The project of acquiring Cuba for the United States continued to be cherished by the American government. It must be supposed that the Secretary of State appreciated the immense value of Cuba, both in its resources and in its strategic position and so, for that reason, was desirous of acquiring the island. It must also be believed that he was to a degree moved by a desire to get rid of what he plainly saw would be a perennial cause of annoyance and even of danger. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, Cuba had been a cause of anxiety to the United States, and since the beginning of insurrections in that island, and especially insurrections looking to the United States for sympathy and aid, there was a constantly increasing danger of unpleasant and possibly hostile complications with Spain. There is no indication, however, that Marcy ever had any other thought than that of the peaceful acquisition of the island through friendly negotiations. It was most unfortunate that because of the political conditions which prevailed during that administration, he was compelled to act through unfit and indeed unworthy agents. At the beginning of 1854, Mr. Marcy directed the United States ministers to Spain, France and Great Britain to confer among themselves as to the best means, if indeed any were practicable, to persuade Spain to sell Cuba to the United States, and at the same time to avoid or to overcome objections which France and Great Britain might make to such a transaction. That was a perfectly legitimate proposal, and indeed, under the circumstances, was desirable and should have been productive of excellent results. Its fatal defect lay in the personality of the men who were called upon to put it into execution. The minister to Spain was Soule, of whom we have already heard enough to indicate his very conspicuous unfitness for the task assigned to him. The minister to France was James M. Mason, a Virginian, and one of the most aggressive and extreme Southern advocates of the extension of slavery. The minister to Great Britain was James Buchanan, who was afterward President of the United States, a northern man with strong southern sympathies and in complete subservience to the slaveholding interests of the south. The result of a conference among these three was practically a foregone conclusion. They came together at Ostend in the summer of 1854, and a little later concluded their deliberations at Aix-la-Chapelle, and the result of their conference was embodied in that extraordinary document known to history as the Ostend Manifesto.