Under date of February 23, 1898, the House of Representatives requested the Secretary of the Treasury to inform that body "at the earliest date practicable, if not incompatible with the public service, what has been done by the United States to prevent the conveyance to the Cubans of articles produced in the United States, and what to prevent 'filibustering,' and with what results, giving particulars, and at what expense to the United States." A reply was sent on the 28th. It makes a very good showing for the activities of the officials responsible for the prevention of such expeditions, but from all I can learn about the matter, it is quite incomplete. There were a number of excursions not set down in the official records. Sailing dates and time and place of arrival were not advertised in the daily papers. The official statement shows that sixty reports of alleged filibustering expeditions were brought to the attention of the Treasury Department; that twenty-eight of them were frustrated through efforts of the Department; that five were frustrated by the United States Navy; four by Spain; two wrecked; one driven back by storm; one failed through a combination of causes; and seventeen that may be regarded as successful expeditions. The records of the Cuban _junta_ very materially increase the number in the latter class. The despatch of these expeditions was a three-cornered battle of wits. The groups engaged were the officials of the United States, the representatives of Spain, and the agents of the revolution. The United States employed the revenue service and the navy, aided on land by the Customs Service, the Secret Service, and other Federal officers. The official representatives of Spain employed scores of detectives and Spanish spies. The Cuban group sought to outwit them all, and succeeded remarkably well in doing so. A part of the story has been told, with general correctness, in a little volume entitled _A Captain Unafraid_, described as _The Strange Adventures of Dynamite Johnny O'Brien_. This man, really a remarkable man in his special line, was born in New York, in 1837, and, at the time this is written, is still living. He was born and grew to boyhood in the shadow of the numerous shipyards then in active operation along the East River. The yards were his playground. At thirteen years of age, he ran away and went to see as cook on a fishing sloop. He admits that he could not then "cook a pot of water without burning it," but claims that he could catch cod-fish where no one else could find them. From fisherman, sailing-master on private yachts, schooner captain, and officer in the United States Navy in the Civil War, he became a licensed East River pilot in New York. He became what might be called a professional filibuster at the time of the revolution in Colombia, in 1885, following that with similar experience in a revolt in Honduras two years later. The Cubans landed a few expeditions in 1895, but a greater number were blocked.