Augustus Adee to Hamilton Fish, April 25, 1874

No. 259. Mr. Adee to Mr. Fish.

Sir: I have the honor to forward herewith a copy and translation of a communication published in La Epoca of the 21st instant, over the signature of Brig. Gen. Juan Burriel. This publication is an attempt to vindicate the conduct of the writer in the execution of the Virginius’s captives at Santiago de Cuba, and is addressed to the editor of La Revue des Deux Mondes, in answer to some strictures on the acts of the Cuban authorities which appeared in an article printed in that periodical in March last. The name and rank of the author, his presumable acquaintance with the facts of which he treats, the character of his defense, the statements he makes respecting the orders under which he claims to have acted, and the free publication of his communication by an influential journal at a time when the press is under a censorship of unusual rigor, all join in lending this remarkable document importance as a sort of semi-official manifestation in behalf of the officers concerned in the massacres at Santiago.

Two of General Burriel’s statements are deserving of especial remark. It will be noticed that he avers that the orders under which the Virginius was seized, and her officers and crew tried and shot, were contained in the decree of General Dulce of March 24, 1869, which, as he says, has never been repealed or abrogated. When the language of the preamble to the decree of July 7, 1869, in which it was stated that General Dulce orders were thereby superseded, and the many positive assurances, received from nearly every successive cabinet of Madrid deprecating the celebrated decree of March 24 are remembered, it appears indeed strange that General Burriel’s assertion should not only be made public, but suffered to remain uncontradicted.

The second noteworthy fact is found in the certificate of General Riquelme, chief of staff of the army of Cuba, which is given by General Burriel as an ample disculpation from the insinuation of the Revue des Deux Mondes, that the stoppage of telegraphic communication between Havana and Santiago at the time of the Virginius slaughter was “more or less fortuitous.” From this official document it appears that, while the cable connecting those cities was inoperative from October 13, 1873, to the date of the certificate, February 11, 1874, the land-line was only interrupted from the 1st to the 7th of November, and after a day’s interval, in which it may be inferred that it was temporarily in working order, it again became obstructed on the 8th of November, and continued so until the 13th of that month. As General Riquelme’s testimony in this regard confirms the report that the break in the line coincided with the arrival of the Virginius at Santiago, it can hardly be said to afford the triumphant exoneration claimed for it. On the contrary, it seems to have escaped attention that another and more serious suspicion might possibly be raised by the publication of this paper, since the news of the capture of the Virginius was received in Madrid at an early hour on the 6th of November, and not on the 7th, as General Burriel erroneously avers, and the orders of President Castelar, issued the same morning, which were not received in Havana, as Mr. Carvajal said, until the morning of the 7th, might not unreasonably be presumed to have reached that capital in season to be transmitted during the temporary resumption of communication by the land-line to which General Riquelme bears witness, and, consequently, it is not impossible that they might have been transmitted to Santiago before the shooting of the last batch of victims on the 8th.

Passing this by, however, it appears to me that, in view of the explicit declarations that General Burriel was obeying orders, it would not be out of place to ask an explanation of the matter in the proper quarter, and, in event of their inaccuracy, to demand the public retraction of this extraordinary letter.

I may add that General Burriel, who is now in Madrid, was said to have been warmly welcomed by many influential persons on his arrival, and it is announced in the Impartial Discusion, and other journals of various politics, that at a concert recently given in the Marquis of Alcanice’s palace in aid of the sick and wounded, General Burriel was “the object of marked demonstrations of sympathy for his energetic conduct at Santiago de Cuba.”

I am, &c.,