The _consuming_ population of Cuba amounts to about eight hundred thousand souls, and the total amount of taxes and contributions of various forms is more than twenty-three millions of dollars, in specie, per annum! It is hardly conceivable that such a sum can be extorted from a population whose wealth is precarious, and whose living is so costly. With this revenue the government pays and supports an army of over twenty thousand Peninsular troops in the island; a vast number of employés, part of the clergy and half the entire navy of Spain; the diplomatic corps in the United States and Mexico; many officials of rank at home in Spain; and the surplus is remitted to Spain, and spent on the Peninsula on matters entirely foreign to the interests of the island itself. A precious state of affairs! The colored population of the island, both slaves and free, hated the Spaniards, for good reasons. The war party, moreover, reckoned on the genius of a leader (Lopez) trained to arms,[8] equal in talents to any of the Spanish generals, and beloved by the Spanish troops, as well as by the Cuban population; and they relied, also, as we have said, on the sympathy and ultimate aid of the United States government. It is undoubtedly true that interested parties in this country, prompted by mercenary motives, increased this latter delusion by false reports; while the Cuban conspirators, in turn, buoyed up the hopes of their friends in the United States, by glowing accounts of the patriotic spirit of the Creoles, and the extent of the preparations they were making for a successful revolt. General Lopez was actively arranging the means for an invasion, when, in 1849, the United States government threw terror into the ranks of the _flibustiers_, by announcing its determination to enforce the sacredness of treaty stipulations. This, for a time, frustrated the intended invasion.