The Spanish Government has achieved a coup d'etat, not in
Ma- drid, but in the West Indies. It has decreed final freedom, at five years' date, to its " Emancipados" or Negro apprentices, with a fixed term for the final freedom of other apprentices hereafter. Thus the freedom of the Negro in Cuba is put in fair train for completion. The Spanish Government professes to have done this at the intercession of Lord Howden, British Ambassador ; and probably the concession may be intended as an amende honorable for the evasive and hostile conduct of the Cuban officers in thwarting the English war-ships when they seized certain slavers there. Nut while Spain thus cultivates favour with the English Government, she obviously seeks to strengthen her West Indian territory against a Republic which might not like to " annex " a liberated Black population. England in the mean time, by the success of her Anti-Slavery diplomacy, may be more bound than ever to maintain her feeble ally in the Mexican Archipelago.
