Reports from Cuba as to the insurgents' cause have this week been perceptibly fewer. It is known that a number of filibustering expeditions have landed, and the Cubans feel very much elated. They say that the _Maine_ disaster has helped them in this country, for it has increased the feeling against Spain.
The condition of the reconcentrados is terrible. You will remember that General Weyler issued a decree that the farmers with their families, and the people who lived out in the country, should leave their homes and come into the towns. This was done because it was believed that these people were supplying the insurgents with food and aiding them in other ways. Of course, when these poor people were herded together in and around the cities and towns, a great many of them had no possible way of making a living. Starvation has resulted, and thousands of these reconcentrados, as they are called, are dying. It is estimated that there are very nearly 300,000 of them, and what food and clothing they need must be given to them. The Spaniards, as can be imagined, have not been very charitably disposed toward these poor people, and the United States has generously come to the rescue. Tons of food and clothing have already been sent to the island, and almost every day we read of some vessel starting for Cuba with supplies for these unfortunate people.
The United States Government has deemed the matter important enough to despatch two gunboats, the _Montgomery_ and _Nashville_, with provisions to Matanzas and Sagua la Grande, Cuba.
The supplies have been sent to Key West, to be forwarded from there in the vessels selected.
Spain, through her representative at Washington, Señor du Bosc, objected to the use of war-vessels for this purpose, and it was at first decided to send the supplies in the despatch-boat _Fern_, in many respects better fitted for such a purpose. Finally, however, orders were sent to Key West to carry out the original plan.
That Spain objects to the visits of our war-ships to these Cuban ports may lead to further complications, for with equal reason she can exclude our ships from Havana harbor, and this would prevent us from protecting our own citizens who are in Havana.