The New Orleans Bee at this time thus described Lopez:
"General Lopez has an exceedingly prepossessing appearance. He is apparently about fifty years of age. His figure is compact and well set. His face which is dark olive, and of the Spanish cast, is strikingly handsome, expressive of both intelligence and energy. His full dark eyes, firm, well-formed mouth, and erect head, crowned with iron grey hair, fix the attention and convince you that he is no ordinary man. Unless we are greatly mistaken in the impression we have formed of him, he will again be heard of in some new attempt to revolutionize Cuba. He certainly does not look like a man easily disheartened."
The Bee was a true prophet; it was far from being "greatly mistaken" about Lopez. The after events proved that it had judged him justly. No sooner was he released than he began to lay his plans for a new expedition, and since New Orleans had long been the stronghold of his sympathizers, he went to that place to complete his organization.
CHAPTER V
Spain was now thoroughly alive to the danger which threatened her future retention of Cuba, and in the face of an emergency she vacillated. Her high officials began to wonder if after all their policy of extreme oppression and suppression had not been in a measure the wrong one to pursue with the Cubans. Roncali, who had been so pleasing to the Peninsulars, or Spanish party in Cuba, and so unpopular with the patriots, was recalled and Don José Gutierrez de la Concha was dispatched to take his place as Captain-General. He took over the affairs of the island on November 10, 1850. Concha was as unwelcome to the Peninsulars as his predecessor had been to their liking. He was a man who had at least some regard for justice, and who, if given a free hand, might have governed Cuba with a degree of wisdom and fairness. He was not a believer in liberty for the Cubans, but at least he had some conception of what constituted equity. He publicly stated his ideal of his office, as "a government of justice" and might have worked out something like a solution of Spain's problems in Cuba, unless, as we think it fair to believe, it was now much too late to quell the revolutionary spirit which had grown to such great proportions; with "a government of force," no matter what its purpose, the Cubans were all too familiar, and they had plainly shown how much they hated it and despised its administrators.
RAMON PINTO
An early martyr to the cause of Cuban freedom, Ramon Pinto, was born in Cataluna, Spain, in 1802, and engaged in the revolution of 1820-23 in that country. Then he fled to Cuba and became a brilliant writer in behalf of philanthropic works. In 1853 he became director of the Havana Lyceum, and later was a close friend and adviser of Captain-General Concha. In 1855 he was charged with being engaged in a revolutionary conspiracy, was convicted on dubious testimony, and died on the scaffold in March of that year.
One evil this new Captain-General did earnestly try to overcome. He endeavored to do away with the fee system which had caused so much unjust imprisonment and suffering. He made an effort to obtain fixed salaries for all government officials instead of fees, but at every turn he was balked by the Peninsulars. There is some reason to believe that he was not altogether sincere; that he was a fair spokesman, but an evil performer; that he did not allow his right hand to know the injustice he was planning to do with his left. At any rate, at the very time when he was offering such cheering words of hope to the Cubans, he was putting into operation a regular line of vessels from Cadiz, Spain, to Havana. He offered various excuses—of course, expansion, and many others—for this action, but thinking Cubans well knew that his real purpose was that communications might be more easy and frequent with the Spanish court, and that news of uprisings, and the dispatching of troops to suppress them, might be less delayed. He also—but, of course, this was done under orders of the Spanish government, induced, we are told, by his recommendations—increased and strengthened the fortifications of the island, and asked for and received a greater number of troops to man them.
However, there must have been some ground for the belief that Concha in some ways favored the Cubans for in no other manner could he have raised such a storm of dislike among the Peninsulars as constantly whistled about his head, and finally resulted in his recall.