ent without the sanction of the executive."

About that time, a writer of some celebrity, who was also a war
correspondent, named Ralph Keeler, mysteriously disappeared. Although it
was never proven, there is little doubt but that he was assassinated by
the Spaniards.

Then, as now, there was an intense hatred in the Spanish breast against
every citizen of the United States.

As Murat Halstead expresses it, there seemed to be a blood madness in
the air.

Mr. Halstead, by the way, tells an anecdote of a madman, who seized a
rifle with sabre attached and assaulted a young man who had asked him an
innocent question. He knocked him down and stabbed him to death with a
bayonet, sticking it through him a score of times as he cried:

"Cable my country that I have killed a rebel!"

The murderer was adjudged insane. Further comment is unnecessary.

To return to the controversy over the Virginius between the United
States and Spain.

General Sickles, as he had been instructed, made a solemn protest
against the barbarities perpetrated at Santiago.

The Spanish Minister of State replied in a rather ill-humored way, and
amongst other things, he said that the protest of America was rejected
with serene energy.

This somewhat ridiculous expression gave General Sickles a chance to
rejoin, which he did, as follows:

"And if at last under the good auspices of Senor Carvajal, with the aid
of that serenity that is unmoved by slaughter, and that energy that
rejects the voice of humanity, which even the humblest may utter and the
most powerful cannot hush, this government is successful in restoring
order and peace and liberty where hitherto, and now, all is tumult and
conflict and despotism, the fame of the achievement, not confined to
Spain, will reach the continents beyond the seas and gladden the hearts
of millions who believe that the new world discovered by Columbus is the
home of freemen and not that of slaves."

About this time, Spain asked the good offices of England as an
intervener, but to his glory be it spoken and to the nation which he
represented, Lord Granville declined, "unless on the basis of ample
reparation made to the United States."

Spain continued to dilly-dally and evade the question of her
responsibility.

On the 25th of November Mr. Fish telegraphed to Minister Sickles:

"If no accommodation is reached by the close of to-morrow, leave. If a
proposition is submitted, you will refer it to Washington