For some weeks the Black Warrior question had been comparatively little spoken of in Madrid, and the general opinion seemed to be that it had been amicably adjusted at Washington, or was in a fair way to be so, when the O’Donnell insurrection and the July revolution concentrated the public thought on home politics. Things had scarcely begun to settle down, when, on the 21st August, the arrival of the President’s message of the 1st once more drew attention to Cuba, and to the state of affairs between Spain and America. Just a week later, on the 28th, occurred the outbreak I have described in the early part of this letter. On that same day, before the revolt was suppressed, it was said in Madrid that the American minister was concerned in the insurrection. The next day, when things were quiet, the part he was alleged to have played was matter of common conversation, and then the newspapers took up the matter. The Diario Español, usually one of the best written and best informed of the Madrid journals, which supports the present government, and is believed to be the special organ of General O’Donnell, published on the 30th August a very strong article on the subject. It had been stated the day before with truth that Mr Soulé was about to leave Madrid for France, and the supposition had been added that he did so in order to avoid being in the Spanish capital when news should arrive of a piratical invasion of Cuba by citizens of the United States. Taking this for a text, the Diario Español indignantly asked if Mr Soulé feared for his personal safety, and mistrusted the honour of Spaniards. He would have no cause for such apprehension, the paper continued, “even if he had been wanting in the respect due to the nation, and had sought by every means to favour projects tending to deprive Spain of her most precious colony: even if it were certain that he had sought to profit by the days of degradation of the Spanish government (under Sartorius), and to take advantage of the insatiable voracity of high and low influences: even if it were certain that he had endeavoured to profane the sanctity of the revolution, and to sow discord amongst the people, seducing the unwary, engaging in a vile intrigue, giving money and promising arms to destroy the power of the honourable and patriotic men who now direct the destinies of Spain: even if he had succeeded in gaining over a few deluded persons who had failed to discern, through the cloud of his honeyed and flattering words, the latent idea of keeping up agitation and disorder in the Peninsula, and so of depriving Cuba of the succours the mother-country might otherwise send thither: even though the people knew that he had attempted to take advantage of a moment of effervescence traitorously to excite its indignation, and to hurry it to revolt.” This was pretty plain speaking. On the same day that the article appeared, Mr Soulé addressed an angry letter to the Diario Español, which did not publish it. The letter afterwards appeared in a French frontier newspaper. The following is a translation of its contents, as given in the Bayonne Messager of the 9th August:—
“Madrid, 30th August.
“A Monsieur le Directeur du Diario Español.
“Sir,—The tone and character of the article concerning me published in your sheet of this day, too plainly prove the influences that have inspired it for me not to honour it by a word of reply.
“I leave Madrid because it pleases me to leave it, and because I have no account to render to anybody, either of my proceedings or of the motives that determine them.
“I will never absent myself from any place through fear of being insulted or put in peril by those whom my presence may displease.
“I do not fear impertinence, nor even assassins.
“And especially, Sir, I do not fear the people.
“The people respects what deserves to be respected;—it brands only the miserable men who flatter and deceive it.... It fights—but it does not assassinate.
“As to the perfidious insinuations of which your article is full, they are beneath my contempt.