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The Cuban Government: Spanish

He added it was impossible that the expressions of Spanish resentment against him and the reflections of the Autonomistic party should fail to reach his ears. The Spanish claimed that he was a traitor. He does not deny having served as a major in the Spanish reserve, but having resigned when the glorious outcry of "Yarra" was raised, he feels he was free to join Cuban forces.

In respect to the Autonomistic party, which calls him an adventurer, he says, "Ah! The men who fought for half a score of years to give them a nation, honor, and liberty; an adventurer? The one who gained with his own blood the first rank in that army which filled the world with admiration for its persistency and courage; an adventurer? The one who abandoned his own happy land without accepting the rich booty to which the shameful peace of the Zanjon invited him; an adventurer? The one who could have offered as an excuse for his non-return his many years and the consequent fatigue, he who abandons everything and flies to occupy the place that his own brothers had reserved for him? Ah! He cannot be an adventurer, who, loaded with years and troubles, remembers still, as if were his own, the vow made by Cespades and Agramonte, twenty-seven years ago, `to vanquish or to die."

But these offenses he feels are mitigated by the fact that his army is filled with physicians, lawyers, merchants, engineers, farmers and mechanics, who when necessity obliges, know how to change the tools which give them their living for the machete and the rifle, a race whose acts make him forget all ingratitude.

Up to December he has been busy with the organization, and sees how far the army of liberation, composed of 50,000 men, may reach. "I have," he said, "complete confidence in my general staff, am sure of the support of the Cuban colonies in foreign countries, who collect about $300,000 monthly. I never think of belligerency to attain victory; if they recognize it, all right; if they do not, we will achieve the liberty of Cuba. "It does no matter to me that 120,000 soldiers are sent here by the government; of these, 50,000 are only unhappy beings sent here as military show; 20,000 from 20 to 25 years old whom I classify as half troop, for they only give results as detachments and there remains 40,000 good men from 25 to 40 years old, while it is not necessary to mention the 10,000 who belong to the number of the deceased either by bullet, dynamite, machete or sickness." It entered into Gomez's calculation that Spain might send 40,000 additional men, making 80,000 good soldiers against him, but he does not believe soldiers trained to operate in Europe can attain results in Cuba, because of its gigantic mountains, the impenetrable thickets, the doleful plains, and the secret paths.

His "soul grows sad" in thinking of the "criminal government that sends thousands and thousands of men, who come, like an innocent flock, to find their death in a country which they do not know," where everything and every one is against them, and not knowing the infamy which they are to defend. He exclaims: "Unfortunate government, where are you going to replace that youth the nation loaned you? Do you not understand that you cannot conquer an army that fights of free will? . . . Are you not horrified with the load of responsibility of burying in Cuba 10,000 Spaniards; but what can we do? They have made up their minds to fight, and we will fight, though I cannot realize what is going to become of so many people when the government will have no more with which to negotiate loans, like the one lately made in Paris, at five per cent. and half of brokerage, where the national treasury has had to give as a guarantee Cuba, when the French can obtain millions at one per cent. with common guarantees.

Gomez believes that the Spanish soldiers will not fight without their pay, and that if he successfully passes the winter, and strikes that army in the summer, because of hunger and their destitute condition, entire battalions, and some of the forty-two generals of the Spanish army, with their deep military knowledge, will pass over to his side and increase his army. The Cuban army, he says, will open their arms and accept every one who is willing to live in Cuba, happy and tranquil; but until that happy day arrives he finds himself, as general-in-chief, obliged to dictate painful measures to assure the execution of his plans. It is necessary, he claims, to destroy the railroad lines, to cause the Spanish soldiers to make long journeys; to fatigue them and wear them out; to destroy by fire such places as might help the enemy: to burn the sugar cane and destroy the plantations, and he advises those who are not with the revolution to go to the cities. Spain will be the responsible party for the desolation. He promises to treat prisoners with respect, and to meet the cowardly conduct of the Spanish in shooting his officers by pardoning theirs.

In conclusion he says: "What will be the future of these unhappy people if the Spanish are triumphant? The rural elements being absolutely destroyed, their cities having been the scene of the most frightful misery; with the debt of the past war and that of the present, which will amount to as much as $500,000,000; having to maintain an army of 50,000 men, in order to annihilate the Cuban race so that they will not think of repeating the disaster, every one who is able to do so will emigrate before so much misfortune; and there remains no solution but to turn their eyes towards the revolution, thus after a few years making Cuba, which is a young and rich people, the most enviable country on earth. In its government they will have a place in which all the honest men may find a home without its being necessary to say from whence they came; a government which constitutes itself without debt, without any compromise, and upon the basis of republican liberty, has to be prosperous, rich and happy, because they follow the doctrines of Christ. "And we will conquer and be free, cost what it may, or happen what will, and though we have to raise a hospital in each corner and a tomb in each home." A letter from Gomez, dated March 15th, said to have been written near the Matanzas border, was secured by John T. Rays, an American on the staff of the rebel commander-in-chief, and delivered by him to an insurgent mail-carrier, at a point not more than twelve miles from the city of Havana. Gomez dwells upon the debts of Spain, and the ability of Cuba to meet anticipations soon after its independence, and he is charged with saying: We are not looking for English sympathy. We know that England has long had her eye on Cuba, and I am firmly of the opinion that but for the grand message of President Cleveland with reference to Venezuela, the custom houses of our Island would now be controlled by the Bank of England, and thousands of red-coated soldiers would be assisting Spain.