CHAPTER V.
THE VIRGINIUS EMBROGLIO.
There was one event of the ten years' war which deserves to be treated somewhat in detail, as the universal excitement in the United States caused by the affair for a time appeared to make a war between the United States and Spain inevitable. And the Cubans hoped that this occurrence would lead to the immediate expulsion of the Spaniards from Cuba.
The hopes thus raised, however, were doomed to meet with disappointment, as the diplomatic negotiations opened between the United States and Spain led to a peaceable settlement of the whole difficulty.
The trouble was this: On the 31st of October, 1873, the Virginius, a ship sailing under the American flag, was captured on the high seas, near Jamaica, by the Spanish steamer Tornado, on the ground that it intended to land men and arms in Cuba for the insurgent army.
The Virginius was a steamer which was built in England during the civil war, and was used as a blockade-runner. She was captured and brought to the Washington Navy Yard. There she was sold at auction. The purchaser was one John F. Patterson, who took an oath that he was a citizen of the United States. On the 26th of September, 1870, the Virginius was registered in the custom house of New York.
As all the requisites of the statute were fulfilled in her behalf, she cleared in the usual way for Curacoa, and sailed early in September for that port.
It was discovered a good many years after that Patterson was not the real owner of the vessel, but that, as a matter of fact, the money for her purchase had been furnished by Cuban sympathizers, and that she was virtually controlled by them.
From the day of her clearance in New York, she certainly did not return within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.
Nevertheless, she preserved her American papers, and whenever she entered foreign ports, she made it a practice to put forth a claim to American nationality, which claim was always recognized by the authorities in those ports.