foreign--no Cuban--correspondents were permitted to accompany the army,
and they only on their compliance with the rules.

Still Campos appeared to cherish the thought that he could end the war
by compromise, through pursuing a policy of leniency toward at least the
rank and file of the insurgents; and in this he had the support of the
Madrid government. That government had staked its all upon him, and was
naturally disposed to give him a free hand and to approve everything
that he did. However, it insisted that the rebellion must be crushed and
that no further reforms for Cuba could be considered until that was
done. It was feeling the strain of the war severely, especially since
its last loan for war funds had to be placed at more than fifty per cent
discount.

October was a disastrous month for the Spanish at sea. One of their
gunboats was wrecked on a key, and another, which had just been
purchased in the United States, was boarded and seized by a party of
revolutionists in the Cauto River, stripped of all its guns and
ammunition, and disabled and scuttled. General Enrique Collazo, who
earlier in the season had several times been baffled in such attempts,
at last got away from Florida with a strong party of Cubans and
Americans and effected a safe landing in Cuba. A little later Carlos
Manuel de Cespedes did the same, bringing a large cargo of arms. Two
expeditions also came from Canada, under General Francisco Carillo and
Colonel Jose Maria Aguirre. The latter, by the way, was an American
citizen who had been arrested in Havana at the very beginning of the
war, along with Julio Sanguilly, but was released at the very urgent
insistence of the United States government. Sanguilly, who was suspected
by some Cubans of having betrayed their cause, was held, tried, and
condemned to life imprisonment; a fact which cleared him of suspicion of
complicity with the Spaniards.

Maceo advanced through Camaguey and on November 12 reached Las Villas
with an army of 8,000 men. Gomez had meanwhile moved northward almost to
the Gulf coast, and was operating with 5,000 men between Los Remedios
and Sagua la Grande, where he joined forces with Sanchez, who had
marched westward, and with Roloff, Suarez, Cespedes and Collazo. He
established headquarters near the Matanzas border, where he was in touch
with Lacret, Matagas and other guerrilla leaders who were actively
engaged in the latter province. In that same month Maceo fought a
pit