n of Congress, of April 20, 1898, thus:

"That the United States hereby disclaims any disposition or intention to
exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said Island except
for the pacification thereof, and asserts its determination, when that is
accomplished, to leave the government and control of the Island to its
people."

At twelve o'clock, noon, on the 20th of May, 1902, there was gathered
in the State Apartment of the Palace occupied by many Spanish
Governors-General, the officials of the United States, the elected
officials of the new Cuban Republic, and a limited number of guests. In
that same apartment, General Castellanos signed the abdication of Spanish
authority. In its turn, pursuant to its pledges, the United States
transferred authority to the President of the Cuban Republic. Four
centuries of subjection, and a century of protest and struggle, were there
and then ended, and Cuba joined the sisterhood of independent nations.

XI

_FILIBUSTERING_

The term "filibuster" affords an interesting example of the way in which
words and their uses become twisted into something altogether different
from their original meaning. It comes from a Dutch word, several centuries
old, _vrijbuiter_, or free vessel or boat. It got somehow into English as
"freebooter," and into Spanish as _filibustero_. The original referred
to piracy. Two or three centuries later, it meant an engagement in
unauthorized and illegal warfare against foreign States, in effect,
piratical invasions. In time, it came into use to describe the supply
of military material to revolutionists, and finally to obstruction in
legislative proceedings. In his message of June 13, 1870, President Grant
said that "the duty of opposition to filibustering has been admitted by
every President. Washington encountered the efforts of Genet and the French
revolutionists; John Adams, the projects of Miranda; Jefferson, the schemes
of Aaron Burr. Madison and subsequent Presidents had to deal with the
question of foreign enlistment and equipment in the United States, and
since the days of John Quincy Adams it has been one of the constant cares
of the Government in the United States to prevent piratical expeditions
against the feeble Spanish American Republics from leaving our shores."

In 1806, Francisco Miranda, a Venezuelan patriot whose revolutionary
activities preceded those of Simon Bolivar, sailed from New York on what
would have been called