"The cause of the liberty of nations has always perished in its cradle because its defenders have never sought to deviate from legal paths,--because they have followed the principles sanctioned by the laws of nations, while despots, always the first to exact obedience to them when it suited their convenience, have been the first to infringe them when they came into collision with their interests. "Their alliances to suppress liberty are called _holy_ and the crimes they commit by invading foreign territories and summoning foreign troops to their aid to oppress their own vessels, are sacred duties, compliances with secret compacts; and, if the congresses, parliaments and Cortes of other nations, raise the cry to Heaven, they answer, the government has protested--acts have been performed without their sanction--there is no remedy--they are acts accomplished. "An act accomplished will shortly be the abolition of slavery in Cuba, and the tardy intervention of the United States will only have taken place when its brilliant constellation lights up the vast sepulchre which will cover the bodies of her sons, sacrificed to the black race as a regard for their sympathies with American institutions, and the vast carnage it will cost to punish the African victors. What can be done today, without great sacrifice, to help the Cubans, tomorrow cannot be achieved without the effusion of rivers of blood, and when the few surviving Cubans will curse an intervention which, deaf to their cries, will only be produced by the cold calculations of egotism. Then the struggle will not be with the Spaniards alone. The latter will now accede to all the claims of the cabinet at Washington, by the advice of the ambassadors of France and England, to advance, meanwhile, with surer step to the end--to give time for the solution of the Eastern question, and for France and England to send their squadrons into these waters. Well may they deny the existence of secret treaties; this is very easy for such beings, as it will be when the case of the present treaty comes up, asserting that the treaty was posterior to their negative, or refusing explanations as inconsistent with their dignity. But we witness the realization of our fears, we see the Spanish government imperturbably setting on foot plans which were thought to be the delirium of excited imaginations doing at once what promised to be gradual work; and hear it declared, by distinguished persons who possessed the confidence of General Pezuela, that the existence of the treaty is certain, and that the United States will be told that they should have accepted the offer made to become a party to it, in which case the other two powers could not have adopted the abolition scheme. But supposing this treaty to have no existence, the fact of the abolition of slavery is no less certain. It is only necessary to read the proclamation of the Captain-General, if the last acts of the Government be not sufficiently convincing.