People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1896 — HER HORDE OF FOES. [ARTICLE]

HER HORDE OF FOES.

CUBA’B STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM COMPARED WITH OUR OWN. Fore— AmjreA Against the Island Patriot* Five Times More Numerous Than Our Revolutionary Foes—The Tremendous Discrepancy In Armies. The inability of the tremendous Spanish forces in Cuba to end the revolution has oaused a good deal of admiration for the heroism of the Cuban patriots in their struggle for independence. A Cuban sympathizer in Washington, alluding to the heavy forces that Spain has sent into the island, makes an interesting comparison between the struggle in Cuba and that in the American colonies, whioh resulted in the independence of the United States. He says: “The population of the united colonies during the Revolutionary war has been estimated at about 8,000,000. The present population of Cuba is given at about 1,600,000. As at least 600,000 of these are Spaniards, who are either nonoombatants or are aotually assisting Spain, it will be # seen that the population of the oolonies in rebellion against Great Britain was about three times the present population of Cuba in rebellion against Spain. “The following extract from the correspondence of John Adams, written in Deoember, 1809, will be read with interest as showing tbe foroea against which our Revolutionary forefathers oontended. He says: “ ‘Great Britain, in our Revolutionary war, never had in North America, including the Canadas, at any one time more than five and twenty thousand men. During some part of the war 1 thought they had 40,000, but upon examining their most authentic documents and memorials I have long settled an opinion that they never exceeded 96,000. ’ “Mr. Sparks, who takes his figures from the state papers, gives the number more exactly as follows: June, 1777, 80,057; August, 1778, 84,064; May, 1779, 87,808; August, 1780, 87,918; May, 1781, 88,187; June, 1782, 89,089, or an average of not quite 80,000 men for each of the years named. “On tho other hand, I have never seen tbe number of Spanish troops in Cuba stated at less than 800,000, to say nothing of the 16,000 or 80,000 Spanish Cuban volunteers or militia. To properly appreciate, therefore, the enormous disparity between the number of troops sent by Qreat Britain to subjugate America and the number sent by Spain to conquer the Cuban patriots we should oontrast the figures as follows : Cuban patriot population 1,000,000 Spanish troops 200,000 Amorioan patriot population 8,000,000 British troops... 80,000 “But historians have everywhere conceded that without the assistance of France the American patriots would have failed in their struggle for independence. What, then, would have been the outcome had Great Britain sent against her colonies in rebellion 600,000 troops? This would have been the number our forefathers would have had to contend against, and that, too, without the aid of France, if we contrast the situation in Cuba today with that of tho American oolonies during tbe Revolution. “It is, moreover, to be remembered that tjaUßrltish troops were armed with flintldwmuskets, 1° which respeot they were Jw no way superior to our own people. On the other hand, the Spanish infantry of today are armed with the best modern rapid fire, breeohloading guns, to oppose whioh 86 per cent of the Cubans have nothing better than the machete. “That these men, insignifioant in numbers, poorly armed, barefooted and ragged, are able under such adverse circumstances to ‘put up. a fight’ and maintain it for two years against such unprecedented odds is one of the marvels of patriotic effort. ’’—Philadelphia Press.