England is directly concerned in Cuba by its close proximity to the Bahamas. Cay Lobos (British territory) is but fourteen miles from Cay Confites (Cuban territory). That leaves but eight miles of high seas in width. The people of the Bahamas have made frequent complaint to the governor about the conduct of the Spanish authorities in Cuba. In August this year the Governor of the Bahamas sent a memorial to the Captain-General of Cuba about the impediments to the Bahama sponging trade caused by the arbitrary acts of the Spaniards. No notice has been taken of this. It has not even been acknowledged. In 1870 complaints were made to Sir James Walker (my predecessor) that James Fraser and three other British subjects were captured in a Bahama schooner, taken ashore to Cuba, and there shot. The Spaniards justified this by saying that the ship was conveying supplies to the insurgents, and they (the Spaniards) executed Fraser and the others as pirates. In the same year a man named Williams complained that sixty or seventy Spanish soldiers landed at Berry Island (a part of the Bahama colony), chasing Cuban refugees, firing off their guns, and threatening to hang Williams if he did not aid them in their search. Subsequently the Spanish admiral, Melcampo, made a sort of apology for this; but the Captain-General of Cuba, on the other hand, wrote to Sir James Walker, complaining that the British lighthouse-keepers on Berry Island had refused to aid the Spaniards in pursuit of 'pirates' on British soil. Lord Granville took up the matter in a proper spirit. He sent energetic remonstrances to Madrid. He got the Admiralty to telegraph to Sir Rodney Mundy, at Halifax, to despatch ships of war to aid the Governor of the Bahamas in protecting the colony from the raids of the Spaniards. As to the seizing of ships on the high seas under neutral flags, he telegraphed to Sir John Crampton, at Madrid, to say that it would be 'a glaring violation of the law of nations.' The Madrid Government promised to get the Captain-General's proclamation revoked; but my predecessor reported that General Dulce had not revoked it, and he returned to Spain without doing so. The half-and-half revocation that took place left 'exceptional cases' at the discretion of the Spanish cruisers. Hence the case of the 'Virginius.' The excitement here about the recent executions is intense. Twenty-nine of those shot resided at Nassau. The public feeling is now so strong that it deprives me of power (especially as all British troops are withdrawn) to stop expeditions against the Spaniard, though I am doing my best to allay it and to be strictly neutral. Indeed, in the interest of the peace and well-being of the Bahamas, I have had to write to Lord Kimberley, asking him to use his influence in getting some law-abiding government substituted in Cuba for the present lawless rule of the volunteers. Your article will do much to support H.M. Government in a decided course now.