THE

HE smashing of Cervera's Spanish fleet by the American squadron under the temporary command of Commodore Schley, off Santiago, uba, July 3, 1898.

metropolis to the verge of ruin. The conspirators managed to advance the price of gold from about one hundred and thirty to one hundred and sixty-five, at which time the managers of the corner had virtual control of the market, and openly boasted that they would put up the price of gold to two hundred! On the 24th of September, known as Black Friday, the crisis was broken by the action of the government. Mr. Boutwell unsealed the Treasury of the United States, poured the gold reserve on the heads of the gamblers, and forced down the price of their phantom gold twenty per cent. in less than as many minutes! The speculators were blown away in an uproar, but managed by fraud and corruption to carry off with them more than eleven million dollars as the profits of their game!

At this time was completed the reconstruction of the Southern States. On the 24th of January, 1870, the Senators and Representatives of Virginia were readmitted to Congress. On the 23d of February, like action was taken in the case of Mississippi; and on the 30th of March the work was completed by the readmission of Texas, last of the seceded States. After a period of nearly ten years, the people of all the States were again represented in the councils of the nation.

The vast work of taking and publishing the ninth census of the United States was completed in the years 1870-71. The results were of the most encouraging character. Notwithstanding the ravages of war, the last decade had been one of wonderful growth and progress. The population had increased from 31,433,000 to 38,587,000. The center of population had moved westward to a point fifty miles east of Cincinnati. The national debt had been somewhat reduced as to the figures in which it was expressed, but perhaps not at all in its value; for the currency had raised in value more rapidly than the debt had fallen off. The products of the Vol. III.-13

United States had reached an enormous aggregate; even the cotton crop of the Southern States had regained much of its importance in the markets of the world. The Union now embraced thirty-seven States and eleven Territories, and the latter were, as we have seen, rapidly approaching Statehood.

President Grant was perhaps the least visionary of all the great Americans who have risen to distinction in our political history. In one particular he had a favorite project, and that was the annexation of Santo Domingo to the United States. He also sought to extend and amplify the relations, civil, social and commercial, between the American republic and Mexico. His project for annexing Santo Domingo resulted in the appointment of a Board of Commissioners, composed of Senator Ben Wade, of Ohio, President Andrew D. White, of Cornell University, and Dr. Samuel Howe, of Massachusetts,-to visit Santo Domingo and report upon the desirability of annexation. The commissioners spent three months abroad, and reported in favor of the President's scheme. The matter was laid before Congress, but the opposition excited in that body was so great that the measure was defeated.

The time had now arrived when Great Britain was to be brought to the bar of justice for the wrongs which she had committed against the United States during the Civil War. The account held against that country by our government 'was sufficiently serious. The gravamen of the charges was the connivance of England in fitting out, equipping and encouraging the Confederate cruisers which preyed upon our commerce during the greater part of the war. The conduct of Great Britain was in plain violation of the law of nations. Time and again Mr. Seward remonstrated with the British authorities on account of their conduct. Great Britain, however, in common with all the monarchies of Western