In Madrid a great minister, Canovas del Castillo, an uncompromising traditionalist, believed that Spain should possess a colonial empire "to preserve her position in the world." From that time only energetic action in the revolted islands could save the metropolis. Already, in 1865, at the beginning of his career, he wished to limit the representation of Cuba and Porto Rico; and in 1868, when the long war broke out, he supported the demands of the 9,000 Spaniards who demanded the rejection of all reform.[1] Once in power, in 1876, Canovas was still more emphatic; the Cuban problem was to be solved only by violence. The generosity of Martinez {315} Campos was followed by the inflexible severity of governors who turned the island into a vast barracks. The timid liberties granted to Zanjon were soon suppressed; neither popular elections nor commercial liberties were allowed, but martial law, and a general to aid the Spaniards of the island in their war against the Creoles and mulattos. In 1878 the first civil war was over, but in 1895 the revolt was so successful, so popular, so terrible, that Martinez Campos abandoned the government of the island, feeling himself incapable of "wholesale shootings and other feats of the same kind." Marti, tragic symbol of revolt, was killed. General Weyler installed a Reign of Terror; the island was exhausted. No one could dislodge the guerillas from the plantations of sugar-cane which served them as refuge. Weyler ordered a "concentration" of women, children, and the non-combatants in the fortified cities. Offences of opinion were punished by death, and absolute submission was demanded. The intervention of the United States forced Spain to grant a brittle autonomy in 1896. The assassination of Canovas by an anarchist permitted a reaction against his uncompromising ideals, and an offer was made of a constitution, and of elective chambers, without, however, authority over the governor sent by the metropolis, and a Council of Administration, to which the Cubans would have access; but economic interests were ignored and sugar and tobacco were not set free. Cuba was awaiting her crusader, her Lohengrin. The United States filled the _rôle_. Attentive to the affairs of the island, they negotiated, arranged for intervention with non-official agents, and New York began to fit out filibustering expeditions. The incidents of the Yankee campaign against Spain are well known, from the sinking of the _Maine_ by an explosion in Havana roadstead to the Treaty of {316} Paris. Once their rival was vanquished would the States give Cuba her longed-for liberty? Porto Rico was conquered and Cuba obtained only a mediocre autonomy.