The Works of Humboldt and J. S. Thrasher on Cuba.

Baron Von Humboldt has caused the following article to be inserted in the Spenersche Zeitung:—

Under the title of “Essai Politique sur l’Isle de Cuba, published in Paris in 1826, I collected together all that the large edition of my “Voyage aux Regions Equinoxiales du Nouveau Continent” contained upon the state of agriculture and slavery in the Antilles.

There appeared at the same time an English and a Spanish translation of this work, the latter entitled “Ensayo Politico sobre la Isle de Cuba,” neither of which omitted any of the frank and open remarks which feelings of humanity had inspired.

But there appears just now, strangely enough, translated from the Spanish translation, and not from the French original, and published by Derby & Jackson in New York, an octavo volume of 400 pages, under the title of “The Island of Cuba,”

by Alexander Humboldt; with notes and a preliminary essay by J. S. Thrasher.

The translator, who has lived a long time on that beautiful island, has enriched my work by more recent data on the subject of the numerical standing of the population, of the cultivation of the soil, and the state of trade, and, generally speaking, exhibited a charitabie moderation in his discussion of conflicting opinions.

I owe it, however, to a moral feeling, that is now as lively in me as it was in 1826, publicly to complain that in a work which bears my name the entire seventh chapter of the Spanish translation, with which my essai politique ended, has been arbitrarily omitted.

To this very portion of my work I attach greater importance than to any astronomical observations, experiments of magnetic intensity or statistical statements.

“J’ai examiné avec franchise (I here repeat the words which I used thirty years ago) ce qui concerne l’organisation des sociétés humaines dans les colonies, l’inégale répartition des droits et des jouissances de la vie, les dangers menaçants que la sagesse des législateurs et la modération des hommes libres penvent c’oigner, quelleque soit la forme des gouvernements.

Il appartient au voyageur qui a vu de près ce qui tourmente et degrade la nature humaine de faire parvenir les plaintes de l’infortune à ceux qui ont le devoir de les soulager.

J’ai rappelé dans cet exposé combien l’ancienne législation Espagnolle de ’esclavage est moins inhumaine et moins atroce que celle des Etats à esclaves dans l’Amérique continentale au nord et au sud de l’équateur.” A steady advocate as I am for the most unfettered expression of opinion in speech or in writing, I should never have thought of complaining if I had been attacked on account of my statements; but I do think I am entitled to demand that, in the free States of the continent of America, people should be allowed to read what has been permitted to circulate from the first year of its appearance in a Spanish translation.

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.

Berlin, July, 1856.