tended Chief Engineer of the Army of
Liberty and Freedom in Cuba; and the equally noble black, CHARLES BLAIR,
who was to have been Commander-in-Chief, who were shamefully put to
death in 1844, by that living monster, Captain General O'Donnell, is
still fresh and indelible to the mind of every bondman of Cuba.

In our own country, the United States, there are _three million five
hundred thousand slaves_; and we, the nominally free colored people, are
_six hundred thousand_ in number; estimating one-sixth to be men, we
have _one hundred thousand_ able bodied freemen, which will make a
powerful auxiliary in any country to which we may become adopted--an
ally not to be despised by any power on earth. We love our country,
dearly love her, but she don't love us--she despises us, and bids us
begone, driving us from her embraces; but we shall not go where she
desires us; but when we do go, whatever love we have for her, we shall
love the country none the less that receives us as her adopted children.

For the want of business habits and training, our energies have become
paralyzed; our young men never think of business, any more than if they
were so many bondmen, without the right to pursue any calling they may
think most advisable. With our people in this country, dress and good
appearances have been made the only test of gentleman and ladyship, and
that vocation which offers the best opportunity to dress and appear
well, has generally been preferred, however menial and degrading, by our
young people, without even, in the majority of cases, an effort to do
better; indeed, in many instances, refusing situations equally
lucrative, and superior in position; but which would not allow as much
display of dress and personal appearance. This, if we ever expect to
rise, must be discarded from among us, and a high and respectable
position assumed.

One of our great temporal curses is our consummate poverty. We are the
poorest people, as a class, in the world of civilized mankind--abjectly,
miserably poor, no one scarcely being able to assist the other. To this,
of course, there are noble exceptions; but that which is common to, and
the very process by which white men exist, and succeed in life, is
unknown to colored men in general. In any and every considerable
community may be found, some one of our white fellow-citizens, who is
worth more than all the colored people in that community put together.
We consequently have little or no e