the knaves and cowards, mainly, who survived such bloody
campaigns, and returned to defame their comrades. Few even of these
accused him of selfishness, save in his ambition. For money he cared
nothing; and the soldiers of fortune complained of hard fighting and no
pillage.
He had a certain grim sense of humour, which finds occasional
expression in the pages of his book. Of Guardiola's attempt to fire
the hearts of his men by plying them with _aguardiente_ before an
engagement, in which they were ignominiously routed, he says: "The
empty demijohns which were picked up on the road after the action
looked like huge cannon-balls that had missed their mark." There is
wisdom as well as humour in his remark, that "the best manner of
treating a revolutionary movement in Central America is to treat it as
a boil; let it come to a head, and then lance it, letting all the bad
matter out at once." The pompous pretence of his native friends and
enemies amused the shrewd judge of men, who possessed a happy knack of
epitomizing a character in a single phrase, as when he calls the
native custom of indiscriminate conscription, "an inveterate habit of
catching a man and tying him up with a musket in his hand, to make a
soldier of him." Kinney "had acquired that sort of knowledge and
experience of human nature to be derived from the exercise of the mule
trade." He mentions his enemy Marcy only with a contemptuous allusion
to the blunder of that statesman in referring to Nicaragua as a
country of South America, and dismisses Mora from his notice with the
qualified clemency: "Let us pass Mora in exile, as Ugolino in hell,
afar off and with silence."
His sense of the ridiculous was too keen to allow him ever to depart
from the rigid simplicity of manner and dress which was in such
striking contrast with the gaudy attire and pompous demeanour of his
native friends. His uniform consisted of a blue coat, dark pantaloons,
and black felt hat with the red ribbon of the Democratic army; his
weapons were a sword and pistols buckled in his belt, and these he
carried only in battle, where they were rather for use than ornament.
His character is in many respects like that of Cortez. Both were
unlicensed conquerors; both were served by volunteers; served well by
the faithful and brave, and obeyed through fear by the knavish and
cowardly. Bodily fatigue or danger had no terrors for either, nor were
they chary of demanding equal courage and endurance from their
followers. Cortez triumphed over his enemies in the field; but barely
succeeded in defeating the machinations of his foes in the Spanish
Cabinet. Had Walker been a Conquistador he would have conquered Mexico
as Cortez did. Had Cortez been a Californian filibuster he might have
conquered Nicaragua, but he would assuredly have succumbed to Marcy and
Vanderbilt.
Unquestionably Walker was carried away by his firm belief in his
destiny. He never doubted, until he felt the manacles on his wrists at
Trujillo, that he was destined to play the part of a Cortez in Central
America. He had risked death a hundred times in battle and skirmish
without fear or doubt. Possibly he welcomed it, when at last it came,
and was sincere in hoping that it might be for the good of society.
So died, in his thirty-seventh year, the man whose fame had filled two
continents, who had more than once imperilled the peace of the world
which remembers him only in the distorted and false character of a
monster and an outlaw. The country which gave him birth, and little
besides, save injustice, forgot amid the bloody conflict into which it
was soon plunged, the fame and fate of the filibusters. Into the vortex
of civil war were swept many of the restless spirits who had survived
the sanguinary fields of Central America, and in it perished some of
the bravest and ablest who had learned their first lesson in that stern
school.
As most of them were of Southern birth, so they generally joined the
ranks of the Confederacy. At the first call to arms, Henningsen offered
his services to the seceding states, and was given a regiment in Wise's
Legion of Northern Virginia. Frank Anderson went with him as
lieutenant-colonel, and did good service for the lost cause. He was one
of Walker's oldest veterans, having served in both the expeditions to
Nicaragua. At the first battle of Rivas he was wounded three times, and
left on the field for dead, but managed to drag himself into hiding
before his comrades were all massacred, and so escaped to rejoin his
command.
Henningsen served throughout the war; but, in spite of his experience
on many fields, and the marked ability with which he filled his
subordinate position, he never rose to distinction in the Confederacy.
He was a natural leader in irregular warfare, as might have been
expected of a pupil in the schools of Zumalacarregui, Schamyl, and
Walker; and the scientific campaigning of the Peninsula gave no scope
for his talents. But he had espoused the cause with honest convictions
of its justice, and he supported it faithfully to the end. When that
end and ruin came he returned to private life, a man without a career,
and lived quietly and unobtrusively until his death in June, 1877. In
his later years he was a devoted adherent of the patriots who were
waging a fruitless war for freedom in Cuba. Once he visited the island
in connection with a projected uprising, but saw no promise of success
in the attempt. His death was sudden. He had been ill but a few days; a
faithful friend, Colonel Gregg, a soldier who had fought against him in
the Civil War, watched by his bedside. The sick man slept, while the
tireless brain dreamed, what dreams who can say? of the chequered
career about to close forever. Suddenly his eyes opened, and in them
was something of the old fire, as he half sat up in his bed, and
pointing to a print on the wall of the arms of "Cuba Libre," said,
"Colonel, we'll free Cuba yet!" The ruling passion found voice in his
last words--the next instant he fell back dead.
Henningsen was considered to have been the military genius of the
Nicaraguan campaign by the detractors of Walker, who could not deny the
wonderful success of the latter. But Henningsen himself always
repudiated the undeserved fame, and was foremost in awarding to his
chieftain whatever of glory was won in that profitless field. He died
as he had lived, a true, simple-hearted gentleman, a knight-errant born
centuries too late. Colonel John T. Pickett, a kindly philosopher, and
one who in his heyday followed a filibuster's luckless banner, has
engraved upon the tomb of Henningsen the apt motto from Gil Blas:
"_Inveni portum. Spes et fortuna valete! Sat me lusistis.... Ludite
nunc alios._"
The filibusters whom the winds had blown from every quarter of the
earth to the sunny vales of Nicaragua were drifted back, when the storm
had broken and spent its fury, to the world of peace and prose. A few
only of the worthier survive to recall that strange page in life's
romance. Rudler, who was with his leader in all his campaigns, and who
was sentenced to four years' imprisonment after the surrender in
Honduras, returned to share the fortunes of the seceding South, as did
also Wheat, Hicks, Fayssoux, Hornsby, and many others. In the
vicissitudes of American life a few, like Doubleday and Kewen, even
achieved wealth, which is perhaps as strange a climax to the career of
a filibuster as any that could be conceived. The two O'Neils were men
of invincible courage. Both died in battle, Cal, the younger, at the
age of twenty-one, after making a reputation for heroism that was
marked even among that valiant group. Reluctantly we part with the wild
band, Homeric heroes in more features than one; with Henry and Swingle,
the inventive gunners, Von Natzmer, the Prussian hussar, Pineda, the
great-hearted native of an unworthy country, Hornsby, Rawle, Watters,
and the Fifty-six who were "Immortal" for a day.
That most entertaining cosmopolitan, Laurence Oliphant, came very near
adding the distinction of being a filibuster to his other experiences.
He did, in fact, join an expedition which set out from New Orleans in
December, 1856, for San Juan del Norte, with the intention of
reinforcing Walker at Rivas. But the good steamer _Texas_ reached
her destination too late, Spencer and his Costa Ricans having closed
the Transit. Among the adventurous spirits in the company was one who
had taken part in the last ill-fated expedition of Lopez to Cuba, and
spent a year and a half in a Spanish dungeon. "The story of his escape
from a more serious fate," says Oliphant, "was characteristic of many
other stirring narratives of a similar description, with which on
moonlight nights we used to beguile the evening hours." He had served as
an officer on General Lopez's staff during one of the expeditions to
Cuba. When that officer, together with many of the more prominent
members of the expedition, after a desperate resistance, was captured
by the Spanish troops, my friend, who was one of the number, found
himself with many of his countrymen thrown into the Havanna jail, and
informed that he was to prepare for his execution on the following day.
As an act of grace, however, permission was given to all the captives
to indite a farewell letter to their friends, informing them of their
approaching execution. Most of his fellow-victims could think of some
one belonging to them to whom such a piece of information might prove
interesting; but the poor captain racked in vain the chambers of his
memory for a solitary individual to whom he could impart the melancholy
tidings without feeling that his communication would be what in polite
society would be called an 'unwarrantable intrusion of his personal
affairs upon a comparative stranger.' He could think of nobody that
cared about him; revolving this forlorn state of matters in his mind,
ashamed to form the only exception to the general scribbling that was
taking place, he determined to choose a friend, and then it flashed
upon him, that as all the letters would probably be opened, he had
better choose a good one. Under his present circumstances, who more
appropriate than the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs at
Washington, then Daniel Webster? Not only should he make a friend of
him, but an intimate friend, and then the Spanish Governor might shoot
him if he chose, and take the risk. He accordingly commenced:
"Dan, my dear old boy, how little you thought when we parted at the
close of that last agreeable visit of a week, which I paid you the
other day, that within a month I should be "cribbed, cabined, and
confined" in the infernal hole of a dungeon from which I indite this. I
wish you would send the Spanish minister a case of that very old
Madeira of yours, which he professes to prefer to the wines of his own
country, and tell him the silly scrape I have got myself into, if
indeed it be not too late, for they talk of sending me to "the bourne"
to-morrow. However, one never can believe a word these rascals say, so
I write this in the hope that they are lying as usual,--and am, my dear
old school-mate, your affectionate friend, ----.' For once the absence
of friends proved a real blessing. Had the captain been occupied by
domestic considerations, he never would have invented so valuable an
ally as was thus extemporised, and he was rewarded for his shrewd
device on the following morning, by finding himself the only solitary
individual of all the party allowed to 'stand over.' In a couple of
hours Lopez and his companions had gone to the bourne, to which our
captain so feelingly alluded; and when, at last, the trick was
discovered, the crisis was past, and the Spanish Government finally
condemned him to two years' confinement in chains in the dungeon at
Ceuta, which was afterwards commuted to eighteen months. He had just
returned from this dismal abode in time once more to gratify the
adventurous propensities which had already so nearly cost him his life;
and it is due to him to say, that even the daring and reckless spirits
by whom he was surrounded, agreed in saying that he placed an unusually
low estimate on that valuable possession."
There is little to add to the history of filibusterism, which may be
ranked among the dead industries or the lost arts, just as one chooses
to regard it. Contrary to the predictions of the prophets, the
disbandment of a million of men at the end of the American Civil War
was effected without trouble. The European Powers breathed more freely
when it was accomplished, satisfied that the aggressive "Yankee" was
not so grasping as he had been painted. Maximilian of Mexico slept
peacefully, and his late unruly subjects renewed their fraternal
quarrels, undisturbed by interference from abroad, and finally settled
into uninteresting peace and prosperity. Filibusterism died because, in
sooth, it had no longer a reason for being. To "extend the area" of an
abolished slavery were as paradoxical as Quixotic. Nevertheless, the
peculiar institution chanced to prove the cause of yet one final,
fallacious, and ghastly episode.
Cuba, once coveted as an ally by the slaveholders of the United States,
was now the only spot on the civilized globe afflicted with the
barbarous stain. The "ever-faithful isle" was trebly cursed with
slavery, foreign rule, and martial law. Like a spendthrift come to his
last penny, Spain, having squandered a continent, clung with tenacity
to its remaining possession in the Western world. Thrones were set up
and knocked down at home, republics were born and strangled, but no
change for the better was ever felt in the wretched colony. Rather, it
suffered from every change, since each involved a change of masters.
Hungry, avaricious masters they were, spurred on by the uncertain
tenure of their office, to reap as rich plunder as might be got out of
the hapless colony, ere a new turn of the cards at home should force
them to make room for other needy patriots. The power of the
Captain-General is almost absolute at the best of times. In such times
as those it is well-nigh omnipotent. The colony was denied
representation in the Cortes, while taxed beyond endurance to support
the government, and robbed by an army of officials appointed to rule
over her without her consent or choice.
Cuba at last rebelled. The planters who found themselves robbed of the
fruits of their industry as fast as they were gathered, and who saw the
system of slavery develop into the most intolerable of all wrongs, the
wrong unprofitable, at last determined to strike for their liberty.
They freed and armed their slaves. They burned their plantations, and
in September, 1868, hoisted the lone star flag in the mountains and
bade defiance to the Spaniard. The leading insurgents were all men of
wealth and influence, while their followers were necessarily ignorant
and undisciplined. But success meant freedom to both classes; and they
threw themselves into the unequal struggle with sublime desperation.
All, or mostly all, of the leaders perished during the long and bloody
contest, which ended only after it had lasted eight years, at a cost to
Spain of two hundred thousand lives and over seven hundred million
dollars. The figures are those of Governor-General Don Joaquin
Javellar.
The Junta of Cuban patriots in New York sent out several cargoes of war
material, and enlisted many American adventurers; but no regular
expedition was at any time organized. Among those who participated in
the guerilla conflict were Domingo de Goicouria, once Minister of
Hacienda in Nicaragua, and Colonel Jack Allen, also not unknown to
filibuster fame.
The culminating tragedy came to pass in October, 1873. On the 23rd of
that month, the steamer _Virginius_, a former blockade-runner, cleared
from Kingston, Jamaica, for Port Limon, Costa Rica, with passengers to
the number of a hundred or more. Her true destination was the island of
Cuba, her mission the transportation of arms and filibusters. Among the
passengers were the patriot leaders, Cespedes, Ryan, Varona, and Del
Sol. The steamer touched at Port au Prince, received her cargo of arms,
ammunition, medicines, and equipments, and made sail for Cuba. She was
seen and chased by the Spanish gunboat _Tornado_, which, by a curious
coincidence, was also a former blockade-runner and a sister ship of the
_Virginius_--a favoured sister, since she speedily overhauled and
captured her prey.
The _Virginius_, though flying the American flag on the high seas,
was made a prize and carried into the port of Santiago de Cuba. Captain
Fry, her commander, an American citizen and former officer in the
United States and Confederate navies, protested in vain against the
outrage. He was denied communication with his consul, and thrown into
prison, with all his passengers and crew. The four insurgent leaders
were first tried by summary court martial on board of the _Tornado_,
before General Buriel, Governor of the province, and sentenced to
death. The sentence was promptly executed, at sunrise on the 4th of
November, five days after the capture, before the walls of the
Slaughter House, infamous in the annals of Cuba for over thirty years.
It lies in the suburbs, about half a mile from the main wharf and on
the edge of a swampy tract, beyond which are the sluggish waters of the
bay and the blue, barren mountains, dark, desolate and forbidding. Some
squalid huts are scattered along the sides of the road. The vegetation
is scanty and the stunted palm trees are few and far between. The four
walls of the Slaughter House grounds are each about 400 feet long and
twelve or thirteen feet high, built of brick covered with stucco. The
front gate is a rather pretentious work with ornamental pillars and
strong iron pickets. Between it and the extreme left, as you face the
structure, is the place set apart for executions. It bears to-day this
inscription, surmounted by the Lone Star and two crossed palm-branches,
with, on one side, "1868," and on the other, "1898":
_Tu que paseas descubrete; este lugar es tierra con segrada.
Durante treinte años benedicida ha sido con sangre de Patriotas
immolados por la tirania._
"Thou who passest by, uncover; this spot is consecrated ground.
During thirty years it has been hallowed with the blood of Patriots
immolated by tyranny."
Ryan and Varona refused to kneel, and were shot as they stood. The
heads of the four were cut off and carried on pikes through the city
and before the windows of the prison, where their comrades lay awaiting
a similar fate. Cespedes was the son of a patriot who had died for Cuba
Libre. Varona, a chivalrous commander, had given freedom to fifteen
Spanish officers captured in battle, and those fifteen, to their credit
be it said, pleaded, though in vain, for clemency to him when he fell
into the hands of Buriel. Del Sol was a brave young man with a wife and
children. Ryan, Canadian born, was a daring adventurer. He had saved
eight persons from drowning, a short time before, and leaped into the
sea and saved one more on the day of the ship's departure. Santa Rosa,
who was shot with the next batch of victims, had fought beside Lopez in
1851 and was one of the thirteen who raised the banner of revolt in
1868. He was imprisoned but escaped to renew the struggle, and died at
last, after twenty years of strenuous endeavor for the freedom of his
country, leaving the reputation: "He was very brave and very eccentric;
of violent temper, but good-hearted and very devout. He never went into
battle without praying for the souls of the Spaniards who might be
slain."
The news of the tragedy had been carried to the United States, and the
American and English consuls interested themselves to protect the
remaining prisoners; but the sham trials went on in spite of their
protests. Here in the face of death came out all the manliness, the
tenderness, the unselfishness, and the simple piety of the brave Fry.
For himself he expected no mercy and asked for none. He made his formal
protest against the seizure of his ship on the high seas and the unfair
trial by which he and his men had been condemned; but it was for them
alone that he besought mercy. To General Buriel, the Spanish Governor,
he wrote, saying:
"Running the blockade is considered a risky business among sailors,
for which good pay is received. It is notorious that a great number
of vessels were employed in it during the American war, and,
although captures were numerous, not a single life was lost; the
greater part of the prisoners were set at liberty after a short
imprisonment. I never heard a word before the night of my sentence,
of Cuban law and the proclamation relative to an attempt to
introduce arms into Cuba. If, with superior opportunities, I was
ignorant that the case could be decided by another law than the
international, how complete may have been the ignorance of these
poor people! I was continually in the company of people who ought
to have known it, and not one alluded to the fact. In a word, I
believe it is not known, and that the world will be painfully
surprised on learning the sacrifice of these lives.
"The Consul knows well that I am not pleading for my own life. I
have not prayed to God for it, nor even to the Blessed Mother. I
have neither home nor country--a victim of war and persecution, the
avenues to the securing of property being closed to me to such a
point that I have not been able to provide bread for my wife and
seven children, who know what it is to suffer for the necessaries
of life. My life is one of suffering, and I look upon what has
happened to me as a benefit of God, and it is not for me,
therefore, to ask favors of anyone.
"The engineer, Knight, I know, came contrary to his will. He was
bitterly opposed to it, as I learn from the person who obtained him
to come.
"Spaniards, the world is not so full of people who prefer honor to
life. Save poor Santa Rosa! Poor gentleman, with heart as tender
and as compassionate as that of a woman, of irreproachable honor,
his business was that of charity. He was devoted to others, and
though he was aboard the vessel for the benefit of their health, I
believe he will not use this advantage for himself....
"The greater portion of the crew were entrapped by their lodging
house keepers, who gained possession of them, and watched the
opportunity to put them on board on receiving advances on their
wages.
"Spaniards, I believe I am the only one who dies in the entire
Christian faith of our holy religion. Consider the souls of these
poor people; give them an opportunity to ask mercy of God. I know
that you must fulfil your duty, but my blood ought to be
sufficient, because innocent and defenceless people will suffer
with my fall.
"May these considerations have influence with the authorities to
whom I beg to appeal! These poor people had no knowledge of what
you think their crime. Pardon me if I say that I don't believe
their deaths would have on the fate of Cuba the good effect the law
foresees--our civilization is so opposed to such proceeding. I
don't say this in tone of complaint, but we are accustomed to at
least identify victims when we are going to sacrifice.
"According to my view, there should have been some intervention.
Our Government, by its influence, should have been pronounced, and
perhaps in that way their lives might have been saved without
compromising the dignity of Spain.
"Señores, farewell. I know that the members of the council who
condemn me accomplish a painful duty. Let them remember us in their
prayers to God, and ask their wives and children to do the same for
us. Respectfully,
"JOSEPH FRY.
"Written on board the _Tornado_, Nov. 7, 1873."
At six o'clock on the morning of November 7, Captain Fry and thirty-six
of his crew and twelve passengers were brutally butchered in the
presence of a ferocious mob, who mangled the senseless remains.
There still survived ninety-three unfortunates. By this time the
telegraph had spread the terrible news throughout the world, and
awakened a tempest of indignation everywhere save in Havanna and
Madrid. Even in Spain, at the time enjoying a government nominally
republican, there was some surprise at the horrible tragedy, and Señor
Castelar, his humanity spurred up by a peremptory despatch from the
English Foreign Office, was moved to beseech of his lieutenant to be a
little less hasty in his action. The appeal was unheeded, and all of
the hapless victims were condemned to immediate execution. But General
Buriel had made an epicure's mistake in prolonging his feast.
There was no American vessel of war in the neighbourhood of Santiago de
Cuba, but, what was more to the purpose, as far as the fate of the
prisoners was concerned, there was the inevitable British man-of-war
within a day's sail. The sloop _Niobe_ lay in the harbour of Kingston,
with half of her crew on shore liberty, when the news of the massacre
reached her commander, Sir Lambton Loraine. He sailed at once for
Santiago. An English captain does not need instructions in such an
emergency. He has standing orders and can trust to his nation for
support of his acts. "I am an English subject," said Thompson, a sailor
of the _Virginius_, "and they won't dare lay hands on me." He knew his
countrymen, but he mistook the Spaniard.
He and fifteen compatriots were among the murdered fifty-three.
Then did the hearts of other British subjects and American citizens
fail them as they awaited their doom. The Americans had long abandoned
hope. The English were giving way to despair, when a glad sight met
their eyes. It was the _Niobe_ entering the harbour, with the cross of
St. George flying at her peak. She did not stop to salute the fort, but
gracefully rounded to, a few cables' lengths from the _Tornado_ and her
prize, with port-holes open and her crew at quarters. Ere her anchor
fell, the captain's gig was in the water, and soon its oars were
flashing spray as it sped shoreward. In the stern sheets sat the young
commander.
His veto of the massacres was delivered not a moment too soon. Buriel
demurred, questioning the Englishman's right to interfere. Loraine
insisted on the right, claiming that there were British subjects among
the prisoners. To the Spaniard's denial of that fact, he answered that
he would take upon himself, then, the responsibility of protecting
American citizens, in the absence of their own defenders. The delicate
points of this officious interference, Señor Buriel might have debated,
long and ingeniously, with a different kind of adversary. But the
English sailor was no casuist. His arguments were brutally direct.
"Stop the murders, or I bombard your town," they said in so many words.
Indeed, he was a very rash and impulsive young man. Under a free
government he would have been cashiered, without benefit of clergy.
Only a few months before, so the rumour went, he had fired hot shot and
shell into the town of Omoa, Honduras; and there was no guessing what
he might not be tempted to do with Santiago, upon such very strong
provocation. Extreme measures were averted, however, by Buriel's
consenting to reprieve his prisoners.
Then arose the question of reparation. Minister Sickles at Madrid took
high and dignified ground, insisting upon the fullest apology for the
insult offered to his country's flag, and indemnity to the families of
the murdered men. Castelar assented to a treaty covering every demand
of Mr. Sickles, and was about to sign it formally, when he received
advices from Washington which made him retract his concession, and made
General Sickles telegraph his resignation. It appeared that the Spanish
minister at Washington had proved himself a skilful diplomat by
negotiating with the American Secretary of State a protocol, the terms
of which were as extraordinary as the secret manner in which they were
drawn up.
By this arrangement, which settled the question for ever, the United
States waived its demands for a salute to the insulted flag, accepting
a formal apology instead, waived the question of indemnity, and did not
press for the punishment of the guilty officials of Santiago. What the
Government did demand and obtain, it would be hard to say. The only
visible reparation was the conditional surrender of the captured
vessel, for trial before an American court of admiralty. Should it
transpire that she had been in lawful possession of her American
register, then she was to be given to her owners; if otherwise, she was
to be restored to her captors. Strangely enough, there was no provision
made in the latter contingency for the rendition and punishment of the
survivors. All possible dispute on that point was happily averted by
the inscrutable catastrophe which befell the luckless craft. She
foundered, opportunely, in a gale off Cape Fear on her voyage to the
United States, to the great relief of two governments.
There was much indignation in the United States over the awful tragedy
and accompanying insult to the national flag. A vast amount of money
was expended on the navy, and certain commanders were ordered to review
their forces and manoeuvre their squadrons almost in sight of the
Cuban shores. Warlike talk was in the air; but the sober second thought
of the people was averse to a war in defence of the insulted banner,
when it had been used to shelter adventurers in an illegal undertaking.
The American is slow to be angered, and has none of the Englishman's
sentimental reverence for bunting, unless it covers a clearly just
cause. Sir Lambton was speedily promoted by his Government. Somebody in
the American Congress proposed a resolution of thanks to him also, but
it was promptly tabled, with a perception of the fitness of things
hardly to have been expected in that sagacious body. More fitting and
spontaneous was the gift sent to him by the miners of far Nevada, a
fourteen-pound silver brick, emblematic of the highest expression of
eulogy.
_The Virginius_ tragedy, and the indifference with which it was
beheld by the American Government, were sufficient warnings, had any
been needed, to the Filibuster, that his day was past. In unmistakable
language he was told that his country's flag should not and would not
shield him in the violation of international law. Theoretically the
execution of the _Virginius_ adventurers was as much of an outrage
on the dignity of the United States as if it had occurred on American
soil. Practically, the delicate points of flag and register and
high-seas neutrality were dismissed from consideration, and the
evidently hostile mission of the vessel was held to excuse the severe
punishment meted out to her passengers. Whether or not the lesson may
be heeded when the example shall have grown old, it is plain that for
the present at least, the race of filibusters is extinct. Although the
Cuban insurrection broke out again five years later and several cargoes
of war munitions were landed on the island during the months preceding
the American invasion, there were no filibustering expeditions on a
large scale from the United States or any other country.
The nearest approach to genuine filibusterism in recent years was the
raid of Dr. Jameson and some eight hundred adventurers on the
Transvaal, on New Year's Day, 1896. It was badly planned and conducted
without any show of skill or courage. The raiders were entrapped and
surrendered almost without firing a shot. The Boer authorities, with
more magnanimity than wisdom, pardoned the demoralized rank and file,
permitted the civilian leaders to go free after a brief imprisonment
and the exaction of a fine, and delivered "Dr. Jim" and his military
associates over to the English for trial. They were found guilty and
subjected to a nominal imprisonment of a few months, as "first-class
misdemeanants." Four years later the English forces were in the Boer
capital and Dr. Jameson as a member of the Cape Colony parliament, was
passing judgment on the Dutch burghers as "rebels" against the British
Empire! The career of the Filibuster is no longer open to private
individuals. The great powers have monopolized the business, conducting
it as such and stripping it of its last poor remnant of romance,
without investing it with a scrap of improved morality.
The Filibusters were a virile race, with virtues and vices of generous
growth. They played no mean part on the world's stage, albeit a part
often wayward and mistaken. They were American dreamers. Had they been
Greeks or Norsemen, or free to roam the world in the days of Cortez,
Balboa, and Pizarro, victors like them, History would have dealt more
kindly by them. As it is, spite of faults and failures, they do not
deserve the harshest of all fates, oblivion.
THE END.
A Romance of the Iowa Wheat Fields.
THE ROAD TO RIDGEBY'S.
BY FRANK BURLINGAME HARRIS.
12mo., cloth, decorative. ~$1.50~
A simple but powerful story of farm life in the great West, which
cannot fail to make a lasting impression on every reader. In this book
Mr. Harris has done for the wheat fields what Mr. Westcott has done for
rural New York and Mr. Bacheller for the North country. It is in no way
imitative of _David Harum_ or _Eben Holden_; and, unlike each of these
books, it is not in the portrayal of a single quaint character that its
power consists. Mr. Harris has taken for his story a typical Iowa
farmer's family and their neighbours; and, although every one of the
characters is realistically portrayed, the sense of proportion is never
lost sight of, and the result is a picture of real life, artistic in
the highest sense, as being true to nature. It is a wholesome story,
full of the real heroism of homely life, a book to make the reader
better by strengthening his belief in the truth of self-sacrifice and
the survival of sturdy American character.
MONONIA. A Love Story of '48,
BY JUSTIN McCARTHY, M.P.,
Author of _A History of Our Own Times_, _Dear Lady Disdain_, etc.
12mo, green cloth and gold. ~$1.50~
Mr. McCarthy has written several successful novels; but none, perhaps,
will have greater interest for his American readers than this volume,
in which he writes reminiscently of the Ireland of his youth and the
stirring events which marked that period.
It is pre-eminently an old-fashioned novel, befitting the times which
it describes, and written with the delicate touch of sentiment
characteristic of Mr. McCarthy's fiction. The book takes its name from
the heroine, a charming type of the gentle-born Irishwoman. In the
development of the romance, the attempts for Ireland's freedom, and the
dire failures that culminated at Ballingary are told in a manner which
will give an intimate insight into the history of the _Young Ireland_
movement. If the book cannot be considered autobiographical, the reader
will not forget that the author was contemporary with the events
described, and will have little difficulty in perceiving that many of
the principal characters are strongly suggestive of the Irish leaders
of that day, which gives the book scarcely less value than an avowed
autobiography.
FOR SALE BY ALL BOOKSELLERS, OR SENT, POSTPAID, BY THE PUBLISHERS
ON RECEIPT OF PRICE.
Small, Maynard & Company,
PIERCE BUILDING
COPLEY SQ., BOSTON
_Two Notable Novels by Emma Rayner._
VISITING THE SIN
A Tale of Mountain Life in Kentucky and Tennessee.
12mo, cloth, with cover designed by T. W. Ball. 448 pages.
~$1.50~
The struggle between the heroine's love and her determination to visit
the sin upon the son of the supposed murderer of her father forms the
basis of the story. All of the characters are vividly drawn, and the
action of the story is wonderfully dramatic and lifelike. The period is
about 1875.
"A powerful, well-sustained story, the interest in which does not
flag from the first chapter to the last."--_Philadelphia North
American._
"Unusually powerful. The dramatic plot is intricate, but not
obscure."--_The Congregationalist._
"A graphic and readable piece of fiction, which will stand with
the best of its time concerning humble American characters."--
_Providence Journal._
"Far ahead of most of these latter-day Southern novels."--_Southern
Star._
"The people in the story are persistently real."--_Christian
Advocate._
FREE TO SERVE
A Tale of Colonial New York.
12mo, cloth, with a cover designed by Maxfield Parrish.
434 pages. ~$1.50~
"One of the very best stories of the Colonial period yet
written."--_Philadelphia Bulletin._
"We have here a thorough-going romance of American life in the
first days of the eighteenth century. It is a story written for the
story's sake, and right well written, too. Indians, Dutch,
Frenchmen, Puritans, all play a part. The scenes are vivid, the
incidents novel and many."--_The Independent._
"The writing is cleverly done, and the old-fashioned atmosphere of
old Knickerbocker days is reproduced with such a touch of verity as
to seem an actual chronicle recorded by one who lived in those
days."--_Saturday Evening Post_, Philadelphia.
"The supreme test of a long book is the reading of it, and when one
reaches the end of Free to Serve, he acknowledges freely that it is
the best book that he has taken up for a long time."--_Boston
Herald._
For sale by all booksellers, or sent, postpaid, by the publishers on
receipt of price.
Small, Maynard & Company,
PIERCE BUILDING
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Two Remarkable Volumes of Stories.
ANTING-ANTING STORIES,
And Other Strange Tales of the Filipinos.
BY SARGENT KAYME.
With cover design by WILLIAM MATHER CROCKER.
12mo., cloth. ~$1.25~
The sub-title to this volume gives a suggestion of the nature of the
stories of which it is composed, but no title can give an adequate idea
of their wonderful variety and charm. It is hardly exaggeration to say
that Mr. Kayme's treatment of the life of the Filipinos opens to our
literature a new field, almost as fresh and as original as did Mr.
Kipling's Indian Stories when they first appeared. Like Mr. Kipling, he
shows his perfect familiarity with the country and people he describes;
and he knows how to tell a good story straight away and simply without
any sacrifice of dramatic effect or power.
The curious title to the volume furnishes the motive for some of the
most striking of the stories. _Anting-Anting_ is a Filipino word, used
to denote anything worn as an amulet, with a supposed power to protect
the life of the wearer. Often a thing of no intrinsic value, the belief
in its efficacy is yet so real that its owner often braves death with a
confidence so sublime as to command admiration, if not respect.
WHEN EVE WAS NOT CREATED,
And Other Stories.
BY HERVEY WHITE, author of _Differences_ and _Quicksand_
12mo., cloth, with a cover design by MARION L. PEABODY.
~$1.25~
Remarkable stories of a type and style of subjective symbolism
altogether new to American literature. In the title story Svend,
as a type expressive of the suppression of the artistic sense in
love, where, the eye being satisfied with the object, the heart, the
soul, the mind of the man, yet goes hungry and unsatisfied, will fix
himself in the reader's mind as one of the strongest characters of
fiction. The other stories are scarcely less noteworthy, and the
book as a whole will add greatly to the author's already high
reputation as a writer.
For sale by all booksellers, or sent, postpaid, by the publishers on
receipt of price.
Small, Maynard & Company,
PIERCE BUILDING
COPLEY SQ., BOSTON
A Remarkable Study of Social Life in America.
DIFFERENCES
BY HERVEY WHITE.
12mo, cloth, decorative, 320 pages. ~$1.50~
"It is treating the poor as a class and employing any method of
handling them that I object to.... Why can't they be treated as
individuals, the same as other people? What would the rich think of my
impertinence if I went about the world treating them in a peculiar
manner,--as if they were not real people, at all, but only 'the rich,'
in my knowledge?"--Hester Carr, in _Differences_.
"_Differences_ is an extraordinary book.... The labor question is
its primary concern, and the caste barrier which modern conditions
have erected between the man who works and the man who merely
lives. This is no new theme, yet _Differences_ is new, and its
place in thoughtful literature awaits it. The only argument
presented by Mr. White is contained in the picture he spreads
before us. It is real, and set out with bold, firm strokes, and
there is no attempt to be merely artistic. Genevieve Radcliffe, the
rich society girl, who goes to work charity with the poor, and John
Wade, the workman, whose situation involves all the tragedy of
metropolitan poverty, are human, if they be not typical. They
embody the 'differences,' and, if they do not point the way to
equality, it is because American civilization is not yet ripe for
them. Withal, the book is not a tract. It is worth a thousand such.
Informed throughout with a tender simplicity, a sense of the beauty
of common things, and a sincerity that brooks no question, it
carries equal appeal to the student of economics and to the lover
of human feeling."--_Philadelphia North American._
"There is no end of philosophy in books about the poor and how to
reach them and send rays of sunshine into their world; but few
books get at the real 'Differences' that exist between the wealthy
classes and the poor as does Mr. Hervey White.... _Differences_ is
vitally interesting, both as a story and as a moral lesson.... It
is written with wholesome enthusiasm and an intelligent survey of
real facts."--_Boston Herald._
"The method employed by Mr. Hervey White in _Differences_ is not
like that of any author I have ever read in the English language.
It resembles strongly the work of the best Russian novelists, it
seems to me, and particularly that of Dostoievsky, and yet it is in
no sense an imitation of those writers; it is apparently like them
merely because the author's motives and ways of thought and
observation are like them.... I have never before read any such
treatment in the English language of the life and thought of
laboring people."--Joseph Edgar Chamberlin, in _Boston Transcript_.
For sale by all booksellers, or sent, postpaid, by the publishers on
receipt of price.
Small, Maynard & Company,
PIERCE BUILDING
COPLEY SQ., BOSTON
_A Powerful Realistic Novel of American Life._
QUICKSAND
BY HERVEY WHITE.
12mo, cloth, decorative, 328 pages. ~$1.50~
_Quicksand_ is a strong argument against a certain condition which the
author believes exists too generally in American society, and is, in
effect, an appeal for the freedom of the individual in family life. It
is a powerful tragedy, developing very naturally out of the effects of
the interference of parents in the lives of their children, and of
brothers and sisters in the affairs of each other. It becomes
therefore, not only the story of an individual, but the life history of
an entire family, the members of which are portrayed with astonishing
vividness and realism. The hero of the book also illustrates, in his
sufferings and failures, the unfortunate effects of a too narrow
orthodoxy in religion, coupled with his family's interference with his
growth out of this environment. Offsetting the tragedy of the story is
"Hiram," the "hired man" of the family in its earlier New England days,
in whom, particularly, the reader's interest will centre. Patient,
kindly, faithful, and uncomplaining, he is indeed the real "hero" of
the tale, the only one free from the unfortunate environments of the
other characters, yet forced indirectly to suffer also because of them.
It is the every-day life of the every-day family that is drawn; and
this fact, together with the boldness and fidelity of the drawing,
gives the story its power and impressiveness.
"Hervey White is the most forceful writer who has appeared in
America for a long generation."--_Chicago Evening Post._
"We cannot remember another book in which lives, thoughts,
emotions, souls, and principles of action have been analyzed with
such convincing power. Mr. Hervey White has great literary skill.
He has here made his mark, and he has come to stay.... He is the
American George Gissing, and as such some day he will have to be
taken into account."--_Boston Herald._
"It should insure Mr. White a permanent place in the critical
regard of his fellow-countrymen.... Few characters as strong as
that of Elizabeth Hinckley have ever been drawn by an American
author, and she will remain in the mind of the most assiduous novel
reader, secure of a place far above that held by most of the puny
creations of the day."--_Chicago Tribune._
"It is wrought of enduring qualities. Few novels are so sustained
on an elevated plane of interest."--_Philadelphia Item._
"It is a novel that takes hold of one, and is not the sort of
book that, once begun, can be laid down without being finished."
--_Indianapolis News._
For sale by all booksellers, or sent, postpaid, by the publishers
on receipt of price.
Small, Maynard & Company,
PIERCE BUILDING
COPLEY SQ., BOSTON
TUSKEGEE ITS STORY & ITS WORK
By MAX BENNETT THRASHER
_With an Introduction by BOOKER T. WASHINGTON_
12mo, cloth, decorative, 248 pages, 50 Illustrations, $1.00
THE TUSKEGEE NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTE, at Tuskegee, Alabama, is
one of the most uniquely interesting institutions in America. Begun,
twenty years ago, in two abandoned, tumble-down houses, with thirty
untaught Negro men and women for its first students, it has become
one of the famous schools of the country, with more than a thousand
students each year. Students and teachers are all of the Negro race.
The Principal of the school, Mr. Booker T. Washington, is the
best-known man of his race in the world to-day.
In "Tuskegee: Its Story and its Work," the story of the school is told
in a very interesting way. He has shown how Mr. Washington's early life
was a preparation for his work. He has given a history of the Institute
from its foundation, explained the practical methods by which it gives
industrial training, and then he has gone on to show some of the
results which the institution has accomplished. The human element is
carried through the whole so thoroughly that one reads the book for
entertainment as well as for instruction.
_COMMENTS._
"All who are interested in the proper solution of the problem in
the South should feel deeply grateful to Mr. Thrasher for the
task which he has undertaken and performed so well."--BOOKER T.
WASHINGTON.
"Should be carefully and thoughtfully read by every friend of the
colored race in the North as well as in the South."--_New York
Times._
"The book is of the utmost value to all those who desire and hope
for the development of the Negro race in America."--_Louisville
Courier-Journal._
"Almost every question one could raise in regard to the school and
its work, from Who was Booker Washington? to What do people whose
opinion is worth having think of Tuskegee? is answered in this
book."--_New Bedford Standard._
_For sale at all Bookstores, or sent, postpaid, on receipt of price,
by the publishers_,
SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY, BOSTON.
* * * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained
as printed.