CHAPTER V.

THE VIRGINIUS EMBROGLIO.

There was one event of the ten years' war which deserves to be treated somewhat in detail, as the universal excitement in the United States caused by the affair for a time appeared to make a war between the United States and Spain inevitable. And the Cubans hoped that this occurrence would lead to the immediate expulsion of the Spaniards from Cuba.

The hopes thus raised, however, were doomed to meet with disappointment, as the diplomatic negotiations opened between the United States and Spain led to a peaceable settlement of the whole difficulty.

The trouble was this: On the 31st of October, 1873, the Virginius, a ship sailing under the American flag, was captured on the high seas, near Jamaica, by the Spanish steamer Tornado, on the ground that it intended to land men and arms in Cuba for the insurgent army.

The Virginius was a steamer which was built in England during the civil war, and was used as a blockade-runner. She was captured and brought to the Washington Navy Yard. There she was sold at auction. The purchaser was one John F. Patterson, who took an oath that he was a citizen of the United States. On the 26th of September, 1870, the Virginius was registered in the custom house of New York.

As all the requisites of the statute were fulfilled in her behalf, she cleared in the usual way for Curacoa, and sailed early in September for that port.

It was discovered a good many years after that Patterson was not the real owner of the vessel, but that, as a matter of fact, the money for her purchase had been furnished by Cuban sympathizers, and that she was virtually controlled by them.

From the day of her clearance in New York, she certainly did not return within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.

Nevertheless, she preserved her American papers, and whenever she entered foreign ports, she made it a practice to put forth a claim to American nationality, which claim was always recognized by the authorities in those ports.

There is no evidence whatever to show that she committed any overt act, or did anything that was contrary to international law.

She cleared from Kingston, Jamaica, on the 23rd of October, 1873, for Costa Rica.

As President Grant said in his message to Congress, January 5th, 1874, she was under the flag of the United States, and she would appear to have had, as against all powers except the United States, the right to fly that flag and to claim its protection as enjoyed by all regularly documented vessels registered as part of our commercial marine.

Still quoting President Grant, no state of war existed conferring upon a maritime power the right to molest and detain upon the high seas a documented vessel, and it could not be pretended that the Virginius had placed herself without the pale of all law by acts of piracy against the human race. (And yet this very thing is what the Spaniards, without rhyme or reason, did claim. Ever since they have been claiming what was false, as for instance their reports of the victories (!) in the American-Spanish war. By so doing they have made themselves the laughing-stock of nations, for, although they never hesitate to lie, they do not know how to lie with a semblance of truth, which might be, far be it from us to say would be, a saving grace).

If the papers of the Virginius were irregular or fraudulent, and frankly they probably were, the offense was one against the laws of the United States, justifiable only in their tribunals. However, to return to facts, on the morning of the 31st of October, the Virginius was seen cruising near the coast of Cuba. She was chased by the Spanish man-of-war Tornado, captured, and brought into the harbor of Santiago de Cuba on the following day.

One hundred and fifty-five persons were on board, many of whom bore Spanish names. This was made a great point of by the Spanish authorities, although as a matter of fact it proved nothing.

This action was not only in violation of international law, but it was in direct contravention of the provisions of the treaty of 1795.

Mr. E. G. Schmitt was at that time the American vice-consul at Santiago, and he lost no time in demanding that he should be allowed to see the prisoners, in order to obtain from them information which should enable him to protect those who might be American citizens, and also whatever rights the ship should chance to have.

Mr. Schmitt was treated with the utmost discourtesy by the authorities, who practically told him that they would admit of no interference on his part, and insisted that all on board the Virginius were pirates and would be dealt with as such.

And indeed they were.

The Virginius was brought into Santiago late in the afternoon of the first of November, and a court-martial was convened the next morning to try the prisoners.

Within a week fifty-three men had received the semblance of a trial and had been shot.

Meanwhile England, who even her worst enemies cannot deny, is always on the side of humanity, intervened.

Reports of the barbarous proceedings had reached Jamaica, and H. M. S. Niobe, under the command of Sir Lambton Lorraine, was dispatched to Santiago with instructions to stop the massacre.

The Niobe arrived at Santiago on the eighth, and Lorraine threatened to bombard the town unless the executions were immediately stopped.

This threat evidently frightened the bloodthirsty governor, for no more shooting took place.

It was a noble act on the part of Sir Lambton Lorraine, and the American public appreciated it. On his way home to England, he stopped in New York. It was proposed to tender him a public reception, but this Sir Lambton declined. But by way of telling what a "brick" he was considered, a silver brick from Nevada was presented to him, upon the face of which was inscribed: "Blood is thicker than water. Santiago de Cuba, November, 1873. To Sir Lambton Lorraine, from the Comstock Mines, Virginia City, Nevada, U. S. A."

President Grant, through General Daniel E. Sickles, who then represented the United States at Madrid, directed that a demand should be made upon Spain for the restoration of the Virginius, for the return of the survivors to the protection of the United States, for a salute to the flag, and for the punishment of the offending parties.

When the news of the massacre reached Washington, the Secretary of State telegraphed Minister Sickles:

"Accounts have been received from Havana of the execution of the captain and thirty-six of the crew and eighteen others. If true, General Sickles will protest against the act as brutal and barbarous, and ample reparation will be demanded."

Minister Sickles replied:

"President Castelar received these observations with his usual kindness, and told me confidentially that at seven o'clock in the morning, as soon as he read the telegram from Cuba, and without reference to any international question, for that indeed had not occurred to him, he at once sent a message to the captain-general, admonishing him that the death penalty must not be imposed upon any non-combatant, without the previous approval of the Cortes, nor upon any person taken in arms against the government without the sanction of the executive."

About that time, a writer of some celebrity, who was also a war correspondent, named Ralph Keeler, mysteriously disappeared. Although it was never proven, there is little doubt but that he was assassinated by the Spaniards.

Then, as now, there was an intense hatred in the Spanish breast against every citizen of the United States.

As Murat Halstead expresses it, there seemed to be a blood madness in the air.

Mr. Halstead, by the way, tells an anecdote of a madman, who seized a rifle with sabre attached and assaulted a young man who had asked him an innocent question. He knocked him down and stabbed him to death with a bayonet, sticking it through him a score of times as he cried:

"Cable my country that I have killed a rebel!"

The murderer was adjudged insane. Further comment is unnecessary.

To return to the controversy over the Virginius between the United States and Spain.

General Sickles, as he had been instructed, made a solemn protest against the barbarities perpetrated at Santiago.

The Spanish Minister of State replied in a rather ill-humored way, and amongst other things, he said that the protest of America was rejected with serene energy.

This somewhat ridiculous expression gave General Sickles a chance to rejoin, which he did, as follows:

"And if at last under the good auspices of Senor Carvajal, with the aid of that serenity that is unmoved by slaughter, and that energy that rejects the voice of humanity, which even the humblest may utter and the most powerful cannot hush, this government is successful in restoring order and peace and liberty where hitherto, and now, all is tumult and conflict and despotism, the fame of the achievement, not confined to Spain, will reach the continents beyond the seas and gladden the hearts of millions who believe that the new world discovered by Columbus is the home of freemen and not that of slaves."

About this time, Spain asked the good offices of England as an intervener, but to his glory be it spoken and to the nation which he represented, Lord Granville declined, "unless on the basis of ample reparation made to the United States."

Spain continued to dilly-dally and evade the question of her responsibility.

On the 25th of November Mr. Fish telegraphed to Minister Sickles:

"If no accommodation is reached by the close of to-morrow, leave. If a proposition is submitted, you will refer it to Washington, and defer action."

This was just after Minister Sickles had informed the authorities at Washington that Lord Granville regarded the reparation demanded as just and moderate.

On the 26th, however, just as the American minister was preparing to ask for his passports, close the legation and leave Spain, he received a note from Senor Carvajal which conceded in part the demands of the United States.

This proposition was virtually that the Virginius and the survivors should be given up, but the salute was to be dispensed with, in case Spain satisfied the United States within a certain time that the Virginius had no right to carry the flag.

After considerable correspondence an arrangement was finally arrived at, Spain further agreeing to proceed against those who had offended the sovereignty of the United States, or who had violated their treaty rights.

In his message, President Grant says:

"The surrender of the vessel and the survivors to the jurisdiction of the tribunals of the United States was an admission of the principles upon which our demand had been founded. I therefore had no hesitation in agreeing to the arrangement which was moderate and just, and calculated to cement the good relations which have so long existed between Spain and the United States."

The following words, spoken by Secretary Fish to Admiral Polo, in an interview during the progress of the negotiations, are worthy to be quoted:

"I decline to submit to arbitration the question of an indignity to the flag. I am willing to submit all questions which are properly subjects of reference."

On the 16th of December the Virginius, with the American flag flying, was delivered to the United States at Bahia Honda.

The vessel was unseaworthy. Her engines were out of order and she was leaking badly. On the passage to New York she encountered a severe storm, and, in spite of the efforts of her officers and men, she sank off Cape Fear. The survivors of the massacre were surrendered at Santiago de Cuba on the 18th, and reached New York in safety.

About eighty thousand dollars were paid by Spain as compensation to the families of the American and British victims who perished at Santiago. But no punishment was ever visited upon the governor who ordered the executions. There was a tremendous amount of feeling aroused in the United States over the Virginius affair, and the government was severely criticized and censured for not avenging the inhuman butcheries and the insults to the flag.

But it must be remembered that the government had a very hard task to deal with. There was little or no doubt but that the Virginius, at the time of her capture was intended for an unlawful enterprise, in spite of Captain Fry's words in a letter to his wife just before his execution:

"There is to be a fearful sacrifice of life from the Virginius, and, as I think, a needless one, as the poor people are unconscious of crime and even of their fate up to now. I hope God will forgive me, if I am to blame for it."

The clamor of the American people for revenge was fiery in its intensity, but the government did not yield to it, in which it was right. There has been more than one time in our history when if public opinion had been allowed to rule, the results would have been fatal; and the very men who were most abused, in the light of future events, have been praised for their wisdom and moderation.

Murat Halstead sums up the whole matter in a clear and just manner. He says in his admirable book, "The Story of Cuba:"

"It is not, we must say, a correct use of words to say that the United States was degraded by the Virginius incident. In proportion as nations are great and dignified, they must at least obey their own laws and treaties. When Grant was President of the United States and Castelar was President of Spain, there was a reckless adventure and shocking massacre, but we were not degraded because we did not indulge in a policy of vengeance."