Mr. Fillmore employed an architect, approved of a plan, and made every suitable preparation for commencing operations during the spring or summer of the following year. By the last of June, all things were ready for laying the corner-stone; but this pleasing ceremony was deferred that it might take place on the anniversary day of American independence, a day which could hardly receive a more suitable commemoration. The corner-stone of the original building had been laid by Washington on the 18th of September, 1793. He had been assisted by some of the most eminent men of that period; and, when Mr. Fillmore was to perform a similar duty, to make the occasion most memorable, he relied on the presence, and aid, and eloquence of Daniel Webster. After the ceremony of depositing the stone had been completed, Mr. Webster stood up before the vast assemblage, which was probably as large a body of people as had ever been seen in one place at Washington, and pronounced that oration, which, for appropriateness to the occasion, for sound political wisdom, for patriotic sentiment, and for all his characteristic felicity of expression, may well stand and go down to posterity as the last great performance of the first orator and statesman of his country. It will be read and admired while there is a country, a free country, an enlightened, patriotic, American republic, to admire anything worthy of admiration.

It was during this first year of Mr. Fillmore's administra tion, that the expedition of Lopez against Cuba came to so just and yet so sad a termination. Its ill success, however, did but little in suppressing the adventurous spirit that had inspired that movement. Cuba, if added to the Union, would not only soon constitute a southern and a slave-holding state, but it might be made, and doubtless would be made, the great slavemart of all the other slave-holding states. The object of this expedition had been to revolutionize the island as the first step towards its annexation to this republic; and Lopez, a worthless

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but bold adventurer, and a Spaniard, who held his life cheap, had been employed as the most fit person, considering his nationality and his fearlessness of character, to conduct it. He had been successful in alluring many thoughtless and equally worthless young men of this country, gathered from the corruptest portions of our great Atlantic cities, and in thus drawing together quite an army. His head-quarters, before em barking, had been made at New Orleans; but, on landing on the island, after a few slight successes, he had been cut to pieces by the troops of the colonial government. He was himself garroted, or strangled, according to an old Spanish custom; and he died with the firmness of a desperado. Fifty of his followers suffered a similar fate; and the remainder of his deluded band, except a few who were pardoned, were carried in chains to Spain to await the orders of the imperial government. This termination of things so disappointed their friends and sympathizers at home, that excessive feelings began to manifest themselves in several of our great cities, among the lower population; and, at New Orleans, the disappointment was so intense, that the rabble rushed upon the office of the Spanish consul, tore up or seriously insulted and mutilated the Spanish flag, and even fell upon the property and persons of peaceable Spanish citizens, committing outrages of a very unusual and heinous character.

In this condition of affairs, the Spanish minister at Washing. ton, Don Calderon de la Barca, addressed a note to Mr. Webster, dated October 14th, 1851, complaining of these outrages, and demanding immediate reparation at the hands of the federal government. His demand was entirely just; and Mr. Webster sent him a reply, dated the 13th of November, cordially condemning, in the name of the American government, this ill-starred and wicked expedition, and promising every possible and constitutional satisfaction for the excesses at New Orleans, which the president had power to make. This move

ment against Cuba, which was sought after for the immoral purposes before stated, could not fail to meet with the most settled and determined opposition of the secretary; and the president himself was equally resolved, shutting his eyes to all considerations of personal popularity, either at the south or north, to call into action the entire military force of the country, if necessary, to put down an enterprise so unjust in itself, so injurious to our fair name abroad, and so destructive of all sound political morality at home. There can be no doubt, in fact, that the country owes it to that high-minded administra tion, that the escutcheon of liberty was not at that time blotted with a crime, which would have dishonored and weakened us abroad, and covered the face of every worthy and well-meaning citizen with shame. It was a poor time, certainly, with Millard Fillmore as president, and with Daniel Webster in the chair of state, to undertake expeditions of attack and conquest. upon the rightful possessions of our neighbors. Heaven grant that all future presidents, and all succeeding secretaries, may imitate the rectitude and justice of their example!

Immediately following this correspondence with the Spanish minister, Mr. Webster dispatched a letter to Mr. Barringer, our minister at the court of Madrid, soliciting in the most eloquent terms the release of those American prisoners, who had been captured in Cuba, and who were now under sentence of being sent to the Spanish mines. This letter is wholly charac teristic of Mr. Webster. It opens with a true history of all the facts of the case, honorably stated in their full force, and closes with an appeal to the magnanimity, and clemency, and better judgment of the Spanish government, which could not fail to convince and move either a philanthropic or a prudent mind. The court of Madrid felt the force of this appeal; and, in a short time, Mr. Webster had the happiness to learn, that a hundred and sixty-two of his unfortunate but not blameless

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countrymen had been restored to their families, if not to a proper life and conduct, entirely through his means.

Among the individuals captured and seized by the authori. ties of Cuba, was John S. Thrasher, a native-born citizen of the United States, who, many years before, had gone to the island in pursuit of business, and who had finally settled down as a citizen of Cuba, and taken the oath of allegiance to the Spanish crown. This person, while the movement against Cuba was in a state of preparation, had some connection, it is said, with the publication of a newspaper; and when the invaders were on the island, before and after their defeat and capture, he was accused of administering to their aid and comfort. It was pretty clear, in fact, at the time these events transpired, that Mr. Thrasher had chosen to leave his native country, for the purpose of making his residence within the limits and under the jurisdiction of another government; that, in order to obtain the full protection of the Spanish laws, without which his business could not have been so well or so profitably conducted, he had sworn fealty to the Spanish crown, promising to abide by and observe all the regulations of the country where he had voluntarily taken up his residence; but that, contrary to all good principle, he had broken his faith with the Spanish government, from the beginning of this adventure, by secretly sympathizing with it, and aiding its plans of conquest, as he could not have done without his legal and acknowledged character as a Spanish citizen. He had been caught in his malpractices, however, tried, condemned, and sent to Spain to spend eight years at hard labor. His friends at home delayed. not, of course, to make application to the American gov. ernment in his behalf; and, before there was time to search out the facts in the case, they very unjustly complained of the tardiness of Mr. Webster in not answering their demand more speedily. This complaint was permitted to find its way into the public prints; and all the democratic journals, or a

large number of them, immediately made battle on him as a slow if not dilatory officer. Mr. Webster was unmoved by all this uproar. He went directly forward, in his own way, in the faithful prosecution of what he supposed to be his duty. He dispatched two letters, one after the other, to the American consul at Havana; but no answers came to him, none, at least, in time to give him the needed information for prompt action. Mr. Thrasher himself, though filling the opposition newspapers with his communications, or with communications purporting to be his, sent not a word to the department of state at Washington. From other sources, however, Mr. Webster received proof enough, that Mr. Thrasher had been guilty of a breach of faith with the Cuban authorities; that he was consequently an unreliable, unsafe, and unworthy man; and that, should his release be obtained, he would be more than likely to run into the same or some similar trouble at the first opportunity. Under these circumstances, Mr. Webster could not be expected to be very warm or very hearty in his application to the Spanish court; and he chose to suffer some reproach for a time, rather than be found pleading with any excessive earnestness the cause of a man, who would be almost certain, as he thought, soon to need some one to plead in his behalf again. Here, as so frequently before, were the moderation and wisdom of Mr. Webster again seen. He chose to suffer rather than do wrong, trusting that, whatever might be the passion of the hour, the day of deliberative justice would at some time come. That day has now come. It is now here. That very individual, who was then published as "a most amiable and peaceable young man," who "never dreamed of having any connection with the invaders of Cuba," and who was 66 as far from raising a disturbance with other countries as the honora ble secretary himself," is now, at this moment, while these 'ines are being penned, according to the public prints of the day, under arrest in the city of New Orleans for an effort to