The same aversion came out again and again. This municipal regulation ought to be amended. “But our Spanish masters never learn anything.” That institution is far behind similar ones in the United States. “But how could you expect anything better while we have to import officers from Old Spain to govern us?” The Custom House rules are needlessly vexatious. “But we shall manage things better when Creoles control Cuba.” An adjacent sugar planter wouldn’t make so bad a neighbor. “But then, you know, he is a Spaniard.” A certain ball would be pleasant to attend, but the Spaniards are to have the management of it; and sundry young men are quietly “cut” by their fair Creole friends for presuming to go. Where a class, regarded with such feelings by the people, is held in power by influences from without, and exerted at a distance of thousands of miles, revolution is only a question of time. Some very intelligent Creoles now profess to believe it comparatively near. The downfall of our rebellion has given a fresh impulse to liberal ideas, and stimulated the feeling of resistance to the Spanish authorities. The swarms of secret societies among the Creoles have sprung up anew. Even on the north coast they are said to be abundant; but it is among the wealthy and isolated young planters of the south, removed from the embarrassments of commerce, and with ample leisure for intrigues, that they find their especial development. Here, the monotony of plantation life is relieved by plots against the Spaniards; and the possibility of growing sugar by free labor is set over against the necessity for the present constant importation of negroes from Africa, in defiance of the remonstrances and active efforts of Christendom. Heretofore the Spanish authorities have had a short and simple method of quieting the rumors of rebellion. Arms were deposited under guard at various points throughout the island, and the significant declaration was made, that Spain would rather lose slavery than lose Cuba. Visions of armed negroes, drunk with their new-found liberty, and eager to please those who had conferred it by butchering their enemies, have crowded before the eyes of the Creoles and paralyzed their plans. But they have even an army of nearly two hundred thousand slaves in the United States, as orderly, as well disciplined, and, in the main, as efficient as any other troops; and they have naturally concluded that such allies are as available for their purposes as they were for ours. Convinced that their hope of success lies, therefore, in a hearty alliance with the slaves, they are said to be ready for the abolition of slavery, and anxious to encourage and hold communication with the negro secret societies.