been tried and acquitted by the jury; no bill had been found in two cases; in one case "Defendant could not be found, but the bond was not forfeited"; in another, "Defendant surrendered his bail, but afterward escaped." In all other instances the case was dismissed or a nolle was entered.
In one of Lamar's letters was a reference to what he calls his missionary work, and that is a subject needing further notice. An examination of newspapers and periodicals shows that many slave-owners had a strong desire for the expansion of the slave territory. Filibustering expeditions like that of Walker to Nicaragua grew out of it. Pollard in his "Black Diamonds" speaks of Walker as one of a number of men who looked over the whole territory bordering on the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico as a vast field for slave-holders to acquire in order that they might make of it a slave empire that should supply the world with cotton, coffee, sugar, and other staples, all to be produced by slave labor for the benefit of the dominant race. Pollard called the dream magnificent.
Then there was the plan for buying Cuba which Buchanan aided, as already mentioned. Spain could have had $100,000,000 for the island then.
In addition to these evidences of restlessness were the efforts made to reopen the slave-trade between Africa and the United States.
In De Bow's for November, 1858, is the following:
"It cannot be denied that the Southern States — more especially those in which are grown the great staples of cotton, sugar, and rice — demand a greater number of negro laborers than can now possibly be
