Meanwhile Southern gentlemen of wealth and family were eagerly supplying funds to the enterprise. It is even said that some planters mortgaged their estates to obtain funds to give to the expedition, in the expectation that when rich Cuba was once acquired for the United States, they would receive back a reward far greater than the amount which they were contributing. Bonds of the proposed revolutionary government were printed, and sold; arms and ammunition were purchased and stored in readiness for the expedition. It was planned that the first consignment of arms was to be conveyed to the steamer _Cleopatra_, which had been purchased to carry the filibusters, by means of two small vessels, the sloop _William Roe_, and the steamer _Nahantee_, which were to steal respectively from the ports of New York and South Amboy, New Jersey, and meet the _Cleopatra_ just beyond quarantine. When the details were completed, Burtnett revealed the whole plan to the Spanish minister, who lost no time in laying it before the United States government at Washington. Now no matter what the sympathies of this government might be, it could not be placed under the odium of giving its official sanction to such an enterprise; indeed that would probably have resulted in war with Spain. Its action was slightly delayed, and the expedition might even yet have gotten off without interference had it not been that the _William Roe_ was detained on account of a flaw in her papers, and the _Cleopatra_, on which provisions were already stored, was delayed in putting to sea to wait for the _William Roe_ and the _Nahantee_ because at the last moment some of her crew went on shore and became intoxicated. This slight postponement of her sailing gave an opportunity for her attachment--at whose instigation it is not clear--for a writ for $3,000, to cover repairs made by a former owner, and for which the filibusters could hardly be held responsible. Nevertheless, they raised the money, but before its transfer could be completed and the _Cleopatra_ cleared on April 26, 1851, the leaders were arrested. Things looked black for Lopez and his followers, but they still had the influence of the South behind them, and for this reason or some equally effective one, again the courts failed to convict them, and to add to their good fortune the government did not confiscate the _Cleopatra_ and the provisions with which she was loaded, and she was afterward sold and the proceeds used as a nest-egg toward financing another expedition. Spain was now thoroughly aroused to her danger, and determined to put down the threatened revolution at any cost. Through her mouthpiece, the Captain-General of Cuba, she issued a proclamation to the Governors and Lieutenant Governors on the island: