which we have already cited, which had the result of assuring all
wavering or doubtful Cubans that the most authoritative leaders of their
nation were directing the revolution, and that it was to be indeed a
struggle to a finish. There was another result. The Spanish
Captain-General, Emilio Callejas, despaired of coping with the steadily
rising storm, and on March 27 he placed his resignation in the hands of
the Queen Regent of Spain. That sovereign immediately summoned a Cabinet
council, herself presiding. It was no longer the Liberal Cabinet of
Praxedes Sagasta. That body had fallen a few days before, in a
political crisis which had arisen in Madrid over a newspaper controversy
about Cuban affairs. An advanced Liberal paper, _El Resumen_, had
imputed cowardice to army officers who, it said, were always eager to
serve in Cuba in time of peace, but shunned that island whenever there
was fighting going on. At this a mob of officers attacked and wrecked
the offices of the paper, and the next evening attacked the offices of
_El Heraldo_ and _El Globo_, which had denounced their doings. The next
day all the papers of Madrid notified the government that they would
suspend publication unless assured of protection against such outrages.
General Lopez Dominguez approved the conduct of the riotous officers and
demanded that the editors of the papers be delivered to him for trial by
court martial. The Prime Minister, Sagasta, replied that that would not
be legal, since all press offences against the army short of treason
must be tried before civil juries. Then Marshal Martinez Campos, who as
Captain-General had ended the Ten Years' War in Cuba, led a deputation
of army officers to demand of Sagasta that he should suppress _El
Resumen_ and have more strict press laws enacted. Sagasta refused and,
finding his support in the Cortes untrustworthy in the face of military
bullying, offered the resignation of the Ministry, on March 17. The
Queen Regent invited Campos to form a Ministry, but he declined; though
he announced that all newspaper men attacking the army would be shot,
and he arbitrarily haled before military tribunals a number of editors,
while other journalists fled the country.

The Queen Regent then called upon Canovas del Castillo, the Conservative
leader, to form a cabinet, and on March 25 he did so, despite the fact
that his party was in a minority in the Cortes, and it was this
Conservative cabinet which the sovereign