Caleb Cushing to the Conde de Casa-Valencia, October 20, 1875

Mr. Cushing to the Conde de Casa-Valencia.

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge reception of your excellency’s note of the 17th instant, in which you inform me of the actual initiation of proceedings against the authorities of Santiago de Cuba, in pursuance of the protocol of the 29th of November, 1873. It affords me great satisfaction to know that this step, so long deferred by previous governments, has at length been taken by that of His Majesty. It also affords me satisfaction to receive renewed assurance that the recent promotion of D. Juan Burriel will constitute no obstacle to the full examination of his participation in the inculpated acts, as, indeed, I already fully believed, in reliance on th£ declaration of his excellency Mr. Castro, and the recognized honorability and good faith of His Majesty’s government.

I doubt not the step thus taken, and the related assurances given by His Majesty’s government, will afford the same satisfaction to my Government, to which your excellency’s note has been promptly transmitted with appropriate commentaries.

Incidental expressions in that note would seem to imply that all my previous notes to the ministry of state on this subject had been replied to, which compels me to ask myself whether I had been, perchance, laboring under a misapprehension, in supposing, as indicated in my note of the 4th instant, that no specific answer was ever made by any minister of state to my note of the 24th of September, 1874, arguing the culpability of D. Juan Burriel, and presenting reasons for his arraignment and punishment by his government, or to so much of a previous note of the 27th of June, 1874, as touched the same point. If such misapprehension existed, it should and would be cheerfully confessed, and the inferences founded thereon withdrawn.

I have, therefore, caused the files of the legation to be carefully re-examined in this respect, and with the following results:

His excellency the minister of state for the time being replied, under date of July 8, 1874, to so much of my note of the 27th of the previous June as called in question the validity of D. Juan Burriel’s plea in justification of his action at Santiago de Cuba, assumed by him to be found in a certain order issued by General Dulce, which his excellency Mr. Ulloa admitted had been repealed by General Caballero de Rodas, and, therefore, did not constitute justification in the premises; but he did not take issue with me on the main question of the imputed demerits of D. Juan Burriel.

I am unable to discover that the particular considerations adduced in my note of the 24th of September, 1874, to show why D. Juan Burriel should be arraigned, were ever specifically met, or even that the reception of that note was ever acknowledged.

The long and able argumentative note of his excellency Mr. Ulloa of the 3d of December, 1874, was professedly and in fact in response to a note of mine of July 21, 1874, consecrated to the distinct question of the indemnities claimed for the officers and crew of the Virginius shot at Santiago de Cuba.

In the same note, it is true, his excellency disposes of the particular question of D. Juan Burriel; but in express response to my note of November 30, 1874, alone.

Can it be that my note of the 24th of September, 1874, miscarried, and by some untoward accident failed to reach the minister of state? I should be sorry to find it so, for (sotto voce, and without presumption, be it said) I had flattered myself that the points it presented were well put, first, in contending that the wholesale executions in cold blood at Santiago de Cuba were worse than those of Olat, Cuenca, and Estella, since the former were not only, like the latter, of unarmed men and of prisoners, but, in addition to that, of non-combatants; and, secondly, because of the examples exhibited by me of officers of equal (and even higher) category and merit than D. Juan Burriel having been tried and (although for less offenses) cashiered by the Government of the United States at the instance of that of Spain.

I abstain, however, at the present apparently auspicious stage of this protracted controversy from re-opening those questions; and I beg pardon for having even touched upon them thus briefly in a note of which the sole aim was originally, and the main object still is, to express my own satisfaction and anticipate that of my Government in view of the information contained in your excellency’s note; the digression from which to a minor matter has been partly, it is true, in discharge of my own conscience, but still more for the due satisfaction of your excellency.

I avail myself of this occasion to reiterate to your excellency the assurance of my most distinguished consideration.