with a supplementary proclamation on the 27th that completed the line, and thus tied the South hand and foot. In his _History of the United States_, Elson notes that raw cotton could be bought in Southern ports for four cents a pound while it was worth $2.50 a pound in Liverpool, and that a ton of salt worth seven or eight dollars in Nassau, a few miles off the coast, was worth $1700 in gold in Richmond before the close of the war, all because of the blockade. There is, naturally, a lack of detail regarding the many expeditions, large and small, of the Ten Years' War, but they began soon after the opening of hostilities. In his _Diary_, Gideon Welles notes, under date of April 7, 1869, the prevalence of "rumors of illegal expeditions fitting out in our country to aid the Cuban insurgents," and states that "our countrymen are in sympathy with them." In December, of that year, President Grant reported that a number of illegal expeditions had been broken up, but did not refer to those that had succeeded. In October, 1870, he issued a general proclamation, without specific reference to Cuba, warning all persons against engagement in such expeditions. During the years of the war, Spanish warships, at different times, seized American vessels, a proceeding which led to some active diplomatic negotiation, and which, on several occasions, threatened to involve this country in war with Spain. The problem of the industry variously known as filibustering, blockade-running, gun-running, and the shipment of contraband, has two ends. There is, first, the task of getting the shipment out of one country, and, second, the task of getting it into another country. While it is generally classed as an unlawful enterprise, there frequently arises a difficulty in proving violation of law, even when goods are seized and the participants arrested. There is, perhaps, a moral question involved also. Such shipments may be a violation of the law. They are generally so regarded. But they may be, as in the case of the struggling Cubans, struggling against actual and generally admitted wrongs, the only means of serving a worthy and commendable end. There is no doubt that, in Cuba's revolution of 1895, Americans who knew about the work were prone to regard a successful expedition to the island with satisfaction if not with glee. They were inclined to regard those engaged as worthy patriots rather than as law-breakers.