THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
then Captain General of Cuba, would be its military and political head. The announcement of General Prim's name for that important position excited general comment. There was much curiosity about the real reasons for the change. I sought enlightenment from Olozaga. He thought that England had probably asked for Prim's appointment on the ground that Prim had, two years before, made a strong speech in the Spanish Senate against the schemes and doings of the Clericals in Mexico, and that he would now be likely to oppose the intrigues of the party he had then so emphatically denounced. But this theory was denied by Sir John Crampton, the British Minister, who told me that he was entirely ignorant of any such arrangement, and that he thought Lord John Russell knew very little of General Prim and his political opinions. If foreign influence had anything to do with the appointment, it was more probably that of Louis Napoleon, with whom Prim was a great favorite, besides being on very intimate terms with the French ambassador in Madrid.
I then discussed the matter with one of the chiefs of the Moderado party, who suggested an explanation thoroughly characteristic of Spanish political conditions. Prim, he said, was so incessantly worried by his financial embarrassments that something had to be done for him, or he might be tempted to do something for himself. He might, some day, appear at the head of regiments devoted to him, issue a pronunciamento calling the people to arms for some reason or other, and upset the Cabinet, and, perhaps, even the dynasty, to make room for himself. Prim, he said, was not only capable of venturing upon such things, but his great popularity with the army and the people would also make such an attempt on his part very formidable. It was not at all unlikely that the government, in order to get rid of so dangerous a man, had given
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