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A BLOCKHOUSE ON ONE OF THE LINE OF FORTS BUILT ACROSS THE ISLAND OF CUBA BY THE SPANIARDS AND KNOWN AS THE TROCHA (i.e., TRENCH, OR TRAVERSE).
principal objects, therefore, of my mission was to ascertain and report the exact political and military conditions existing at that time in Cuba. As the President expressed it at the time, he did not "want to go into the Cuban business bow on without knowing where" he was "going."
A few weeks after my arrival in Havana, I made a report to the Secretary of State (in substance) that, in my opinion, there was no immediate prospect of the Spanish soldiers suppressing the insurrection in Cuba or of the insurrectionary troops driving the Spanish from the island, and that, therefore, without outside interference, war, with its attendant horrors, would continue for an indefinite time; that the island was being devastated and gradually being reduced to an ash pile; that property was being destroyed everywhere, fields burnt, and human life taken by both contestants under the most aggravating circumstances; and that commerce was being extinguished, entailing great loss to the United States and to the American citizens resident on the island.
A SWIFT INCREASE OF MISERY AND DESOLATION.
Should I write a report to-day of the conditions now existing on the island I would not change, in its essential features, the report written two years ago, except to say that the destruction of property and the loss of life have suffered of course a large increase, and that misery, poverty, desolation, and devastation exist now in greater degree only than at the former period. The United States, at this writing, has determined to intervene, and, with soldiers and sailors, compel the Spanish troops to depart from the island and the Spanish flag to be furled forever upon the "Gem of the Antilles."
It is most difficult to comprehend the cruelties and enormities of Spanish rule on the island—more especially within the last few years. Spain has been repeating her past history by continuing that policy which has heretofore humbled her pride and reduced her territorial possessions, and will now lose Cuba, Porto Rico, and very possibly
