Spain expressed indignation at the shortsighted policy of the Cuban leaders, and then gave demonstration of how she intended to punish Cuba. She renewed her persecution of individual Cubans, and her cruelty toward Cuban sympathizers who while nursing their cordial feelings for the revolution had not yet taken up arms against Spain. It was only necessary that such persons should be suspected, and that suspicion might be of the slightest variety. They were immediately seized and thrown into dungeons and tortured to extract their confessions; the right of trial was at this time almost entirely dispensed with, and victims of Spanish wrath were put to death without an opportunity to defend themselves, and executed in ways which are usually associated with the most barbarous savageness. So glaring did these outrages become that General Cespedes undertook to write a letter to the Spanish Government at Madrid concerning them, although why, knowing the character of his opponents as he did, he should have entertained the idea that this mild intervention on his part would have the slightest effect, or should have imagined that Spain was not cognizant of the actions of her legionaries in Cuba, and that such actions were performed without her fullest sanction, is not revealed. Cespedes certainly displayed a childlike faith in the ultimate spark of good in depraved human nature, when he took up his pen for such a communication. But be that as it may, he addressed the following epistle to the "Supreme Government of Spain." "The respect inspired by the laws of nations, which, under the influence of modern civilization has, as far as possible, deprived war of its savage character, imposes on us the obligation of addressing the Spanish Government an energetic remonstrance, in consequence of several offensive acts, which could not be known without causing offense to the civilized world. From the time when the standard of Independence was raised in Cuba, unworthy motives have been attributed to our contest. We shall not explain the justice of the Cuban Revolution, for such an explanation would be unpleasant to that Government, and besides it is not now necessary; but we may say, in general, a colony is justified in severing the knot which binds it to the mother-country, if it possesses sufficient elements to live independently. "Colonial life is restricting, it can never entirely satisfy the aspirations of an intelligent people, and, therefore, it cannot be justly imposed upon them when they are in a position to maintain their political existence. "A vicious rule, which was dissipated in Spain by the popular rising of September, made worse, we might say intolerable, the colonial existence of the Cubans.