And now is it to be wondered at that the Creoles should groan under the load of oppressions forced upon them as depicted in the foregoing pages? No! On the contrary we feel that they are too forbearing, and look to the enervating influence of their clime as an excuse for their supineness under such gross wrongs. Their lovely climate and beautiful land are made gloomy by the persecutions of their oppressors; their exuberant soil groans with the burthens that are heaped upon it. They are not safe from prying inquiry at bed or board, and their every action is observed, their slightest words noted. They can sing no song not in praise of royalty, and even to hum an air wedded to republican verse is to provoke suspicion and perhaps arrest. The press is muzzled by the iron hand of power, and speaks only in adulation of a distant queen and a corrupt court. Foreign soldiers fatten upon the people, eating out their substance, and every village near the coast of the island is a garrison, every interior town is environed with bayonets!
A vast deal has been said about the impregnable harbor of Havana, the "Gibraltar of America" being its common designation, but modern military science acknowledges no place to be impregnable. A thousand chances might happen which would give the place to an invading force; besides which it has been already twice taken; and though it may be said that on these occasions it was not nearly so well garrisoned as now, neither so well armed or manned, the reply is also ready that it has never been besieged by such a force as could now be brought against it, to say nothing of the vast advantage afforded by the modern facilities for destruction.[53] Were not the inaccessible heights of Abraham scaled in a night? and how easily the impregnable fortress of San Juan de Ulloa fell! Havana could be attacked from the land side and easily taken by a resolute enemy. With the exception of this one fortress, the Moro, and the fort in its rear, the Cabensas, the island is very poorly defended, and is accessible to an invading force in almost any direction, either on the east, west, or south coast. Matanzas, but sixty miles from Havana, could be taken by a small force from the land side, and serve as a depot from whence to operate, should a systematic effort be organized. Cuba's boasted strength is chimerical.
Steam and the telegraph are revolutionizing all business relations and the course of trade. A line of steamers, one of the best in the world, runs between New York and Havana, also New Orleans and Havana. By this means all important intelligence reaches Cuba in advance of any other source, and through this country. By the telegraph, Havana is brought within three days' communication with New York and Boston. All important advices must continue to reach the island through the United States, and the people must still look to this country for political and commercial information, and to the movement of our markets for the regulation of their own trade and commerce. New Orleans has become the great centre to which their interests will naturally tend; and thus we see another strong tie of common interest established between the island of Cuba and the United States.
Naturally belonging to this country by every rule that can be applied, the writer believes that Cuba will ere long be politically ours. As the wise and good rejoice in the extension of civilization, refinement, the power of religion and high-toned morality, they will look forward hopefully to such an event. Once a part of this great confederacy, Cuba would immediately catch the national spirit and genius of our institutions, and the old Castilian state of dormancy would give way to Yankee enterprise, her length and breadth would be made to smile like a New England landscape Her sons and daughters would be fully awakened to a true sense of their own responsibility, intelligence would be sown broadcast, and the wealth of wisdom would shine among the cottages of the poor.
In the place of the rolling drum and piercing fife, would be heard the clink of the hammer and the merry laugh of untrammelled spirits. The bayonets that bristle now on every hill-side would give place to waving corn, and bright fields of grain. The honest Montero would lay aside his Toledo blade and pistol holsters, and the citizen who went abroad after sunset would go unarmed. Modern churches, dedicated to pure Christianity, would raise their lofty spires and point towards heaven beside those ancient and time-eaten cathedrals. The barrack rooms and guard stations, in every street, town or village, would be transformed into school-houses, and the trade winds of the tropics would sweep over a new Republic!
CHARACTERISTIC STREET SCENE.
FOOTNOTES:
[52] English authorities,—Sir F. Buxton in the van,—declare that the extent of the slave trade has but slightly diminished, while the restrictions under which it is now carried on renders it more fatal than ever to the blacks.