Applying the best information which I have been enabled to gather,
whether from official or unofficial sources, including the very
exaggerated statements which each party gives to all that may prejudice
the opposite or give credit to its own side of the question, I am unable
to see in the present condition of the contest in Cuba those elements
which are requisite to constitute war in the sense of international law.

The insurgents hold no town or city; have no established seat of
government; they have no prize courts; no organization for the receiving
and collecting of revenue; no seaport to which a prize may be carried or
through which access can be had by a foreign power to the limited
interior territory and mountain fastnesses which they occupy. The
existence of a legislature representing any popular constituency is more
than doubtful.

In the uncertainty that hangs around the entire insurrection there is no
palpable evidence of an election, of any delegated authority, or of any
government outside the limits of the camps occupied from day to day by
the roving companies of insurgent troops; there is no commerce, no
trade, either internal or foreign, no manufactures.

The late commander in chief of the insurgents, having recently come to
the United States, publicly declared that "all commercial intercourse or
trade with the exterior world has been utterly cut off;" and he further
added: "To-day we have not 10,000 arms in Cuba."

It is a well-established principle of public law that a recognition by
a foreign state of belligerent rights to insurgents under circumstances
such as now exist in Cuba, if not justified by necessity, is a
gratuitous demonstration of moral support to the rebellion. Such