outrages on the people of the island by Spain greatly aroused the
Americans. The "ten years war" had terminated, leaving the island much
embarrassed in its material interests, and woefully scandalized by the
methods of procedure adopted by Spain and principally carried out
by Generals Campos and Weyler, the latter of whom was called the
"butcher" on account of his alleged cruelty in attempting to suppress
the former insurrection. There was no doubt much to complain of under
his administration, for which the General himself was not personally
responsible. He boasted that he only had three individuals put to
death, and that in each of these cases he was highly justified by
martial law.

FINALLY THE ATTENTION OF THE UNITED STATES was forcibly attracted to
Cuba by the Virginius affair, which consisted in the wanton murder of
fifty American sailors--officers and crew of the Virginius, which was
captured by the Spanish off Santiago bay, bearing arms and ammunition
to the insurgents--Captain Fry, a West Point graduate, in command.

Spain would, no doubt, have received a genuine American thrashing on
this occasion had she not been a republic at that time, and President
Grant and others thought it unwise to crush out her republican
principles, which then seemed just budding into existence.

The horrors of this incident, however, were not out of the minds of
the American people when the new insurrection of 1895 broke out. At
once, as if by an electric flash, the sympathy of the American people
was enlisted with the Insurgents who were (as the Americans believed)
fighting Spain for their _liberty_. Public opinion was on the
Insurgents' side and against Spain from the beginning. This feeling of
sympathy for the fighting Cubans knew no North nor South; and strange