These circumstances caused international relations to be ominously strained in more than one direction, and as soon as news reached the United States of the execution of those companions of Lopez who were members of prominent families in the southern states, there arose a widespread and furious storm of wrath. The center of this was, naturally, at New Orleans, where the majority of Lopez's followers had been recruited and where their families resided, and in that city an infuriated mob stormed and destroyed the Spanish consulate, publicly defaced a portrait of the Spanish queen, and, in some respects worst of all, looted a number of shops owned by Spanish merchants. This was most unfortunate from more than one point of view. It was not only indefensible and inexcusable in itself, but it put the United States so much in the wrong as to deter it from taking any action, or indeed making any protest to Spain on account of the putting to death of the American prisoners. The American Secretary of State, Daniel Webster, made, however, the best of an unfortunate situation. He took a straightforward course by immediately apologizing to the Spanish government for the New Orleans outrages, and recommended to Congress the voting of an adequate indemnity for the damage which had been done. Having done this, he was enabled to secure the release of some American members of Lopez's expedition who had not yet suffered the death penalty. Despite this settlement, the Spanish government continued to cherish much resentment against the United States, partly for the participation of so many of that country's citizens in the expeditions of Lopez, and partly because of the outrages in New Orleans, and its Cuban administration thereafter exhibited an increasing degree of animosity against Americans. Numerous harsh impositions were put upon American citizens, for which no redress could be had; and this caused resentment throughout the United States, in the commercial North as well as in the slaveholding and expansionist South, and relations between the two countries steadily drifted from bad to worse. Candor compels the frank statement that there was much fault on both sides. Spain was tremendously at fault because of her misgovernment of Cuba, and indeed her whole policy in relation to that island, which was quite unworthy of a civilized power in an enlightened age. A generation before Spain had practically sacrificed her right to continued possession of Florida by her maladministration of that territory, which had made it an intolerable nuisance to the neighboring United States. She was now making of Cuba a scarcely less international nuisance and scandal.