The reestablishment of a monarchy was, of course, exceedingly pleasing to the Volunteers, for they had no sympathy with a republic, and the freedom which it was supposed to entail, although in the case of the republic in Spain, few changes or concessions had been extended to its Cuban subjects. The Volunteers promptly took oath to support the monarchy, and denounced the republican constitution. They embraced this as a favorable opportunity to further an end of their own. They had long suspected the Bishop of Havana of being in sympathy with the revolution. He was at this time absent in attendance at the Vatican Council at Rome, and the Volunteers were able so to manipulate matters that, upon his return on April 13, 1871, he was refused permission to land. Believing that the new government would give even more cordial support to their machinations than had the previous one, the Volunteers now began a system of persecutions against Cuban patriots. The Volunteer corps, in 1872, numbered eighty thousand members, and in 1870 and 1871 they could not have fallen far below that number. They were so powerful that the Captain-General must either conform to their wishes or sooner or later give way to a successor whom they selected. Now there was published in Havana a paper, called _La Voz de Cuba_, which was really the "_Voice of the Volunteers_," for its editor, Gonzalo Castanon, was a Colonel of that organization. It busied itself, among other things, with attacks on the patriots, and took occasion to voice some derogatory remarks concerning Cuban women. Naturally the Cuban husbands, sons, fathers and lovers were hot with indignation against such calumny. Castanon paid the just penalty of his scurrilous lack of chivalry, for he was challenged by an outraged Cuban and in the duel which followed he received a mortal wound. He was buried in a tomb in the Espada Cemetery. Some time afterward, a party of young students--hardly more than boys--from the University of Havana, visited the cemetery, and it was reported to the authorities that one of them had been heard, while standing near the tomb of Castanon, to make remarks derogatory to the dead Colonel. This information was given by a Spanish soldier, who claimed to have overheard the conversation, and when it was repeated to a Spanish judge, the accusation was added that the boy's companions had defaced the glass which closed the Castanon tomb. The Volunteers immediately pounced upon the happening, as a delightful opportunity to chastise and punish the members of wealthy families in Havana who were suspected of aiding and abetting the revolution. The power of the Captain-General was invoked, and forty-three students were arrested and brought to trial. They were ably defended by a Spanish officer, Señor Capdevilla, and he made such a good case for their innocence that they were acquitted. The Volunteers, however, were not satisfied. Injustice