The American advices of the week almost simultaneously make known
to us, here in England, concurrent movements across the Atlantic, which will soon put the praCtical statesmanship of our Foreign Office to the test. A society to promote the annexation of Cuba may now be said to have issued its prospectus to the public ; but instead of being, • like our Anti-Corn-law League on its first publicity, composed of a few members sitting behind a curtain, it comprises fifteen thousand enrolled members, has branches in the principal States, and is continually extending. The antecedents of this society should be remembered" in ordei to 'comprehend its full political force. Texas was systematically colonized by the Yan- kees, in order that it might demand annexation." The Yan- kees were disorganized to appearance, but they were united by the most forcible of all bonds, common instinct. They suc- ceeded. The annexation of New Mexico was the result of a more systematic movement; and if we mistake not, Franklin Pierce may be enumerated amongst the volunteers prospectively enrolled with a view to taking a • slice -out-of the Spanish Empire- Republic. By the systematic colonization of Central America, in- tended to snatch Bluefields and the domain of Moiquito from that successful bungler Patrick Walker, the Yankee agitators kept their hand in. Annexation, by a kind of piratical naturalized cOloniza- tion of the annexable state, has become a method with the Ame- ricans. Besides being the subject of this ordinary instinct, Cubs offers some peculiar incentives to theAmezican mind: it is an eligible investment; it is a commanding station in the West Indies, outpost ofe Mississippi and of slavery • the Yankees have formed a wish
t
for 't ; they have a repulse to retrieve; they have American blood, deli rately shed in the market-place, to avenge. " Delenda est
Cuba." - Simultaneously with this intelligence comes the further an- nouncement, that the regular Government of Cuba is displaying a renewed 'violence against the internal party of revolutionists who sympathize with the Annexationists ; but the intestine movement cannot be repressed. It is said that many of the Spaniards them- selves are engaged in the conspiracy ; an assertion corroborated by assurances which reached us long ago, that the pride of many Spanish families in Cuba had been indignantly rowed at the purely factious monopoly of official favour by particular intriguers. i The circumstance that Mexico itself is more than ever torn by' revolution, imparts to the general movement new stimulants and opportunities.
It is aided by journals of different parties in the Anglo-American Union. The presumed organ of Wall Street confers upon it the countenance of the Exchange. The New York Herald, coquetting with the enterprise, contributes the suggestion that the blow should be struck in the convenient interstice between the Presidencies.
In presence of these great commotions, Mr. Webster's little spe- cial pleadings about the Lobos Islands and the right of manure sink to their natural triviality, except as a display of the states- manship that Yankeeism pleases for the moment to tolerate in office. Mr. Webster has receded from his position that the Lobos have been recently discovered by an American Captain Cook ; or rather, without abandoning that discovery, he fortifies it by the asseveration that the Yankees had been in the habit of using the islands long beforehand. The Americans are proud of Mr. Webster's transcendant abilities and daring; they sympathize with his propensity to go ahead ; but probably their sympathy may be arrested now that they see him going to the extent of knocking his head against a post ; and their own trust in him is exemplified by the fact, that when they sat in convention to deli- berate on the choice of candidates for the Presidency, they deliber- ately set aside Daniel Webster. Meanwhile, he is ceasing to be one of the great motive powers in the States; and the Lobos ques- tion is almost superseded by the Cuban question, unless American intriguers, aided by unconscious accomplices in Downing Street, can drag England into a false position on those islands of penguin souvenirs.
Previous page
