File No. 837.00/614.
The President of Cuba to the President.
The Secretary of State of this Government informs me that he has received a note from the Minister of the United States in this city advising him that the Government over which you preside has ordered a gunboat sent to Nipe Bay and the concentration of a naval force at Key West in anticipation of possible eventualities, so that in the event of failure or neglect of the Government to protect the life or property of American citizens forces of the United States will land on Cuban territory for their necessary protection, adding that these measures must not be considered specifically as an intervention; but as in reality they do not seem anything else, and the natural development of events, once these foreign troops landed, would accentuate that character, it is my duty to inform you that a determination of this serious character alarms and injures the feelings of a people loving and jealous of their independence, above all when such measures were not even decided upon by previous agreement between both Governments, which places the Government of Cuba in a humiliating inferiority through a neglect of its national rights, causing it discredit within and without the country. Nor is the action of the American Government justified, because neither it nor any other Government in analogous circumstances would have displayed, as has that of Cuba, such an extraordinary activity in mobilization and operations. In only four days it has accumulated more than 3,000 men of the regular forces against the rebels, sending them from the west to the east by land and sea, and in this short time it has cleared the whole island, with the exception of a limited eastern territory, of armed parties to such an extent that there does not exist a single one which will resist, neither in Pinar del Rio nor in this Province nor in Santa Clara, where, since the 19th instant, some of them appeared, who were punished and disbanded. Furthermore this Government has awakened public spirit, has distributed for the [Page 249] defense of farms and villages more than 9,000 rifles, with cartridges, and preparation is being made to flood with fighting patriots and with soldiers the relatively narrow zone to which the rebels have been reduced, the fact being really astonishing that up to the present no sugar mill has suspended work. I have recourse to you, therefore, as the loyal friend of Cuba and respectful of her rights, in order that with calm judgment and highmindedness you may appreciate the facts set forth, sure that you will reach the conviction that this Government is quite capable and sufficiently supported by the valor and patriotism of its people to annihilate a few rebels without a cause and without a flag. If you properly appreciate these facts you will without doubt hasten to recognize that it is not a friendly Government which, perchance by way of an unjustified precaution, would precipitately contribute to the discredit of a Government and a people like those of Cuba, placed, it is true, in circumstances difficult although not superior to the measure of its patriotism and its spirit.