Revolutionary Association, in New York. And here it may be as well to examine rather closely two matters connected with Cuban affairs. The first is the assistance afforded to the Cuban rebels by the United States, and the second, the conditions of the rebel army, as it stood three years since, when the insurrection began to assume alarming proportions. As far back as 1823, John Quincy Adams said: "From a multitude of considerations, Cuba has become an object of transcendent importance to the commercial and political interests of our Union. Its commanding position, ... the nature of its productions and of its wants, furnishing the supplies and needing the returns of a commerce immensely profitable and mutually beneficial, give it an importance in the sum of our national interests with which that of no other foreign territory can be compared, and little inferior to that which binds the different members of the Union together." The reasons which induced Adams to make this statement have not diminished in late years; far from it, especially since the enormous development of the Mississippi valley, and of the Gulf Coast. Although there can be no question that the vast majority of the people of the United States have expressed an unselfish sympathy for the unfortunate Cubans, their politicians, and, above all, their financiers, have added to this sentiment a profound knowledge of the great value which Cuba must eventually prove to the Union, were she more firmly governed, and her American interests better protected. Among the advocates for the annexation of Cuba have been the following Presidents: Jefferson, Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Jackson, Polk, Fillmore, Pierce, and Buchanan. A remarkably interesting article on Cuban Diplomacy from 1795 to 1898 appeared recently in _Harper's Magazine_, in which Professor Albert Bushnell traces the rise of the sympathy of the American people for Cuban independence or annexation, and points out very plainly that "when, as in 1886, slavery was definitely abolished, the Spanish Government promised other excellent reforms, but, as usual, very soon things fell back into their old rut. The Captain-General was still practically absolute; the island was saddled with the debt created to hold it in subjection; it was still exploited for the benefit of Spain, and the same wearisome impediments were laid on foreign traders. For example, in 1880 several vessels were fired upon by Spanish gunboats outside the jurisdiction of Cuba; in 1881 an American cattle steamer, subject to a tax of $14.90, was taxed $387.40, because she had some lumber on board. In 1882 began a long drawn-out correspondence on overcharges and illegal exactions by Spanish consuls over vexatious fines for small clerical errors, and over annoying passport regulations. The most serious trouble arose out of the refusal of the Spanish authorities, to return estates confiscated during the war to American citizens of Cuban birth.