In these circumstances Campos invited the leaders of the various parties, the very men who shortly before had pledged their support to him, to meet him again for a conference. They came, but in a different spirit from before. Santos Guzman was first to speak. He declared that the Constitutionalists had lost confidence in the Captain-General and did not approve his policy, and that they could no longer support him. The spokesman of the Reformists was less violent of phrase but no less hostile in intent and purport. From neither of the factions of the Spanish party could Campos hope for further support. There remained the Cuban Autonomists, and with a constancy which would have been sublime if only it had been exercised in a better cause, they reaffirmed their loyalty to Campos and to his policy and renewed their pledges of support. But this was in vain. Campos realized that a Spanish Captain-General who had not the support and confidence of the Spanish party would be an impossible anomaly. He would not resign, but he reported to Madrid the state of affairs, and placed himself, like a good soldier, at the commands of the government; excepting that he would not change his policy for one of ruthless severity. If he was to remain in Cuba, his policy of conciliation, in cooperation with the Autonomists, must be maintained. The answer was not delayed. On January 17 a message came from Madrid, directing Campos to turn over his authority to General Sabas Marin, who would exercise it until a permanent successor could be appointed and could arrive; and to return forthwith to Spain. Of course there was nothing for him to do but to obey. In relinquishing his office to his temporary successor he spoke strongly in defence of the policy which he had pursued. Later, out of office, he talked with much bitterness of the political conspiracies which had been formed against him by the Spaniards of Cuba, of their moral treason to the cause of Spain, and of the sordid tyranny which they exercised. He declared that Spain herself was at fault for the Cuban revolution, which never would have occurred if the island had been treated as an integral province of Spain and not as a subject and enslaved country; and he prophesied that the verdict of history would be, as it had been in the case of Central and South America, that Spain had lost her American empire through the perverse faults of the Spaniards themselves. "My successor," he added, "will fail." Three days later he sailed for Spain. CHAPTER V