"Soldiers of the West! I know your heroic exploits, and venerate them. I am well aware of the disadvantage of the situation in which you find yourselves, in contrast with our oppressors, and it is our purpose to remedy this. Accept the homage of my admiration and the succor of my arms.
"Citizen chiefs, officers, and soldiers of the Cuban Army! Union, discipline, and perseverance!
"The rapid increase which the glorious new Cuba has taken frightens our oppressors, who now are suffering the pangs of desperation, and carrying on a war of vengeance, not of principles. The tyrant Valmaseda rages with the incendiary's torch and the homicidal knife over the fields of Cuba. He has never done otherwise, but now he adds to his crime the still greater one of publishing it by a proclamation, which we can only describe by pronouncing it to be a proclamation worthy of the Spanish Government. Thereby our property is menaced by fire and pillage. This is nothing. It threatens us with death; and this is nothing. But even our mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters are menaced with resort to violence.
"Ferocity is the valor of cowards.
"I implore you, sons of Cuba, to recollect at all hours the proclamation of Valmaseda. That document will shorten the time necessary for the triumph of our cause. That document is an additional proof of the character of our enemies. Those beings appear deprived even of those gifts which Nature has conceded to the irrationals—the instinct of foresight and of warning. We have to struggle with tyrants, always such; the very same ones of the Inquisition, of the Conquest, and of Spanish dominion in America. In birth and in death they live and succeed; the Torquemadas, the Pizarros, the Boves, the Morillos, the Tacons, the Conchas, and the Valmasedas. We have to combat with the assassins of old women and of children, with the mutilators of the dead, with the idolaters of gold!
"Cubans! If you would save your honor and that of your families; if you would conquer forever your liberty, be soldiers. War leads you to peace and to happiness. Inertia precipitates you to misfortune and to dishonor. Viva Cuba! Viva the President of the Republic! Viva the Liberating Army! Patria and Liberty!
"Manuel Quesada."
The proclamation of Count Valmaseda, to which General Quesada referred, had been issued at Bayamo on April 4, and was as follows:
"Inhabitants of the Country—
"The forces which I expected have arrived. With them I will afford protection to the good and summarily punish all those who still rebel against the government of the metropolis.