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YALE
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

THE CASE

OF THE

ARREST, TRIAL AND SENTENCE IN THE
CITY OF HAVANA,, ISLAND OF CUBA

OF

JULIO SANGUILY
A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

BY
JOSE IGNACIO RODRIGUEZ
COUNSEL FOR THE r 1SONER IN THE
CITY OF WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON, D. C.
PRESS OF W. F. ROBERTS
1897

THE CASE
OF THE ARREST, TRIAL AND SENTENCE IN THE CITY
OF HAVANA, ISLAND OF CUBA, OF
JULIO SANGUILY,
A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

The case of Julio Sangtjily, a citizen of the United States
of America, arrested and tried in Havana, Island of Cuba, on
a charge of political character, did not begin to attract, to any
practical extent at least, the attention of the people in this
country, until after it had gone successfully through its most
dangerous stages.
Fortunately for the prisoner, the action in his favor of Mr.
Richard Olney, Secretary of State of the United States of
America, at all times prompt, patriotic and energetic, and the
action of his lawyers in Washington, and in Havana, as well
as in Madrid, always firm, calm, conscientious, inspired by no
other sentiment than the good of their client and absolutely
and completely disinterested, were never hampered, to any
amount worth mentioning, by outside interposition of any kind,
until the very moment in which, through skillful diplomatic
management, the release of Sanguily from imprisonment, with
out further suffering or humiliation, had been secured.
But that moment was one of extreme perplexity, which the
friends of Sanguily will not easily forget. Through an exube
rant effusion of patriotic zeal and most commendable humani
tarian feelings on the part of certain members of the United
States Senate ; — through a noble, although misguided, senti-

ment of generous compassion, industriously worked up in their
minds, and in the minds of the kind hearted people of this
country, by wilful misrepresentation of the facts of the case,
and by stories propagated by false friends and intruders about
wrongs and sufferings and indignities perpetrated upon the
prisoner, which in fact were never perpetrated or attempted to
be perpetrated ; — through the desire of certain Cuban agitators,
without authority to speak for the prisoner, of posing as his
friends, urging extreme measures, and precipitating, if possible,
a conflict between the United States and Spain, aiming at no
other end and seeking no other thing than the advance of the
cause in the advocation of which they were engaged ;— through
the temptation into which many a distinguished public man of
this country seemed to have been led of converting a case,
which involved the liberty and perhaps the life of a citizen of
the United States of America, into an instrument of opposition
to the ideas and principles represented by President Cleveland
and his Secretary of State, Mr. Olney ; — through the vocifera
tion of certain part of the press ; — and through many other
causes and circumstances, a condition of things, which might
have proved fatal, was created at once. A measure of doubtful
¦justice, and of more than questionable efficiency, calculated
perhaps more to irritate Spain and embroil the United States of
America in a war with that nation, than to save Sanguily, and
grounded upon an imperfect knowledge of the facts of the case,
was attempted to be rushed through the United States Senate,
exactly at the same time in which the determination already
reached by Spain to comply with the wishes of the United
States of America and set Julio Sanguily at liberty was being
carried into execution.
Thanks to Divine Providence, through the righteous attitude
of the State Department ; — through the firm stand of some Hon
orable Senators, who were then called ' ' organs of the Governor-
General of Cuba, or of the Queen of Spain," and against whom
the friends of the measure acknowledged to have used " a little

3
by-word of bandinage ;" through the cooperation of the Spanish
Minister ; and perhaps through the earnest appeal of the pris
oner's counsel to the Honorable Chairman of the Senate Com
mittee on Foreign Relations, — the crisis was averted, and the
most gracious act of Her Majesty the Queen Regent of Spain,
to whom Sanguily personally was not absolutely a stranger, (*)
could be carried into effect in Havana, without the slightest
difficulty. When the echo of the speeches which were made in the
Senate and of the applauses which their most fiery passages
had elicited from the galleries, had not as yet died out, San
guily, already a free man, was joining his family, and prepar
ing to leave the Island of Cuba.
Warm hearts and cool heads had once more overpowered the
furies of blind excitement.
As an Honorable Senator, who represents in part in the
Federal Congress one of the most enlightened and law abiding
States of this powerful Union, — a State, however, which has the
misfortune of being in this respect a house divided within itself,
as the other Honorable Senator who completes its representa
tion in that high body radically differs from his colleague in
many matters of importance, — did not hesitate to declare in the

(*) Subsequently to the compromise which put an end to the Cuban war
of independence of 1868-1878, Sanguily went to Spain and had the honor
to be presented in Madrid to Her Majesty the Queen Regent. She was
pleased to have with him a long conference, in which she treated him
with the utmost kindness. She invited him to be seated during the
whole time he was in her presence, and asked him many questions about
himself, about his wounds, about Cuba, and about the motives which
had prompted him to go to war against Spain. Noticing that he inad
vertently had omitted in one of his answers to address her as "Your
Majesty," and had used the ordinary Spanish "Usted," equivalent
to the English "you,'' a mistake which somewhat embarrassed him
for a moment, she told him with a smile not to give her any more her
Royal title of honor. And when dismissing him, and wishing him good
health and prosperity, she gave him the permission to write to her,
directly, whenever he desired to have some favor granted, and indicated
the channel through which his communication should reach her hands.

effervescence of his rhetoric that the action of Sanguily' s law
yer had been " exceedingly wicked and unjust;" (*) as the
discussion in the Senate during the stormy session of the 25th
of February, 1897, evinced a most extraordinary misapprehen
sion of facts, which it is important to correct ; as the principles
of law, both international and municipal, involved in the case
have not been settled and in all probability shall have again to
be discussed; as the interest which this case has excited justi
fies a professional inquiry into its merits, a study of its features
in its judicial as well as in its diplomatic branch, and a com
parison between it and other cases of analogous character which
are historical and to which both the United States Government
and the Government of Spain were parties ; and as the neces
sity to do justice to whom justice is due is recognized by all,
specially amidst the fair minded righteous communities which
form this Union, — the writer of the present pages has not
deemed to be improper to appear before the public and submit
them to its judgment.
May they be read in the same spirit of abhorrence of injustice
in all its forms, and of love of truth, pure unsophisticated
truth, in which they have been written.
I
THE ARREST OF SANGUILY, ITS CAUSES, REAL AND
ALLEGED, AND THE CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER
WHICH IT WAS MADE.
Julio Sanguily, a Cuban by birth, and a man of great promi
nence in the Cuban War of Independence of 1868-1878, in
which he served with particular distinction as a Cuban Major
General and had occasion to display very often his exceptional
military ability and his almost legendary courage, was arrested
in his house, in the city of Havana, Island of Cuba, where he
had been living for some years in union with his family, at

(*) Mr. William P. Frye, from Maine. Congressional Record, Feb
ruary 25, 1897. Page 2383.

5
about seven o'clock in the morning of Sunday the 24th of
February, 1895.
This arrest, which had been ordered by the Governor-General
of Cuba, on the ground which will be explained hereafter, was
made quietly, without any unnecessary display of force or
harsh treatment, but on the contrary with as much respectful
consideration towards the prisoner as it was posible under the
circumstances, by Colonel Don Jos6 Paglieri, the Chief of the
Havana Police, upon whom it had befallen to fulfill such an
unpleasant duty.
Sanguily was taken in a carriage from his home to the
Police Headquarters, where he was seen by his brother, a
distinguished Cuban scholar and jurist, and from there he was
transferred, a short while afterwards to Fortress La Cabana,
where he was left, locked up in a cell or casemate, to await
the action of a court martial.
To understand this arrest, as well as others which were
made contemporarily, the fact must not be forgotten that the
day before, Saturday the 23d of February, 1895, the whole
territory of the Island of Cuba had been placed practically
under the empire of Martial Law. Upon the ground that ' ' a
few ungrateful men, impelled by immeasurable ambition, having
no worthy flag, and assisted and seconded perhaps by people
unfriendly to labor, and even by criminals, were inviting a
civil war, the greatest calamity which can befall a civilized
people," His Excellency Don Fmilio Calleja e Isasi, a Lieu ten
ant-General in the Spanish Army and then the Governor-Gen
eral of the Island, had issued on that date, asolemn proclamation,
as usual in such cases, suspending practically all constitutional
guarantees, and directing the so-called Law of Public Order of
April 23d, 1870, to be put in operation and enforced at once as
the paramount law of the land, throughout the whole Cuban
territory. A translation into English of the said proclamation and of
some important articles of the Law of Public Order referred to

by it, transmitted to the State Department by Mr. R. 0. Wil
liams the United States Consul-General at Havana, with his
dispatch of February 26th, 1895, and printed in Document No.
224 of the House of Representatives, 54th Congress, ist session,
pages 13 to 15, shows to what extent, under the spur of self
defense and public safety the powers of the Governor-General
had then been stretched. Whether this measure was wise ;
whether it was taken under a misapprehension of the magni
tude of the movement or its intrinsic force; whether it was in
spired by that feeling of distrust which lies at the very bottom
of all the troubles between Spain and Cuba ; whether it served
only, through inaugurating an era of violence which in its
subsequent developments has tantalized the world, to infuse
life into a movement which was not born in the country,
which when imported there found no followers, which needed
to be " rammed down through the throats of the people as the
load of a musket is rammed into its barrel ", (*) and which,
if successful as far as the annihilating almost totally the resour
ces and the wealth of Cuba is concerned, has owed its success
exclusively to Spanish mistakes, prompted by criminal pride
or blindness (f), — are questions which do not belong to this

(*) The words quoted in the text are a correct translation of those ut
tered in Spanish, in a moment of anger and disappointment, by the
Dominican Mdximo Gomez when after invading the province of Puerto
Principe he saw no disposition on the part of the people to join him.
(t) Consul-General Williams in forwarding to the State Department the
translations referred to in the text said: "The insurrectional movements
that have given rise to the measures of the Governor-General seem to be
limited to a very small number of persons, as shown by the prompt
action of the three political parties engrossing the greatest part of the
population and really representing the entire planting, industrial and
commercial interests, as well as the professional classes of the Island;
though it cannot be denied that poverty induced by the cumulative effects
of the erroneous economic system long established here has brought
about discontent among the working classes, since the principal export
able productions of the Island, sugar and tobacco are very depressed in
their exchangeable values. This has brought on low and precarious wao-es,

place and are not attempted to be discussed here. But the fact
that it was taken, and that through it the situation of Cuba
was changed from one of orderly administration of law into
another of military rule and more or less ruthless violence,
must necessarily be borne in mind, if a complete idea of all the
circumstances attending this case is to be formed intelligently.
In justice to Governor General Calleja it must be stated also
that this method adopted by him to deal with the situation in
Cuba, and this arresting people and lodging them in fortresses
for alleged sympathies with rebels, without paying extra atten
tion to individual rights, was not a novel process, exclusively
Spanish, or the invention of which was traceable to him
personally. In no country in the civilized world situations of
this character fail to present themselves together with the
circumstances out of which they arise. And even in these
United States, where individual liberty is not a theory but an
actual fact, where the individual citizen is the master and the
constituted authorities, even the highest in the social order,
acknowledge without difficulty that they are the servants, and
where the man who is naturally inclined to vex and tyrannize his
fellow being is rather an uncommon exception, the exhibition of
arbitrariness and rash proceedings, when the moment of danger

while at the same time important provisions and clothing are very high,
and in unfavorable disproportion to the earnings of the workmen." —
Doc. No. 224, House of Representatives, 54th Congress, ist session, page
14. Marshall Martinez Campos in one of his speeches in the Spanish Senate,
explained that hunger had been and continued to be a cause of the pro
gress of the war in Cuba, — "More than 50,000 men," he said, "at Las
Villas and at Matanzas had been left (when the war commenced) without
a mouthful of bread and without resources of any kind, as the preceding
crop had scarcely yielded what was necessary to meet the expenses,
and as all work for the present one had been suspended. There being in
the country no saving habits, no cooperative associations, nothing which
could relieve the situation, the forced idleness of these men turned to be
a serious affliction, which imparts to the rebellion, specially at this mo
ment, when all work in the small farms has been given up, a most
pavorous character."— (El Pais, Habana, July 28, 1896.)

arrived, might challenge comparison. If the Appleton Ameri
can Annual Cyclopaedia, volume corresponding to 1861, article
Habeas Corpus, states the truth, the situation which existed in
this country, as far as individual liberty was concerned, when
the war of the secession broke out, might serve to demonstrate,
if demonstration should be needed, that human nature is
always the same, and that it ends after all by asserting itself.
The article above cited contains a full description of the
proceedings resorted to at that time, and a list of the citizens,
175 in number, who were arrested and transported to Fort
Lafayette, N. Y., between the 20th of July and the 19th of
October 1861, without authority of law, by mere executive
decree, which in many cases consisted simply in a telegraphic
order. It must be stated also that the apprehensions felt by the
Governor-General, as set forth in his proclamation, soon proved
to be well founded ; — and that no longer period than twenty-four
hours was required to elapse, before the dreadful calamity to
which he had referred put in its appearance. The fact must
not be forgotten that on that memorable 24th of February, 1895,
on which Sanguily was arrested, the revolution which now
counts fifty-two months of existence broke out in Cuba.
According to an affidavit, or certified statement, of Governor-
General Calleja, dated March 25th, 1895, on fi^e ln the record
of the case, the arrest of Sanguily was ordered upon confiden
tial reports, which convinced the Governor- General that the
prisoner had been conspiring against the Government of Spain,
and was to throw his sword and the prestige of his name in the
cause of the rebellion.
These are the textual words of the affidavit : ' 'As to Don
Julio Sanguily and Don Jose Maria Aguirre, it is known to
me, through confidential communications, both from this capi
tal (Havana) and from abroad, that they were promoters of
the separatist rebellion, and that it was said that they were to
place themselves at the head of the insurrectionary movement

9
in the provinces of Havana, Matanzas and Santa Clara. That
their whole conduct which was closely watched by the police
also proved this. And that it was certain that they main
tained relations and correspondence with the revolutionary
Junta at New York, with the workingmen abroad (meaning
probably the Cuban cigarmakers of Key West, Tampa, and
other cities of the United States of America) and with the
separatist committees of the provinces of the Island of Cuba.
Lastly, that by the same confidential channel I have received
more evidence concerning their operations, and particularly
their participation in the acquisition of munitions of war ; but
as these proofs are given in confidential communications, I
abstain from making them public." (Doc. No. 104, Senate,
54th Congress, 2nd Session, page 56. )
This Don Jose Maria Aguirre, to whom the affidavit refers,
is the same JosE Maria Timoteo Aguirre, citizen of the
United States of America, who was arrested in Havana, on the
same day as Sanguily, just at the moment in which he was
boarding a train to go to the country, who through the
earnest efforts of the United States Government was released
from imprisonment on September 5th of the same year and sent
to New York, who immediately afterwards went back to Cuba
to command the insurgent forces of the province of Matanzas,
and who recently died there.
The correspondence in regard to the case of Mr. Aguirre, —
and also to the case of Mr. Francisco Carrillo, another Cuban
naturalized in the United States of America, arrested on Feb
ruary 27th, 1895, released through the interposition of the
State Department on May 30th of the same year, and now
fighting in Cuba, — can be found in Document No. 224, House
of Representatives, 54th Congress, 1st Session, from pages 90
to 111, and 133 to 144, respectively.

10
II
AMERICAN INTERPOSITION.
It is shown by the record that in the afternoon of the same
day on which Julio Sanguily was arrested, his brother Don
Manuel Sanguily, called at the residence of Mr. R. O. Williams,
United States Consul General at Havana, brought to his
attention that the prisoner was an American citizen by natural
ization, and requested him to intervene in his favor.
Mr. Williams, who had not been that day at the Consulate,
because it was Sunday, went at once to ascertain upon exami
nation of his books whether the American citizenship, invo-
cated by Sanguily 's brother, was well established ; and he found
that in fact Julio Sanguily had been admitted to be a citizen
of the United States of America by a decree of the Superior
Court of the City of New York dated August 6th, 1878, that
he had gone to Cuba with an American passport dated on the
following day, that upon his arrival in Havana he had regis
tered himself at the Consulate as an American, and that the
Governor General of the Island had provided him with a
certificate of identity, or cidula personal as it is called, dated
August 22nd, 1878, wherein his American national character
was recognized.
Upon this evidence, and in fulfillment of his duty, Mr.
Williams prepared himself right away to bring these facts to
the knowledge of Governor-General Calleja, and request him
to extend to the prisoner all the rights and privileges secured
by treaty for the citizens of the United States of America, when
arrested and tried in Spanish territory, which as will be shown
hereafter chiefly consist in being exempted from military juris
diction, and being tried by civil courts, with the right to appoint
advocates and solicitors and other agents, having free access to
be present at the proceedings and at the taking of all the ex
aminations and evidence which may be exhibited in the trial.
Mr. Williams called, early in the morning of Monday, the
25th of February, 1895, on tne Governor-General, represented

1 1
to him verbally all that was proper and pertinent in regard to
the matter, and announced that some time in the same day, or
the following, he would submit his representations in writing.
The Governor- General who, as Mr. Williams says (despatch of
March 23, 1895, printed in Document No. 104, Senate, 54th
Congress, 2nd Session, page 7), "was surprised on learning
the fact of the American citizenship of Sanguily having been
recognized by the Governments of the United States and Spain, ' '
received his information with unmistakable signs of displeasure.
It appears from a despatch of May 6th, 1895, printed on page
13 and the following of the Document above quoted, that the
Governor-General answered Mr. Williams "in an outburst of
most violent language and gesture, saying that it was a dis
grace to the American flag for the Government of the United
States to protect these men, who, it was notoriously known,
were conspirators against the Government of Spain, and in still
more violent language and gesture that American citizens were
openly conspiring in the United States against Spain, and that
he would shoot every one caught with arms in hand in any
attempt against the Government of the Island, regardless of
the consequences. ' '
Such an exhibition of temper which was repeated in subse
quent interviews held between Mr. Williams and Governor-
General Calleja, on February 27th and March 2d, 1895, ac
companied by threats, more or less openly made, that Mr.
William's exequatur would be withdrawn, or that the Wash
ington Government would be requested to remove him, —
although highly improper in an official of his rank, and rather
unusual in a man, who personally was never accused, even by
his bitterest political enemies, except of being too lenient and
considerate, — did not prevent the communication of the United
States Consul-General from being received and given due
attention. The idea of Governor-General Calleja was that through the
interposition of the United States Consul-General in favor of

12
Sanguily, Aguirre, Carrillo and others, the authority he had
assumed for dealing with a situation which he deemed to be
critical was snatched from his hands. And as he thought,
right or wrong, that that authority was necessary to save the
situation, he at first was angered by the sudden obstacle which
sprung up before him, and then tried to overcome it. (*)
The first answer in writing which Mr. Williams received in
regard to the case of Julio Sanguily was dated on March ist,
1895, and it was to the effect that before extending to the pris-

(*) The explanation which Governor Calleja himself gave of this inci
dent, in the Spanish Senate, on July 4th, 1896, is characteristic, and may
be read with interest:
"As soon as I got rid of 'legal restrictions' {trabas legales), — when
in view of the incoming imminent rebellion I had decided upon my own
exclusive responsibility to place the Island under martial law and cause the
Law of Public Order to be put into operation ; — when scarcely I had be
gun to enjoy the freedom of action which this Law permits, to use such
means as I deemed conducive to save the threatened interests of the
country, and to cause the arrest to be made of the most prominent leaders
of the movement, among them three of the greatest experience, import
ance and prestige, who were to place themselves at the head of the insurg
ents in Havana, Las Villas and Matanzas ; when scarcely I had suc
ceeded in securing the incarceration of Sanguily and Aguirre at the fort
resses of La Cabana and El Morro, and of Carrillo at the Volunteers Bar
racks at Remedios ; — just at the moment in which these measures became
known to the public, which applauded them, because it was self-evident
that without those three leaders the revolution could not succeed in root
ing itself or having any organization at all in the Central and Western
districts of the Island ; — the United States Consul General suddenly
made his appearance at the door of my office, and claimed in favor of those
three conspirators the benefits and privileges of the protocol of 1877.
" I cannot conceal from the Senate that I had to make a great effort to
refrain at that moment, owing to the exigencies of my official position,
the impulses of my mind, which impelled me to allow my indignation to
burst out, for the contrariousness and deception which a claim of that
nature, made at that moment, and in favor of these particular individ
uals had made me experience. But the claim, however irritating, was
well founded, and I was forced to respect the protocol of 1877, which
under express Royal Order had to be respected. The only thing I
could do, was to use a dilatory plea, and demand the proof that those
three men had complied with the registration provisions of the Law on
Aliens, etc., etc."

13
oner the privileges of the treaty, proper evidence had to be
given of his registration as a citizen of the United States of
America, in the books kept to that effect in the office of the
Secretary of the Governor-General.
Mr. Williams could furnish this evidence on March 4th, fol
lowing, and the Governor- General had then to yield. The
letter which his Secretary, Senor Don Estanislao de Antonio,
wrote to Mr. Williams, on March i6th, acknowledges the
fact that Julio Sanguily was a citizen of the United States of
America, and explains that his case had been ordered to be
transferred from the military to the civil jurisdiction, and that
instructions had been given to the Judge Advocate entrusted
by the Captain-General with the investigation of the charges
made against the prisoner, to inhibit himself from the cogni
zance of the case in favor of the civil authority.
The action of Mr. Williams was declared by the State
Department, March nth, 1895, to be correct and proper, and
was approved.
In view of these facts, the accusation often made, in this
case, as well as in others, in newspapers and elsewhere, that
Mr. Williams was slow and reluctant in the fulfillment of his
duties, as far as protecting American citizens was concerned,
and that the administration of Mr. Cleveland, with Mr. Olney,
Secretary of State, allowed American citizens to be deprived
by Spain of their treaty rights, ignominiously falls to the
ground. All that properly could be done in this line was
instantly done and done with success. Ill
THE KIDNAPPING COMPLICATION.
Just at the moment in which these things were happening,
and the transfer of Julio Sanguily from military to civil juris
diction had been secured, a complication of the most trouble
some character presented itself.

It had happened that a man of high standing in Cuba, by
the name of Don Antonio Fernandez de Castro, had been kid
napped by a bandit and released upon the payment of fifteen
thousand dollars. The investigation of that scandalous affair
had been entrusted, under the law usual in such cases and for
such offenses, to a military Judge Instructor, who had found,
or thought to have found, that the perpetrator of that crime,
the bandit Manuel Garcia, who called himself "The King of
the rural districts ' ' {El Rey de los Campos) and had terrorized
the country for a period of considerable extent, had been in
correspondence with the leaders of the ' ' Cuban Revolutionary
Party ' ' in New York, and received from them a commission
as Colonel in the Cuban Liberating Army. The money paid
for the ransom of Senor Fernandez de Castro was to go, it was
stated, partly to the bandit himself, and partly to the Cuban
revolutionary agents to buy arms and ammunition.
It is not shown very clearly upon what ground the suspicion
arose that Sanguily was connected, not of course with the
kidnapping transaction itself, or with any personal association
with Manuel Garcia, but with the disposition of that portion
of the ransom's money which was to go to the benefit of the
insurgent cause. A man named Don Gerardo Portela, who
had been arrested as an accomplice of the bandit Garcia, was
supposed to have been in relation with Sanguily concerning that
matter, and upon that supposition, more or less groundless, the
investigation branched out so as to ascertain to what extent,
if at all, the prisoner was guilty of that additional offense.
This was the reason why the Judge Advocate who was
conducting the kidnapping case,— a case entirely independent
from the one for "rebellion, " — directed Sanguily to be retained
in prison, at his disposal also, to await his action in the new
affair. Such an unexpected complication brought again to his feet
the United States Consul-General at Havana. The right and
privilege of an American citizen not to be subject, while in the

15
dominions of Spain, to military jurisdiction, is as much vested
in him when the offense with which he is charged is political,
as when it is not. In this kidnapping affair Sanguily was as
much beyond the jurisdiction of the Judge Advocate as he was
in the case for alleged "rebellion.'' And upon this ground
Mr. Williams promptly based his protest.
This additional holding of Julio Sanguily took place on
April 25th, 1895, and twenty-four hours afterwards, Mr. Wil
liams had already communicated with the Governor-General,
and made the request that this new case, if continued, should
be transferred like the other to the ordinary jurisdiction of a
civil court.
At the date of this letter of Mr. Williams, April 25th, 1895,
General Calleja had ceased to be the Governor-General of the
Island, and had been succeeded by Marshall Don Arsenio Mar
tinez Campos. But as this distinguished personage, after land
ing, not at Havana but at Santiago de Cuba, on the 19th of
April, had taken the field immediately and entrusted the exec
utive functions, at the capital of the Island, to General Don Jose
Arderius, the Segundo Cabo, or Second Chief, it befell on the
latter in his capacity of Acting Governor-General, to answer
Mr. Williams' communication. And he did so directly, by
official letter of May 7th, 1895, in which he explained the real
nature of the action taken by the Judge-Advocate who was in
charge of the kidnapping case, and informed Mr. Williams that
on the 4th of the same month he had ordered the new case to
be transferred, like the old one, from military to civil jurisdic
tion, and that the Judge-Advocate who was conducting the
investigation had been instructed to discontinue it, in so far as
Sanguily was concerned, and to cause a copy to be made of all
the papers and records, or of the part thereof which referred to
Sanguily, to be forwarded to the civil court.
This decision of Acting Governor-General Arderius, while
in strict compliance with the wishes of the United States Con
sul-General and with the provisions of the treaty, improved

i6
only pro forma the condition of Sanguily. He continued to be
held on two different charges, subject to two different trials
conducted by two different civil courts, and compelled to await
two sentences. And this situation was serious, because the
new case practically operated at all times as an obstruction for
the prompt disposition of the old one and prevented Sanguily
more than once from being set at liberty.
All the efforts of Sanguily's lawyers, in the political case, to
secure the release of their client, either on bail, or through the
application of a kind of amnesty which Governor-General
Calleja had granted three days after Sanguily's imprisonment,
or through personal favor of the Governor-General (*) or
otherwise, stumbled invincibly against the rock of the kidnap
ping case, and failed invariably.
If the whole thing was planned, as some expressions of
General Calleja furnished ground to think, for the deliberate
purpose of keeping Sanguily in a safe place, and preventing him

(*) There is evidence of undisputable character, in the possession of
Mr. Sanguily, that Governor-General Calleja himself had twice made up
his mind to set the prisoner at liberty. It appears, nevertheless, from
independent sources, that this intention was not carried into effect the
first time, owing to the rumor, whether founded or unfounded, which had
reached the ears of the Governor-General, that a noisy demonstration was
being prepared by the friends of the prisoner to celebrate his liberation,
a part of the program having been to parade Sanguily in the streets of
Havana, with a band of music at the head of the procession ; — and the
second time, because of the pendency of the kidnapping case.
Marshal Martinez Campos was also highly inclined to release San
guily. The latter feels sure, and felt so all the time, that if he had suc
ceeded in having an interview with that distinguished personage, who
honored him with his friendship, he would have been released. Sanguily
wrote to him once or twice, asking him to come and see him at his cell
in Fortress La Cabana, but he had no answer. He sent for Marshal
Martinez Campos' son, the Duke de la Seo de Urgel, who was also his
friend, and he at once came to see him. Sanguily urged him to induce
his father to call upon him, and he said that he would try. But Marshal
Martinez Campos was afraid of himself and never came. He said more
than once : "If I see 'that boy' I would not be able to overcome the
temptation of letting him out of the castle."

17
when free from going and joining the insurgents, as Aguirre
and Carrillo did, the fact must be acknowledged that the plan
was successful.
During the course of the debate which took place in the Span
ish Senate, on July 4th, 1896, and has been previously referred
to, General Calleja expressed himself as follows: "When I
ceased to be the Chief Commander in Cuba, the question that the
treaty should be complied with in regard to Sanguily and
Aguirre, imprisoned respectively at La Cabana Fortress, and
the Morro Castle, and that the proceedings against them should
be transferred to the ordinary jurisdiction, had been decided.
/ had taken nevertheless my precautions to protract the proceed
ings as long as possible. I surrendered my office, and I do not
know what has afterwards happened." Senor Batanero, an
other Senator, suggested then that all the prisoners thus bene
fitted by the treaty, had gone to join the insurgents. — And to
this General Calleja replied : — "As far as Sanguily is concerned,
he is still in prison; but if he did not go like the others to join
the insurgents, it was because I had found out some way of hav
ing him mixed up in a cause for clandestine introduction and
sale of arms to the enemy, in which many persons were com
plicated." This cause was probably no other than the one for the kidnap
ping of Don Antonio Fernandez de Castro, or better to say the
incident thereof relating to the purchase of arms with the money
paid by him for his ransom, in which as explained by Consul-
General Williams' telegram of March 30th, 1896, to Mr. Rock-
hill, Assistant Secretary of State, there were some twenty
persons in addition to Mr. Sanguily charged with participa
tion of some kind in that business.
The kidnapping proceedings were quashed by the Court-
martial in regard to all the defendants subject to its jurisdic
tion, on or before March 30th, 1896, when Mr. Williams tele
graphed as above stated, and by the civil court, in regard to
Sanguily, on April 23d following. (Telegram of Mr. Williams
to Mr. Rockhill, April 24th, 1896.)

i8
The fact that this result was not obtained until such a late
date, when Sanguily had already received his first sentence, —
December 2nd, 1895, in the case for rebellion, — and when this
case had been taken on a writ of error to the Supreme Court
at Madrid, shows how efficient the way found out by General
Calleja to prevent Sanguily from being released, practically
proved to be. "If the sentence is repealed," General Calleja
said, "it is clear that Sanguily will go and join his com
panions." (*)

(*) Here is the official record of this portion of the debate, as set forth
in the Extracto Oficial, Session of the Spanish Senate, July 4, 1896,
No. 42, pages 5 and 6 : —
El General Calleja. Al cesar yo en el mando deje' prejuzgada la
cuesti6n de que se cumpliera el tratado con respecto a Sanguily y Aguirre,
presos en el Morro y en la Cabana, pasando los procedimientos a la juris
diccidn ordinaria. Sin embargo de que yo habia tomado mis precaucio
nes para dilatar todo lo posible el procedimiento. Entregue! el mando,
€ ignoro lo ocurrido despues.
EL Senor Batanero. Estdn todos al frente de sus partidas.
El General Calleja. Todos, no ; pero puede colegirse lo occur-
rido, porque he leido repetidas veces en los peri6dicos que Aguirre y
Carrillo estdn en la manigua al frente de dos importantes partidas insur-
rectas. El Senor Abarzuza. Sea de ello lo que quiera, nosotros los deja
mos presos.
El General Calleja. En cuanto d Sanguily estd preso ; pero si
no se marchd tambien, fui porque yo hallk medio de que quedara encar-
tado en una causa en que habia muchos complicados, por introducci6n
clandestina y venta de armas al enemigo ; fu£ sentenciado, y creo que
pende del Tribunal Supremo el recurso de casaci6n de la sentencia dictada
por la Audiencia de la Habana ; y claro estd que si la sentencia se casa,
Sanguily se ird con sus compafieros. (TRANSLATION.)
General Calleja. When I transmitted to my successor the com
mand of the Island, the question, whether the treaty (the Cushing-Calde-
ron-Collantes Protocol of 1877) was or was not to be complied with in
regard to Sanguily and Aguirre, imprisoned respectively in the Morro

19
It is not by any means a new thing for law and reason to be
silent in times of war — silent enim leges inter arma. But this
trumped up business, which bothered Sanguily from April 25,
1895, t0 April 26, 1896, seems to have exceeded the limits of
endurance. Judging from all the appearances the Spanish
authorities themselves felt ashamed of it.

Castle and Fortress La Cabana, had been settled, and the proceedings
against them had been transferred to the ordinary courts ; but I had
taken my precautions for securing the delay of said proceedings as much
as possible. After I surrendered the command, I do not know what
happened. Senor BaTanero. All the prisoners are now with the insurgents.
General Calleja. Not all ; but, judging from what has happened,
it is easy to suppose what would have happened also with Sanguily — I
have read in the newspapers that Aguirre and Carillo are now at the
head of two important bands of insurgents.
Senor Abazuza. The fact is that we left them all in prison.
General Calleja. As to Sanguily, I will say that if he did not go
with the others to the insurgent camp, it was because I found out a way
to mix him up in a cause for clandestine importation of arms and the
sale thereof to the enemy in which many persons were complicated. The
Audiencia of Havana has passed a sentence against him, which
now pends before the Supreme Court here on a writ of error. It is clear
that if the sentence of the Audiencia of Havana is repealed, Sanguily will
go to the field with his companions.

20IV
THE TREATY RIGHTS OF AMERICAN CITIZENS WHEN
TRIED IN SPANISH TERRITORY.
Article VII of the treaty between the United States and
Spain, signed at San Lorenzo el Real, on October 27th, 1795,
and proclaimed after due ratification and exchange on August
2nd, 1796, contains the following provision :
' ' and in all cases of seizure, detention, or arrest, for debts con
tracted, or offenses committed by any citizen or subject of
the one party within the jurisdiction of the other, the same
shall be made and prosecuted by order and authority of law
only, and according to the regular course of proceeding usual
in such cases. The citizens and subjects of both parties shall
be allowed to employ such advocates, solicitors, notaries,
agents and factors as they may judge proper, in all their
affairs, and in all their trials at law, in which they may be
concerned, before the tribunals of the other party ; and such
agents shall have free access to be present at the proceedings
in such causes, and at the taking of all examinations and
evidence which may be exhibited in the said trials. ' '
Among the papers sent by Mr. Pinckney, the American
negotiator of that treaty, together with the treaty itself, to Mr.
Randolph, the United States Secretary of State, October 28,
1795, there is a memorandum explanatory of each article of the
compact (American State Papers, Foreign Relations, Vol. I,
page 545) which, in respect to this Article VII, reads as follows:
"Art. 7. The first part taken from the 16th of Prussia;
the latter part I added because I considered it a good stipula
tion in all situations, but particularly so in Spain."
Mr. Pinckney alluded probably to the methods of the Inqui
sition and of other Spanish tribunals having criminal juris
diction, where the secrecy of the proceedings was carried to
the utmost extremity, where torture was resorted to as a means
of investigation, and where the defense of the prisoners was
minimized and actually reduced in most cases to a mere pro
forma transaction. But he scarcely could have formed such a

21
complete idea of the correctness of his judgment in deeming
said last part of the provision to be good, as subsequent events,
specially in the Island of Cuba, have fully demonstrated.
Cuba and Spain had gone together, running always the same
fate politically, until the moment, sadly to be remembered by
Cuba, in which Spain, terrorized by the loss of her sovereignty
over Mexico, Central America and the whole of South America,
outside of Brazil, decided to treat Cuba as if she were an enemy,
placing her perpetually under martial law, and subjecting her
in all things to the autocratic rule of a Military Commander.
Spain believed that in this way she could prevent Cuba from
following the example of the other Spanish colonies and pro
claiming and securing her independence.
That decision of Spain was carried out by means of two steps
of great significance. First, the Royal Order of May 28th,
1825, which was the Public Law of Cuba between that date
and February 10th, 1878, when the compromise which ended
the war of 1868-1878 was agreed upon. And second, the
establishment in Havana, on March 4th of the same year, 1825,
of a ' l Permanent and Executive Military Commission, ' ' with
competent jurisdiction to take cognizance of all political cases
and of many other cases.
Under the Royal Order of May 28th, 1825, the Governors
General of Cuba were given the same powers as belong in time
of war to the governors of places besieged by an enemy. (*)

(*)This Royal Order reads as follows : " His Majesty being fully per
suaded that at no time and under no circumstances whatever is there any
possibility of weakening the principles of rectitude and love to his royal
person which characterize your excellency, and His Majesty being desir
ous at the same time to guard against the difficulties which might arise
in extraordinary cases from a division of commands, and from the com
plexity of powers and attributions in the respective public authorities, and
with the important object of maintaining in your most precious island his
legitimate sovereign authority as well as preserving public tranquility, has
been graciously pleased in conformity with the advice of his council of
State, to give your excellency full unrestricted power, conferring upon you
all the faculties which by the royal ordinances are granted to the gover-

22
And under the Royal Order which established the Military
Commission as a permanent tribunal, the proceedings of the
so-called trials for offenses subject to the jurisdiction of the
latter, ceased to be conducted in the ordinary way of law, and
became secret, at least in the most important stages, full of
restrictions as to the rights of the prisoners and their defense,
and always hasty.
The first conflict, or at least the first serious one, which arose
between the United States and Spain out of this peculiar condi
tion of things in the Island of Cuba, was caused by the trial
and condemnation by the Military Commission in 1851, of a

nors of cities besieged by an enemy. In consequence of this His Majesty
gives your excellency ample and unlimited authorization, not merely to
eject from the island and send to the peninsula any public functiona
ries, whatever may be their office, rank, class or condition, whose stay in
the island may be prejudicial, or whose public or private conduct may
arouse your suspicion, and replace them temporarily by such faithful
servants of His Majesty as may merit all your excellency's confidence,
but also to suspend the execution of any orders or general instructions
whatever, emanating from any of the Departments of the Government, in
such degree as your excellency may deem expedient for the royal service,
such suspensions being in all cases provisional, and your excellency being
required to give account thereof to His Majesty. In extending to your
excellency this signal proof of his royal appreciation and of the high con
fidence he reposes in your well-known loyalty, His Majesty hopes that in
worthy justification of this confidence you will display the greatest pru
dence and circumspection, and the most untiring activity, and trusts that
your excellency, being by this present act of his royal bounty placed
under a most rigid responsibility, will cause the laws to be observed,
justice to be administered, and the faithful vassals of His Majesty to be
protected and rewarded, and secure, furthermore, without hesitation or
dissimulation the punishment of those who, forgetful of their obligations
and of what they owe to the best and most beneficent of sovereigns, .
would violate their duties and give free rein to their criminal machina
tions against the laws and the established system of government.
By royal order I communicate this to your excellency for your infor
mation. May God preserve your excellency many years.
Madrid, May 28, 1825. AYMERICH.
The Captain-General of the Island of Cuba.

23
citizen of the United States of America, residing in Havana.
Mr. John S. Trasher, a native of the State of Maine, tried at
Havana ' ' for the crime of treason " and condemned to impris
onment for six years at hard labor in the penitentiary at Ceuta,
in Africa, protested against his having been subjected to
military jurisdiction and tried by court-martial under rules of
military procedure, all in violation of his rights and privileges
as secured by the provisions of Article VII of the treaty ; and
his protest was supported by the United States Government.
But, as shown by Document No. io, House of Representatives,
32d Congress, ist Session, the Captain General of Cuba, then
General Don Jose de la Concha, made the point against the said
protest that Mr. Trasher had been tried exactly in the same man
ner as was provided by the treaty. The latter said that the trial
should be conducted ' ' according to the regular course of pro
ceeding usual in such cases, ' ' and in Cuba there was no other
regular and usual course of proceeding applicable to Mr.
Trasher' s case than the proceeding of the Military Commis
sion. General Concha said : " The Military Commission estab
lished in this Island since the year 1825 is a common and
ordinary tribunal for the trial of such crimes as are committed
against the State. It was therefore the only authority competent
to pass sentence upon Mr. Trasher, who stood accused of con
spiracy, and he (Mr. Trasher) could not have been tried by any
other tribunal without manifest violation of the laws by which
we are governed." (General Concha to Minister Calder6n de
la Barca, November 28, 1851; Ibid., page 24.)
The issue was avoided and the contention closed by Spain
granting a pardon to Mr. Trasher.
Two years afterwards another singular contention was started
by Count Alcoy, Spanish Secretary of State, who said to Mr.
Barringer, Minister of the United States at Madrid, that the
treaty of 1795 was not applicable to the colonies of Spain.
(Ex. Doc. No. 86, House of Representatives, 33d Congress,
ist session, page 219.) To this Mr. Barringer replied: "As

24
to the great principle now for the first time invoked in bar to
this claim, and compared with which the claim itself, though
important to the petitioners, is as nothing, viz : that the treaty
of 1 795 was never applicable to the Spanish colonies, I cannot
do less than repeat my surprise at a proposition, which a review
of all the diplomatic intercourse between Spain and the United
States will disclose, is of the most recent origin, which is con
trary to what has ever been the understanding of the latter,
and which in the opinion of the undersigned is not sustained
by any examination of the provisions of the treaty itself, nor
by its contemporaneous or subsequent history or construction. ' '
(Mr. Barringer to Count Alcoy, Madrid, March 19, 1853,
page 222 Ibid.)
During the ten years of the Cuban war of independence of
1868-1878, many cases occurred in which the true construction
of the provisions of the treaty was made the subject of serious
argument and dispute. But the matter was set at rest by
means of an authorative expression of opinion on the part of
the Spanish government, in so far as to its own understanding
of the obligations imposed on it by the treaty was concerned.
This expression of opinion was made at a conference between
Mr. Caleb Cushing, United States Minister at Madrid, and Don
Fernando Calder6n y Collantes, Spanish Minister of State, held
at Madrid, January 12th, 1877, and witnessed by a protocol
which since that time has become famous.
Senor Calderon y Collantes declared that the understanding
of Spain of the stipulations of Article VII of the treaty of
1795, was that "no citizen of the United States, residing in
Spain, her adjacent islands, or her ultramarine possessions,
charged with acts of sedition, treason or conspiracy against the
institutions, the public security, the integrity of the territory, or
against the Supreme Government, or any other crime whatso
ever, shall be subject to trial by any exceptional tribunal, but
exclusively by the ordinary jurisdiction, except in the case of
being captured with arms in hand."

25
This clear and explicit statement, which no doubt constituted
a great victory for the United States, as it put an end to all
former Spanish contentions, secured in favor of American citi
zens a privilege of great value, which the further declara
tions of the instrument, relating to the manner and form of the
proceedings to be resorted to in the above mentioned trials by
ordinary civil courts, strongly corroborated. Senor Calder6n y
Collantes said that such proceedings should be the ones provided
for by the Law of April 17th, 1821, which although repealed in
European Spain and replaced by another law called of Public
Order, of April 23d, 1870, was nevertheless at that time the
law in force in Cuba (*).
Mr. Cushing in his note to Mr. Fish, Secretary of State, of
February 4th, 1877 (Foreign Relations of the United States in
1877, page 494), recognized that this law contained "tyran
nical features, of which Spain herself had had sad experience ; ' '
and he was right in expressing himself in this way, because
that law of 182 1, called by all in Spain La Ley Marcial, " The
Martial Law, ' ' enacted by the liberals to tyrannize the partisans
of absolute monarchy, had been held in abhorrence on account
of its extreme severity since the days of its promulgation. Its
application to Cuba by Royal Decree of March 28th, 1866, was
due to no other thing than its cruelty and the expeditious
way which its provisions furnished to deal with life and prop
erty. This law, however, and its methods of procedure were
repealed by the Penal Code of Spain which was made appli
cable to Cuba on July nth, 1879, and by the Rules for the en
forcement of the provisions of the same code, enacted May 23d,
1879. From the day of the promulgation of this new law, a
new condition of things, much more liberal perhaps in this
respect than in any other country in the world was created in
Cuba ; and this fact must never be forgotten, if the true spirit
of the protocol of 1 877, rather than its letter, is to be attended to.
(*) The Law of Public Order was not promulgated in Cuba until the
24th of September, 1879.

26
And it was for this reason that such an expert diplomatist
as Mr. John W. Foster, when negotiating with Spain the treaty
of commerce, of November 18th, 1884, which was not ratified
by the Senate of the United States, made an effort to secure
and secured from Spain the following provision :
' 'Article XX. The citizens of the United States in the Islands
of Cuba and Puerto Rico, and reciprocally the Spanish subjects
in the United States, shall enjoy for their professions, industries
and business of whatever character, whether individually, in
the quality of associates, or in a co-operative capacity, the
same privileges which the citizens of the territory of their resi
dence enjoy, on condition, however, of their being subject to
the laws of the country in which they reside. They shall also
have free and easy access to the tribunals of justice to maintain
their suits and defend their rights and claims, and the high
contracting parties ratify by the present treaty the principles
and provisions set forth in the protocol signed at Madrid on the
12th of January, 1877; it being understood that it shall be ap
plied in all its effects to cases in which the accused are not
more favored in respect to their defense and rights by the law
for the application of the Penal Code in the Island of Cuba
promulgated on the 23d of May, 1879, and that it shall be ap
plied in the same manner provided, when they are subject to
military jurisdiction in virtue of the stipulation of said protocol
hereby ratified."
The truth is that such a choice between the two laws,
namely the Law of 1821 and the Penal Code and the Law for
its application of 1879, is now, and has been for some time,
entirely unnecessary. The Law of 1821 became obsolete both
in regard to prisoners taken with arms in hand, to be tried by
military courts, according to military proceedings, and in re
gard to prisoners otherwise captured, to be tried by courts
of ordinary jurisdiction, according to civil proceedings. And
the fact that it became so obsolete, and that it was replaced in
toto as to people captured with arms in hands by the Law of
Public Order of April 23d, 1870, and as to people captured
otherwise by the Penal Code and the Law for the application
thereof of 1879, is certainly to be deemed a great benefit.
None of the "tyrannical features," referred to by Mr.

27
Cushing, of the Law of 1821 can be found in the new laws
which have superseded it. Even the so-called Council of War,
which takes cognizance of the cases of prisoners captured with
arms in hand, can hardly be considered a real court martial. (*)
As to the proceedings according to which the ordinary prosecu
tions have to be conducted against prisoners captured other
wise, it is necessary to recognize that they are marked by great
consideration of the rights of the defendants.
While, for instance, under Article 32 of the Law of 182 1, the
sentences of death are to be executed ' ' within forty-eight hours
and the others in the shortest possible time," under the Rules
for the application of the Penal Code (Rule 79) in case of death
penalty, an appeal to the Supreme Court of Madrid is always
understood to be taken by the prisoner. Said appeal may also
be taken, although only under certain rules, against all other
sentences. Under the law of 182 1 no petitions for pardon can be admitted
or considered (Art. 33); but under the new laws no restriction
exists as to applications for clemency.
Judging from some statements made in the Senate and else
where, during the public discussion of the Sanguily case, the
idea seems to have prevailed, that the true, genuine privi
lege of citizens of the United States of America, when tried
in Spanish territory, is to be tried according to the course of
proceeding established by the Law of April 17, 1821; and
on this ground, for instance, complaints were made because
Sanguily was tried by a Court consisting of five members, and
not by a Court consisting of six members, as required by Article
28 of the said Law of 182 1. But all of this was said and argued
without notice having been taken that the judicial machinery

(*)Article 29 of of the Law of Public Order provides as follows : " This
Council of War shall consist of four Captains of the Army appointed by
the Military authority, of one Judge of first instance, of one Justice of the
Peace and of the District Attorney. If the Justice of the Peace selected
is not a lawyer, he shall be replaced by another Justice of the Peace learned
in the law, and if none is found the senior practicing lawyer of the
locality where the Council is held, will fill his place"

28
of the law of 182 1 is not the judicial machinery, immensely
superior, of the present date, and that it was better for the pris
oner to be tried by five judges, with the right to appeal to the
Supreme Court of Spain, which he used twice, than to be tried
by six judges, whose decision was final.
The grand point which was gained for American citizens, in
so far as the interpretation of Article VII of the treaty of 1795
is concerned, consists in the fact that under no circumstances,
and in all parts of the Spanish dominions, their trials for all
kinds of offenses have to be conducted exclusively by ordinary
jurisdiction, except only in case that they are captured with
arms in hand, — and furthermore that they have the right to
appoint lawyers or agents to whom free access has to be given
to be present at all the stages of the proceedings, and at the
taking of all examinations and evidence which may be made
and used in the said trials.
This is the essential point, which always has excited to the
highest degree the anger of the Captains-General. Whatever
may be alleged against the Cushing-Calder6n y Collantes Proto
col of 1877, the fact remains that by the action of the Spanish
Government, the Spanish declaration contained in it was made
part and parcel of the Spanish Law, because that declaration
of the opinion of Senor Calderon y Collantes as to the real
meaning of Article VII of the treaty of 1795, was sanctioned
by the King of Spain, and embodied in a Royal Order, which
was officially communicated to the Governor-General of Cuba,
with peremptory instructions to comply with it. And it is for
this reason that General Calleja said that he could not help
himself against the Protocol, and that he had to obey the
Royal Order, no matter how unpalatable, which referred to it.
All the other things contained in the protocol are changeable
and of secondary character, and they must be considered in
relation to the greatest benefit of the prisoner and to nothing
else. The real and proper criterion to be used in these matters
is the one which was used by the State Department, when in-

29
structing the United States Consul General at Havana, Novem
ber 9th, 1895, m regard to Sanguily's case. It is clear for
instance, that prisoners have a right to demand a speedy trial ;
but circumstances may arise in which the interests of the pris
oner will be better subserved by securing delay. If upon the
arrival of those circumstances the counsel does not make all
that is in his power to secure that delay, he may find out very
soon that he made a mistake. Instead of "defending" his
client and endeavoring to save him, he may have aided per
haps to secure his conviction.
When Assistant Secretary of State, Mr. Uhl, instructed
United States Consul-General Williams, November 9th, 1895,
to be in frequent consultation with Sanguily's lawyer, to confer
with him freely, and to endeavor to avoid as well unseemly
haste to Sanguily's disfavor as prolonged delays to his injury,
he did the very best that could be legally done in this respect.

THE TRIAL.
Between the 16th of March, 1895, at which date the Governor-
General decided to instruct the Judge Advocate who was inves
tigating the charge of "rebellion" against Sanguily to inhibit
himself from the cognizance of the case in favor of the civil
authority, and the 28th of November of the same year, at which
date the trial of the prisoner commenced, fully eight months
had elapsed. The record does not show why such an extra
ordinary delay took place, nor does it in any way remove the
apprehension that it was unwarranted and exclusively due
to the idea, which seems to have prevailed in this affair from
the beginning to the end, that it was better for Spain to keep
Sanguily within the walls of a fortress than give him an oppor
tunity to go away and join the insurgents.
Assistant Secretary of State, Mr. Edwin F. Uhl, had sent a
telegram to Mr. Springer, Acting Consul General at Havana,

30
under date of June 18th, 1895, instructing him to demand that
Sanguily would be given speedily civil trial, or else released;
and Assistant Secretary of State, Mr. Alvey A. Adee, on Sep
tember 3d, 1895, had repeated the instruction, and said to Mr.
Williams by cable, that ' ' the Department felt compelled to
demand (Sanguily's) immediate trial or release."
Marshal Martinez Campos, who was no less reluctant than
his predecessor and all other Spanish Generals and military
officials to be restricted, when dealing with American citizens,
on account of the treaty, raised at once a question, which was
promising at least of long diplomatic discussion and therefore
of long delay. In replying to Mr. Williams he stated that
" Consuls are not vested with diplomatic functions, and cannot
rightfully present any official remonstrations in government
affairs," — that they could only be allowed to address the
authorities confidentially for the purpose of inquiring into facts
and reporting to their repective governments, — that he, the
Governor General himself, had no authority to deal with inter
national questions, — and that whatever the United States Gov
ernment might be willing to say on the subject had to be said
in Madrid to the Spanish Minister of State (*).
This official communication dated September 6th, three days
subsequent to Mr. Adee's telegram to Mr. Williams, was
accompanied by a personal letter of the same date, wherein
Marshal Martinez Campos called Mr. Williams ' ' My dear Sir
and Friend, ' ' and in which he said that he took pleasure in
personally informing Mr. Williams that Sanguily's case will
soon be heard.
The record shows that on the 9th of November, 1895, Assist
ant Secretary of State, Mr. Edwin F. Uhl, said to Consul-
General Williams, among other things, what follows:—

(*) The discussion of the question thus raised about the right of the
United States Consul General at Havana to present remonstrances,  a
question which was settled favorably to the United States, on October
23d, 1895, can be found from page 8 to page 13 of Document No. 224,
House of Representatives, 54th Congress, ist session.

3i
" This Government has continuously asserted the right of
Mr. Sanguily, as a citizen of the United States, to be tried on
formulated charges by the ordinary resorts stipulated by the
treaty of 1795 and by the protocol of 1877. This demand has
been acceded to, and while the proceedings have been marked
with what from our point of view appears to be extraordinary
tardiness, I am not advised that there has been a tangible
denial of justice in the case. It is due, however, to Mr.
Sanguily himself, as well as to the Government which has
necessarily intervened for his protection, that he should be
accorded as speedy a trial as may be consistent with his own
interests and with the necessary opportunity for full examina
tion of the charges and preparation of his defense. You are
presumed to be in consultation with Mr. Sanguily's advocate,
and should confer freely with him on this point, endeavoring
to avoid as well unseemly haste to his disfavor as prolonged
delays to his injury."
The trial began as has been said on the 28th of November,
1895, ;at 12 o'clock m. The Government was represented
by the Fiscal or Prosecuting Attorney, Senor Don Federico
Enjuto, and the prisoner by Don Miguel F. Viondi, a member
of the bar at Havana. The tribunal consisted of five Judges,
as follows : Senor Don Jos£ Pulido, Presiding Judge, Senor
Don Francisco Pampill6n, Sefior Don Vicente Pardo Bonanza,
Senor Don Adolfo Astudillo de Guzman, and Senor Don
Rafael Maydagan, Associate Judges.
The United States Consul-General was instructed by the
State Department, November 14th, 1895, to attend the trial as
spectator, and make concise but sufficient report of the pro
ceedings. The prosecution made an effort to poison the mind of the
Court against the prisoner by referring at length and with as
much force as was at its command, to the political ideas of the
prisoner and his former affiliations, his services to the cause of
the independence of Cuba during the war of 1868-1878, and

32
his abjuration of his Spanish allegiance and his naturalization
in the United States, in the latter year. But as far as the spe
cific charge upon which the prisoner was on trial, the prosecu
tion did not produce more evidence than the same so-called one
which had been secured by it in violation of the treaty during
the period of military investigation.
That evidence was clearly inadmissible, and ought to have
been stricken out or rejected. Assistant Secretary of State,
Mr. Edwin F. Uhl, in his dispatch to Mr. Williams, of Decem
ber 23d, 1895, expressed, with reason, the apprehension that
such a method of proceedings against Sanguily ' ' was not in
accordance with the treaty of 1795, as construed by the proto
col of 1877," because as shown by the record the civil court
had merely taken up the case where the military tribunal had
left it off, the trial being based and conducted upon the same
charges formulated, and upon the evidence taken by the Judge
Advocate. This undue continuation, and attempted revalida
tion of proceedings taken in violation of a law of such a high
character and supremacy as an international compact is, and
by authorities which under the same compact had no compe
tent jurisdiction to take them, was a practical nullification of
the treaty privileges of the prisoner.
This inadmissible and improper so-called evidence, upon
which the prosecution succeeded, however, in securing the
conviction of Sanguily was substantially as follows :
I. An affidavit or certified statement of Governor-General
Calleja, dated March 25, 1895 (see pages 8 and 9), stating
nothing on the affiant's own personal knowledge, but merely
on information acquired through confidential communications
and reports, which were never produced.
II. A number of papers purporting to be copies of letters
alleged to have been written by Sanguily at Havana, at various
times previous to February 23d, 1895, and addressed to Don
Jose Marti and some other individuals residing in New York
and other cities of the United States of America. It was ex-

33
plained that the originals of the said letters, as well as the
originals of other letters mailed at Havana to the same addresses,
had been detained at the Havana Post Office, and opened, and
read and copied, and thereafter resealed and forwarded to their
respective destinations, and that copies thus obtained had been
sent to the Governor-General, and by him to the Judge Advo
cate, to be made a part of the record.
It is hardly necessary to suggest that such so-called copies,
alleged to have been obtained through a process so highly
disreputable and so much to be condemned, especially when
resorted to before the constitutional guarantees were suspended,
ought not to have been admitted in evidence.
As the prisoner denied to have written the letters whose
alleged copies were shown to him, it seems to be clear that the
production thereof as proofs only served to show the bad
behavior of the postal authorities of Cuba in tampering with
the mails of the Postal Union, and also the clumsy way of
their tampering.
III. A letter which together with some other papers of no
value was found by the police in a drawer of a cupboard, in a
room which Sanguily had occupied in a house on the estate
called Portela, in the rural district of Aguacate. Said letter,
which has no address, but was claimed by the prosecution to
have been written to Sanguily, contains a passage which trans
lated into English reads as follows: "None better than you,
for your respectable surroundings, the credit which your name
will impart to the movement, your old and well-established
reputation as a revolutionist and a soldier, and the position
which you have always occupied amidst both parties, is called
to lead a serious and important movement."
This letter, which the prisoner did not recognize, and which
no person can say who wrote it or to whom it was addressed,
might at all events be construed as an invitation from the
writer to the man to whom it was sent to join the rebellion ; but
it never can be taken as an acceptance of the invitation or a

34
proof of the actual joining, or attempting to join, the move
ment to which it refers.
IV. A paper, or better to say the fragments of a paper, torn
to pieces and chewed up by a man named Don Jose Inocencio
Azcuy, in whose possession it was found when he was arrested
by the police at the moment he landed in Havana, coming
from Key West, Florida, said fragments having been more or
less illegibly arranged, and made a part of the record.*
The prosecution claimed that this paper, which has no date,
was an original commission of Colonel in the insurgent army
issued by Sanguily, as chief commander of the same, in favor
of Azcuy.
Sanguily denied to have ever seen that paper or written it,
or to know Mr. Azcuy, or have ever heard of him or of the
said commission.
V. The deposition of Seiior Trujillo, a Police Inspector, who
said that he arrested Don Jose Inocencio Azcuy, on his landing
from a steamer from Key West, that he searched him and untied
his cravat ; that inside the said cravat he found the paper referred
to in the foregoing paragraph; that Azcuy by a sudden move-

(*)The text of this strange document, as arranged by the prosecution,
and on file, is as follows :
" Sr. D. J. Azu — Coronel del Ejer — ciudadano— competentemente
autor — Coronel de nuestro— sub— y — Queda V. actor — z — conferir nom
bran — todas que por mi merit — cios los merezca — organizard fuerzas que —
to le iran a U.— instrucciones— sobre la manera 6— ganiz — los y puntos
que ha de ocupar — confiamos en su celo — tico espera — zo affmo, su y P. J.
S — nguily — "
A true translation into English of the foregoing text, such as it was
left, after it passed through the chewing process and the struggle between
Mr. Azcuy and the policeman, is a matter of great difficulty ; but an idea
of its meaning may be formed by the following :
"Sr. D. J. Azu -Colonel of the Arm— citizen— competently author-
Colonel of our— sub— and— You are author— z— to confer appoint— all
that my merit— ces deserve them— Shall organize forces which— to they
will go to you— instructions— on the manner or— ganiz— them and points
which you have (or he has) to occupy— We trust in your zeal— tico—
expects— zo— most affectionate, your (or his) P. J. S — nguily."

35
ment snatched it from his (Trujillo's) hands and put it in his
mouth and tried to chew it up; that he (Trujillo) engaged then
in a struggle with Azcuy in order to rescue the paper, and that
he succeeded with the greatest difficulty " in securing a part of
it," and "taking another fragment out of Azcuy s mouth."
VI. The testimony of Don Jose Inocencio Azcuy, who
explained how the paper was found inside his necktie, and how
he had attempted to destroy it. Witness said that that paper was
really a commission of Colonel in the insurgent army, issued
in his favor, at his request, and sent to him by the Revolutionary
Junta of New York, through his nephew, Don Nemesio Azcuy,
who brought it to Key West, Fia. The witness further said
that he had applied for this appointment of Colonel in the
insurgent army, not because he would have ever thought of
joining the insurgents, but because of his desire to protect him
self and his estate, "El Rosario," from insurgent raids. He
also stated that he did not know whether the signature affixed
to the Commission was or was not Sanguily's.
VII. The depositions of three experts in caligraphy, — Senor
Biosca, Senor Perez Madueno, and Senor Alvarez— who, upon
examination of the fragments of paper purporting to be the
commission aforesaid, and upon comparison of its handwriting
and signature with other papers in the acknowledged genuine
handwriting of the prisoner, and signed by him, said respec
tively as follows : Senor Biosca, that he deemed the hand
writing and signature of the so-called commission to be similar
to Sanguily's genuine handwriting and signature, but that he
could not positively state that they were Sanguily's, — and
Sefiors Perez Madueno and Alvarez, that the paper was
wholly illegible and that they could not make any sense of it
or fairly make any comparison between it and the other papers.
VIII. The deposition of Don Antonio Lopez Coloma, an
insurgent leader captured by the authorities and afterward con
demned to death and executed, who said, among other things,
that an insurgent leader of high rank called Don Pedro Betan-

36
court had given him instructions to come to Havana and confer
with Sanguily and some others in regard to planning and start
ing a revolutionary movement ; but that deponent had declined
to have any interview with Sanguily, and never had it, because
"he had heard that Sanguily disapproved the movement,"
and because deponent "never thought that Sanguily would
join the insurrection."
IX. A paper all rumpled up, partially torn, and carefully
pressed and fixed up afterwards, for preservation, by the Judge
Advocate, which purports to be a letter, dated February 9th,
1895, written by one " Gener," to one Don Pedro Betancourt,
and found not in the possession of Betancourt or of Sanguily,
but in a pocket of Don Antonio Lopez Coloma, when the Span
ish troops captured him, on or about the ist or the 2nd of
March, 1895. The prosecution claimed that the signature
' ' Gener ' ' affixed to the letter was a bogus signature, and
that the letter had been written by Sanguily.
It was never explained how it came to pass that this letter
written by ' ' Gener ' ' to Betancourt found out its way to
the pocket of Lopez Coloma, — nor is it shown by the record
that the prosecution did ever take any step to identify the
person who had signed the said letter. The name "Gener "
is not by any means an uncommon name, especially in the
province of Matanzas, wherein Lopez Coloma was captured; —
and if the prosecution had not taken at once for granted that
Gener and Sanguily were one and the same person, some
light, as necessary in all judicial investigation, might have been
thrown into the subject.
The passage in this letter, claimed by the prosecution to
accriminate Sanguily, expresses the regret of the writer for
being so short of money as to become prevented from attempt
ing anything. The writer explains that this impecunious
condition had forced him to pawn a machete and a revolver
which were his property; and then he goes on and urges
Betancourt to send to him, as soon as possible, the twenty-five

37
hundred dollars which had been promised. The communica
tion closed with the following remark : ' ' Cervantes saw himself
without anything to eat at supper when he finished to write
Don Quijote ; and I, when about to be placed at the head of
a work of redemption, find myself without means, even to send
my cook to the market."
X. The testimony of the Government expert in caligraphy,
Senor Biosca, who compared the handwriting of the letter
referred to in the foregoing paragraph with that of other genu
ine letters of the prisoner, and said that ' ' he considered both
handwritings similar, and thought that all these papers shown
to him had been written by the same hand, although he could
not positively state that they were so written. ' '
Senor Perez Madueno and Senor Alvarez, the other experts
in caligraphy, could not see the similarity which their colleague
said to have found.
XI. The testimony of Don Ram6n Sanchez, a pawnbroker
in the city of Havana, who said "that about a year, a year
and a half, or two years, ' ' Sanguily had pawned in his estab
lishment a revolver and a machete, which were never re
deemed." XII. The deposition of Don Jos6 Paglieri, Chief of the
Havana Police, who in answer to the question, " Had you any
knowledge that he (Sanguily) was conspiring with Betancourt
and Lopez Coloma at Matanzas ? " said: ' ' I know in a general
way that'an effort was being made in behalf of secession ; every
body knew that." And when asked by the Presiding Judge:
' ' Did you know that Sanguily was going to place himself at
the head of a band from Matanzas, Ibarra, or any other place ? "
he answered : " I did not know anything about it. I only knew
that there was a conspiracy on foot. ' ' Counsel for defendant
questioned then this witness about the reports which he as
Chief of Police had made about Sanguily, and he answered:
"A record of this must be in the Captain General's Office, since
the Captain General was informed of the facts ; I have no infor
mation except common reports which I am unable to prove."

38
Senor Viondi, as counsel for Sanguily, made a strong argu
ment against the insinuations and so-called testimony of the
prosecution. He earnestly endeavored to persuade the Court
of the futility of all that had been alleged with reference to the
part which Sanguily had taken in the war of 1868-1878. The
movement represented by that war was different from the one
now started. The origin, the nature, the tendencies, and the
developments of the former were not the origin, nature, ten
dencies, and developments of the latter. And a man who fully
approved the former and intimately connected himself with it
might without inconsistency disapprove the latter, and even
dislike it heartily and avoid all connection with it. The atten
tion of the Court was also called to the fact that the expatriation
from Spain and the giving up of the Spanish allegiance, were
lawful acts, which Spanish subjects could lawfully perform, and
that the naturalization of Sanguily in the United States of
America could not thus be construed as an act of rebellion, and
much less as evidence of his alleged connection with the present
movement. The illegal character of the evidence and its
undue admission were also discussed at length and proven
beyond a doubt.
The affidavit of Governor-General Calleja, which under the
express provisions of the treaty ought not to have been admitted
as evidence against Sanguily(*), was confronted with the depo
sition of Colonel Paglieri, Chief of the Havana Police, and
shown to be without force, because of the lack of proof of the
assertions made in it, merely on confidential reports.

(*) Article VII of the treaty between the United States and Spain
allows American citizens in Spain, and Spanish subjects in the United
States, to appoint agents, advocates, etc., to assist them when on trial for
any offense committed, or alleged to have been committed by them, and
says : "and such agents shall have free access to be present at the pro
ceedings in such causes, and at the taking of all examinations and evi
dence which may be exhibited in the said trials." Counsel for Sanguily
was not present, nor allowed to be present, at the taking of Governor-
General Calleja's affidavit.

39
The alleged copies of the supposed intercepted letter were
proof only, if such a shameful tampering with the mails of the
Postal Union was true, of the wickedness of the Spanish
postal officials who perpetrated it.
The unsigned and unaddressed communication alleged to
have been found at the Portela estate, and construed by the
prosecution as an appeal to Sanguily to join the present insur
rection, could never be considered, even if really sent to San
guily, and received by him, as evidence that he yielded to the
appeal and assented to lead the movement.
The connection of Sanguily with the Azcuy' s mutilated
paper, denied by Sanguily, denied by Azcuy, and denied by
the experts in caligraphy, was not properly shown by the
prosecution. An enemy of Sanguily, or an ultra officious
Cuban patriot, anxious to improve his cause by the prestige of
Sanguily's name, might easily have written Sanguily's name,
if it was really written, at the foot of that paper. If the owner
of the paper was seeking protection, as he said, against insur
gent raids, the idea might have occurred to him that Sanguily's
signature, whether genuine or spurious, at the foot of the docu
ment was perhaps more conducive than any other thing to the
accomplishment of his purpose.
The failure of the prosecution to prove that the letter, supposed
to have been found in Lopez Coloma's pocket, signed ' ' Gener, ' '
and addressed to Don Pedro Betancourt, was really Sanguily's,
was fully demonstrated by an affidavit of Don Pedro Betancourt
himself, which the prisoner's counsel offered in evidence, but
was not admitted by the Court. In that affidavit, sworn to
before a Notary Public, in the city of New York, at a date
subsequent to the filing by the prosecution of the letter herein
referred to, and duly authenticated, Don Pedro Betancourt
denied to have ever received such letter, and explained the
reasons why he deemed it to be spurious.
When the prisoner himself was examined he emphatically
denied to have connected himself in any way whatever with

40
the present revolution. He said distinctly that " he was in no
way concerned in the uprising and had had nothing to do with
it, " that he had refused to entertain any relation at all with
it, and that "he had kept entirely aloof from the movement."
This positive and emphatic declaration by the prisoner was
corroborated by the testimony of Lopez Coloma and others, as
well as by the fact, which seems to be obvious, that if Sanguily
would have been connected with the rebellion in such principal
and important a manner as the prosecution claimed, he would
not have remained quietly at his home twenty-four hours after
the proclamation of martial law in the Island, patiently await
ing to be arrested.
The counsel for the prisoner made the additional point and
made it ably, that even if Sanguily had done what the prose
cution claimed, his offense was not " rebellion, " but "con
spiracy for rebellion," which is a different offense under
Article 244 of the Penal Code. This offense is punishable with
"correctional imprisonment," not less than six months and
one day, and not more than six years, and not with imprison
ment for life at hard labor as desired by the prosecution.
An effort was made also by the same distinguished lawyer
to secure for his client the application of the amnesty granted
by Governor-General Calleja, three days after the imprisonment
of Sanguily, and extended even to those insurgents in arms,
who would be willing to surrender. VI.
THE SENTENCE.
The sentence passed by the Court, as read in public by the
Presiding Judge, Don Josd Pulido, at twenty minutes past four,
p. m., of Monday, December 2nd, 1895, was as follows:
" In the City of Havana, on the 2nd of December, 1895, in
the case pending before Section 3d of the Criminal Court, be
tween the Government, and Don Julio Sanguily y Garit, a
native and a resident of this capital, but a citizen of the United

4i
States of America, 44 years old, married, the son of Don Julio
Sanguily, and Dona Maria Garit de Sanguily, a business man
by occupation, a man of education, with no criminal record,
for the crime of rebellion, — the Government being represented
by the Prosecuting Attorney and the defendant Sanguily by
Solicitor Don Juan Plutarco Valdds and the lawyer Don Miguel
Francisco Viondi :
" 1 . Whereas in the proceedings instituted by order of the
military authorities and by military justice against Don Eladio
Larrinaga, Don Julio Sanguily, Don Jose Maria Aguirre and
others, charged with the crime of 'rebellion,' it was ordered
that a certified copy of the record in so far as concerning the
aforesaid Sanguily and Aguirre should be made and turned
over to the civil authorities, because under the protocol of
January 12th, 1877, the said civil authorities are the only ones
having competent jurisdiction to try the case of the said two
prisoners, for the reason that they are citizens of the United
States of America : it appearing that the said order was com
plied with, and that the copy so ordered to be made and turned
over to the civil authorities was first transmitted to the Senior
Judge of this city, and by him subsequently and for the pur
poses of examination and prosecution to the Judge of Instruc
tion for El Cerro district, who proceeded to prepare the case for
proper trial (*) :
2. Whereas it is proved that Don Julio Sanguily y Garit,
whose affiliations with the separatist party, in which he enjoyed
influence and prestige, owing to the services which he had ren
dered to the rebel cause in the insurrection which ended in
1878, kept himself in relations with persons residing in this
Island and abroad for the purpose of organizing an uprising to
secure independence ; — and that he was one of the abettors and
leaders of the present uprising (f) :
" 3. Whereas, it is proved that Don Antonio Lopez Coloma,
a resident of the district of Matanzas came to this capital on the
2 ist of February, 1895, f°r the purpose of receiving orders and
instructions from Don Julio Sanguily, as to whether the cry of

(*) The language of this part of the decision shows how just the remarks
of Assistant Secretary of State Mr. Uhl were when he said that Sanguily's
case had been merely taken up by the Civil authorities where the Military
authorities had left it off; and that what was done under military juris
diction, although null and void, had been accepted and validated.
(t) This statement, merely apetitio principii, takes for granted and
gives as proved precisely the same fact which was to be investigated.
No legal proof was ever produced of the correspondence alluded to by
the Court in this part of the sentence.

42
' ' Long live the independence " should or should not be raised: —
that both of them agreed as to starting the revolutionary
movement on the 24th of the same month; — that the said
revolutionary movement broke out at the date agreed upon,
several bands of men rising up in arms in open hostility
towards the Government, and proclaiming the independence
of this Island; — that the said Lopez Coloma, who had joined
one of these bands and was captured by the troops of the
Government, carried about his person, when taken prisoner,
besides his arms and various papers, one letter written by
Don Julio Sanguily, dated February 9th, and addressed to
one Mr. Betancourt, who was likewise concerned in the upris
ing, in which letter Sanguily lamented his lack of means, and
said that he was so poor as to be unable to take the field and
redeem a machete and a revolver which he had had to pawn,
urging Betancourt to get for him as soon as possible the twenty-
five hundred dollars which he had promised him, and adding
that he had no head to think about anything of interest, as he
saw himself, just at the moment of placing himself at the head
of a work of redemption, without means even of sending his
cook to the market (*): —
"4. Whereas it is proved that at the time in which the letter
above referred to was written, Sanguily had in a pawnbroker's
office called " La Equitativa " a machete and a revolver which
he had pawned, and were sold after his arrest, f
"5. Whereas it is proved that Don Julio Sanguily was
arrested at the house in which he lived at Havana at an early
hour in the morning of February 24th, 1895, the same day on
which the uprising took place.
"6. Whereas, it is proved that when Don Jose Inocencio
Azcuy arrived in this port from Tampa he was arrested by an
inspector of police, who took from him a document which he
had hidden in his cravat, and that when the aforesaid Azcuy
saw that he was discovered he snatched a part of said document
out of the hands of the inspector and put it in his mouth for
the purpose of destroying it, and that the inspector compelled
him by force to spit out the pieces, and that the said document

(*)This clause of the sentence takes it for granted that Don Antonio
Lopez Coloma saw Sanguily, which both Lopez Coloma and Sanguily
denied. Nor does it pay attention to the fact that the signature of the
letter reads "Gener" and not "Sanguily."
(t) Neither the name of the pawnbroker's office was " La Equitativa,"
nor were the revolver and machete pawned or sold when the sentence
says they were. The testimony of the pawnbroker himself, Don Ram6n
Sanchez, demolishes the structure built by the Court upon movable sand.

43
was written and signed by Don Julio Sanguily, and was a
commission of colonel in the insurgent army, with power to
organize troops and make appointments ;
" 7. Whereas, when the order to end the preliminary ex
amination was confirmed, the first hearing took place, and
in accordance with the request therein made by the Govern
ment attorney, an order was issued to suspend the proceedings
provisionally against Don Josd Maria Aguirre, one-half of the
costs to be paid by him, and to commence the public trial of
Don Julio Sanguily ;
"8. Whereas, the record was delivered to the Government
attorney, who made an argument characterizing the offense as
rebellion, as described by Article 237, No. 1, and punished in
Article 238 of the Penal Code, and asked that Don Julio Sanguily
y Garit should be sentenced as guilty of the aforesaid crime to
imprisonment for life, with the accessory penalties of Article 33
of the Code, and to the payment of one-half of the costs;
" 9. Whereas, the counsel for the defense, in his turn, asked
for the acquittal of the prisoner on the ground that there was
no legal reason to suppose that his client had committed the
acts attributed to him, and proposed as an alternative that his
client should be pardoned on the ground that he was included
in the proclamation published on the 27th day of February ;
"10. Whereas the proofs offered by the Government attorney
and the prisoner's counsel having been accepted, a day was
appointed for holding the public trial, on which occasion they
reiterated their previous arguments ;
"11. Whereas, according to Article 8 of the Civil Code and
Article 41 of the Law concerning foreigners, the penal laws are
binding upon all persons living in Spanish territory, and that
consequently, the provisions of the Penal Code are applicable
to Don Julio Sanguily y Garit, since his American citizenship
gives him only the rights granted by the protocol of January
12, 1877, which rights have been recognized ;
" 12. Whereas, according to Article 237, No. 1, of the Penal
Code, persons who publicly rise in arms in open hostility to the
Government in order to proclaim the independence of Cuba and
Puerto Rico, or of either of them, are guilty of the crime of
rebellion ;
" 13. Whereas the acts declared to have been proved in the
third ' ' whereas ' ' constitute the consummated crime defined in
the twelfth "whereas," since the object and purpose of the
rising, which took place on the 24th of February, is to secure
the independence of this Island ;
" 14. Whereas, according to Article 238 of the same code,

44
persons who induce others to become rebels by promoting or
sustaining the rebellion, and the principal leaders thereof are
to be punished by imprisonment for life ;
"15. Whereas the facts declared to have been proved in the
second, third, fourth and fifth "whereases," conclusively show
that Don Julio Sanguily y Garit was guilty, through direct
participation of the crime defined in the thirteenth ' ' whereas, ' '
and has rendered himself liable to the penalty provided for in
the fourteenth, because not only was he one of the promoters
of the rebellion but was also one of its leaders or principal
chiefs, as has been shown to the satisfaction of the court, not
only by the data in possession of the court and by the evidence
taken at the public trial, but also by an examination and com
parison of the documents connected with the third and sixth
"whereases," in the undoubted handwriting of the prisoner
(which examination the Court performed in fulfillment of the
duty made obligatory upon it by Article 726 of the law on
criminal trials), and, moreover, by the context of the letter ad
dressed to Betancourt fifteen days before the uprising took place,
and by the context of the document taken from Azcuy, inas
much as appointments of that importance can be made only by
the directors or principal leaders of the rebellion ;
"16. Whereas, the fact that Don Julio Sanguily was arrested
on the morning of the very day on which the uprising took
place does not authorize the court to consider him as guilty
merely of a frustrated crime or of only an attempt to commit
rebellion, because from the letter and spirit of Article 338 it is
to be inferred that promoters of the rebellion are liable to suffer
the whole penalty even if they are not at the head of any rebel
bands or actually sustaining the rebellion, it being sufficient
that they have promoted it, and because, it has been satisfac
torily shown that Don Julio Sanguily was one of the principal
leaders of the rebellion.
"17. Whereas, leaving out of consideration the fact that the
alternative request of the prisoner's counsel should have been
made as an article of " previo pronunciamiento, ' in which case
alone it could have been insisted upon at the public trial, ac
cording to Articles 666 and 678 of the law governing criminal
trials, it is certain that the granting of the requested pardon
does not come within the competency of this court, and that
on the hypothesis that the prisoner (although he was arrested
three days before the publication of the Captain-General's proc
lamation) was entitled to it. the granting of that pardon is wholly
foreign to the jurisdiction of this court, which in the mean
time has only to consider the crime punished by the Code, and

45
that there are no subsequent legal circumstances that prevent
its punishment, as was declared by the Supreme Court in its
decision of July 16, 1873.
"18. Whereas neither the Government attorney nor the
counsel for the defense have pointed out any extenuating cir
cumstances, nor can any be inferred from the facts declared to
have been proved, and therefore it is proper to impose the
mildest penalty provided for the crime, viz., imprisonment for
life; "19. Whereas there is no reason to enforce civil responsi
bility, and as the costs are understood to be at the charge of
those who are guilty of any crime :
' ' Now, therefore, in view of the articles of the penal code
which have already been quoted, and also of articles 1, 11, 12,
26, 53, 62, 79, 89, and 741 of the law governing criminal trials,
we pronounce sentence to the effect that it is our duty to con
demn, and we do hereby condemn, Don Julio Sanguily to
imprisonment for life at hard labor, and to deprivation of his
civil rights and subjection to the vigilance of the authorities
during his lifetime ; and in case the principal penalty be remitted,
we condemn him to absolute deprivation of his civil rights and
to subjection to the vigilance of the authorities during his
lifetime, unless these penalties shall be remitted in the pardon;
and we further condemn him to the payment of one-half of the
costs of the preliminary examination, and of all those which
have been incurred in this case since the public trial was begun ;
and in view of the investigation made about Sanguily's prop
erty, we declare Don Julio Sanguily to be insolvent for the
purposes of this case. Thus by this, our sentence, we do
pronounce, order, and sign. "JosE Pulido,
"Francisco Pampillon,
' ' Vicente Pardo Bonanza,
"Adolfo Astudillo de Guzman,
"Rafael Maydagan."

46
VII.
THE APPEAL TO THE SUPREME COURT OF SPAIN.
The record shows that the distinguished lawyer who had
had in his charge the defense of Julio Sanguily, during the
trial ended by the sentence whose full text has been given in
the foregoing chapter, acting with great prudence and looking
above all, as it was his duty, to the good of his client, decided,
as soon as the said sentence was made known to him, to
abandon, at least practically and temporarily, all troublesome
contentions about the treaty rights of the prisoner and the
validity of the proceedings according to which the case had
been conducted, and to use such remedies as the system of
procedure, whether legal or illegal, which had been followed
permitted against the sentence. Under the Law for the appli
cation in the Island of Cuba of the Penal Code of Spain, en
acted, as stated before, on May 23d, 1879, the case could be
taken by means of a writ of error to the Supreme Court of
Spain, and Sanguily's learned counsel, seeing that through
this remedy a new chance for his client to obtain justice was
open, and further opportunities were also furnished the United
States Government to get such an accurate and complete infor
mation about the facts as was necessary for it to avoid mistakes
and shape its action finally — determined right away to make
use of the remedy which was within his reach, and have the
case submitted to the highest civil jurisdiction in the Spanish
realm. This determination of Sanguily's lawyer was made known,
among other things, to the State Department by the despatch
of Consul-General Williams to Assistant Secretary of State Mr.
Uhl, of December 7th, 1895. (Doc. No.' 104, Senate, 54th
Congress, 2d session, page 42).
Had the learned counsel insisted on the idea, no matter how
well founded, and already presented to the consideration of the
Spanish Government ever since April 25th, 1895, and of the

47
Court itself (November 12th, 1895), by the solemn protest of
Consul-General Williams, in the name of his government
(Doc. No. 104, ibid, pages 12 and 71), that Julio Sanguily
ought to have been tried by such a civil court and according to
such proceedings as are provided by the Spanish Law of April
17th, 182 1, spoken of in the Cushing Calder6n y Collantes Pro
tocol of 1877, — an<i n°t by the civil court and according to such
proceedings as were competent and legal under the Spanish
Law of May 23d, 1879, and other laws subsequent to the said
Protocol, — he would have had to acknowledge, under the said
law of 1 82 1, that the sentence was final, and would have left
his client with no other hope of relief than the interposition in
his favor by the Government of the United States of America,
whether in the form of a demand, peremptorily made and en
forced by ships of war, according to the methods which the
Honorable William P. Frye, Senator from Maine, would have
resorted to, as he said, if he had had his way, or in some other
form, more moderate, and not so much at variance with the
habits of diplomacy and civilization.
The risk was run in either case, that before the men-of-war
sent to Havana to rescue Sanguily could have reached that port.
and succeeded in intimidating the Spanish authorities of the
Island of Cuba to the extreme of causing them to surrender the
prisoner, — or before any proper diplomatic representations could
have reached the Madrid Foreign Office, — Julio Sanguily might
probably have found himself crossing the Atlantic Ocean, on
board a Spanish vessel, poorly treated, and heavily ironed, on
his way to Ceuta, if not already there living the life of a
convict. The wise determination of Sanguily's learned counsel did
not prevent the Government of the United States from carrying
out its purpose to ascertain, upon real practical knowledge
of the facts, whether the treaty rights of Sanguily had or had
not been violated. Assistant Secretary of State, Mr. Uhl,
wrote to Consul-General Williams, on December 23rd, 1895, as

48
follows "From your dispatch No. 2677 of the 7th instant,
and from a letter filed under date of the 13th instant, from Mr.
Julio Sanguily, the Department has learned the result of the
trial of Mr. Sanguily in the criminal court of Cuba. From
these reports'of the trial there is reason to apprehend that the
proceedings which terminated in Mr. Sanguily's conviction
were not in accordance with the treaty of 1795 as construed
by the protocol of 1877. It is inferred from the reports that
the civil court took up the case against Sanguily where the
military tribunal left off, and that the trial proceeded upon the
charges formulated and the evidence taken by the military
court. It is necessary before taking any action, that the
Department should be accurately and fully advised as to the
manner in which the trial has been conducted with reference
to the Code of criminal procedure and to the provisions of the
treaty and protocol. The position of this Government is
outlined in a telegram to your office, dated May 21, last (*),
to which you are referred. You are instructed to make this
report with as little delay as possible, setting forth each step
in the proceedings from the first arrest by the military author
ities to the conviction in the civil court." (Doc. No. 104,
Senate, 54th Congress, 2nd session, page 70.)
Previously to this dispatch, Mr. Uhl had urged the United

(*) Mr. Uhl to Mr. Springer. Telegram. Department of State,
Washington, May 21, 1895. — Carrillo's case, involving most important
principle, has been presented by United States Minister to Spain. In
cases Aguirre and Sanguily you will file formal protest declining to
recognize validity of military jurisdiction in preliminary stage. The
treaty of 1795 excludes the exercise of military jurisdiction altogether, and
requires arrests to be made and offences proceeded against by ordinary
jurisdiction only. Protocol merely recognizes, declares and explains this
treaty right. Military arm has no judicial cognizance over our citizens at
any stage. Even arrests, when made by military power, are by a conven
tional figment deemed to have been a civil act. By no fiction can pro
ceedings of military Judge instructor be deemed to be the act of an ordi
nary court of first instance. — Doc. No. 104, Senate, 54th Congress, 2nd
session, page 17.

49
States Consul-General to get a copy of the record of the trial
and forward it to the State Department.
But this important instruction could not be complied with,
either by Mr. Williams or by General Lee, in spite of their zeal
and diligence, because of certain technical difficulties which
presented themselves and which neither of those officials could
overcome, and more than all, because the counsel for the
prisoner, acting with proper haste, had already taken the case,
by means of a writ of error, to the Supreme Court of Spain,
and as usual in such cases, under the law, the original record
had been forwarded to Madrid.
About eleven months after that date, namely, on the 29th of
September, 1896, the said Supreme Court reversed the sentence
and practically ordered a new trial. The court below was
directed to admit in evidence the Betancourt' s affidavit which
had been rejected in the former trial and to give to it such
weight as might be legal and proper.
The following is the text translated into English of the
decision of the Supreme Court of Spain :
" In the City and Court of Madrid, on the 29th of September,
1896, in the case taken before us on a writ of error by Julio
Sanguily y Garit, appealing from the sentence of the Audiencia
of Havana in the proceedings instituted in the first instance
against the said Sanguily in the Court of El Cerro District, at
Havana, for the crime of rebellion :
" It appearing that the Audiencia of Havana when taking
cognizance of this case in the second instance, and subsequent
to that stage of the proceedings in which the facts are recapitu
lated, decided to admit all the evidence offered by both the
prosecution and the defense in their respective petitions, and
set apart the 28th of November ultimo for the trial :
' ' It appearing that on the 14th of the same month of Novem
ber the counsel for the defendant filed an affidavit said to have
been just received by mail from the United States, sworn to by
Don Pedro E. Betancourt before a Notary Public, stating that
deponent had been informed that a letter, supposed to have
been addressed to him and signed by one Gener, had been put
in evidence against the prisoner, and that the said letter had
never been received by deponent, nor has it been seen by him,

50
nor was he in any manner acquainted with its contents; and
that in filing the said affidavit the counsel for the defense
invoked Article 4th of the Protocol of January 12th, 1877, relat
ing to the construction to be placed upon certain provisions of
existing treaties between the United States and Spain, and
claimed that citizens of the United States are entitled to produce
in their defense, at any time, whatever proofs they may deem
favorable, for all of which he asked the said affidavit to be
admitted as evidence, and ordered to be given the proper
weight as such :
' ' It appearing that the Audiencia founded on the facts, — that
under Article 656 of the Law of Criminal Procedure, the
whole testimony to be used by each party is to be described in
the petitions called de calificaci6u, — that according to Article
728 of the Code, those proofs so suggested or announced at the
proper time, and no others, are to be admitted, except in the
extraordinary cases marked in Articles 729 and 730 of the Code
relating to steps to be taken by order of the Court, or as a
result of the debates at the time of the trial, — that the said pro
visions, which had to be strictly obeyed and complied with in
this case, prevented the documentary evidence offered by San
guily's counsel after the judicially specified time from being
admitted at that stage of the proceedings, — and that even in case
the stipulation of the Protocol of 1877 should be given atten
tion, the petition of Sanguily's counsel could not be granted,
because the protocol, while acknowledging the right of citizens
of the United States to present all the proofs favorable to them,
does not authorize them in any manner to produce such proofs
at a time, or in a form or manner different from the time, form,
and manner provided for by the Spanish Law of Criminal
Procedure, — ruled the said affidavit not to be admitted as evi
dence and to be returned to the defendant's counsel and that
defendant's counsel noted an exception against this ruling:
"It appearing that on the first day of the trial in the Audiencia,
the defense objected to the examination by a certain expert in
caligraphy designated by the prosecution, of certain letters
and documents, on the ground that the said examination had
been irregularly made in the Court below, without the presence
of the defendant or of his counsel; that the expert who was now
called again to examine those papers, and was the same who
had examined them before, was not at liberty to tell the truth
and thereby change his testimony, because his first deposition
had been made upon oath before the Court below ; and that
the first examination, being null and void, could not be vali
dated by such process at that time and at that stage of the

5i
case ; and that the Court founded on the ground that the peti
tion of the prosecution had been filed in due time, and bad
been granted, and also that the examination of the expert was
pertinent, ruled out the objection of the defense, for all of
which the defense noted a further exception :
' ' It appearing that when the decision of the Audiencia was
rendered, the defense applied for a writ of error on the ground
that Articles 911 and 914 of the Law of Criminal Procedure
had been violated, first, because of the non-admission of the
evidence offered by the defense, which showed the innocence
of the prisoner, and which according to the treaty between the
United Slates and Spain, could be introduced at any time; and
second, because the examination of the letters and papers,
made a second time by an expert whose first examination was
illegal, could not be given any value, because of the impossi
bility for the said expert to contradict or amend his first testi
mony made upon oath :
" It appearing that the writ of error was granted, and that
the case was brought before this Court in the proper order :
" It appearing that on the day of the trial before this Supreme
Court, the prosecution, represented by the Attorney-General,
joined the defense in requesting that the decision of the Court
below should be reversed, though only on the first ground
alleged by the defense :
"The case having been duly heard and examined, Associate
Justice Senor Don Josd Maria Barnuevo being entrusted to
draw up the decision :
" Considering that under Section 1, Article 91 1 of the Law of
Criminal Procedure, cases can be taken to this Supreme Court
on a writ of error, whenever the admission of some evidence
offered in due time and in the proper form by any of the parties,
and deemed to be pertinent, has been refused ; that all these
circumstances concur in the present case, because the docu
ment, which the Audiencia refused to admit as evidence, is
pertinent, and has intimate relation with another document
filed by the prosecution, the force of which it tends to destroy,
and because it was offered in due form and at such a time as it
was possible for the defense, which can not be deprived, without
good and sufficient reason, of the benefit to be derived by it ;
and that for this reason, and not because of the existence of
any legal provision authorizing the parties to produce evidence
at any time, the document in question ought to have been ad
mitted as evidence, without prejudging thereby its value and
efficacy : ,,.,,¦.,-
" Considering that the second ground on which the defense

52
has based his action before this Court is untenable, because
under the Law, while a remedy is given against orders refusing
to admit pertinent proofs, none is given, however, against
orders granting their admission.
" We do hereby decide, that the remedy sought for by the
defense of Don Julio Sanguily is to be granted on the first
ground alleged by the said defense, but not on the second ; and
that therefore we must and do hereby annul and reverse the
sentence rendered by the Audiencia of Havana in the present
case, without costs. And let this decision be communicated to
the said Audiencia, in order that the case be restored to the
condition in which it was when the admission of the document
was refused, and properly continued until its termination,
according to law. So, by this, our final decision, which will
be published in the Gaceta de Madrid and in the Coleccidn
Legislativa, it has been ordered, adjudged and decreed by us,
the undersigned.
"Santos de Isasa.
' ' Mateo de Alcocar.
' ' Rafael de Solis Liebana.
' ' Victoriano Hernandez.
"Salvador Viada.
"JosE Maria Barnuevo.
"Juan de D. Roldan."

53
vm.
THE EFFORTS TO SECURE THROUGH EXECUTIVE SPANISH
CLEMENCY THE RELEASE OF SANGUILY.
The writer of these pages did not receive any authority to
represent Julio Sanguily before the State Department or else
where until the nth of November, 1895, when the day for the
trial of the prisoner at the city of Havana had already been
fixed. Consul-General Williams had reported on the 2nd of
the same month that the court had decided to begin the said
trial on the 28th following ; and therefore it was useless to
undertake anything until hearing from Havana how the case
had ended.
The short time which elapsed between the 1 ith of November
above mentioned and the day on which the decision of the
Court of Havana was known at Washington, gave, however,
to the writer of these pages all proper opportunity to see the
papers filed, and to become, through correspondence with his
client and otherwise, fully acquainted with the facts. He
must confess with sincerity, that the result of his study, as
well as his knowledge of the circumstances which had sur
rounded the case ever since its inception, led him to the con
viction that the Spanish authorities of Cuba would never
voluntarily release his client, as long as the Cuban war should
give the slightest sign of existence. And as at the same time
he never thought, that in spite of this undoubted Spanish de
termination to keep Sanguily within the walls of Fortress La
Cabana, more for fear of what he might do, if released, than
for any thing else, there was any reasonable possibility of
turning Sanguily's case into a casus belli, or of making it the
subject of belligerent demonstrations or displays of force,
because, as declared by Assistant Secretary of State, Mr. Uhl,
in his note to Consul-General Williams of November 9th, 1895,
there was not, after all, up to that time, any tangible evidence
that the charge of sedition against Sanguily was frivolous

54
and merely vexatious (Doc. No. 104, Senate, 54th Congress,
2nd session, page 39) ; — the idea occurred to him, very
naturally, that the interests of his client would be better
subserved by securing, if possible, through diplomatic action,
the absolute removal of the case from Cuban influences, either
by having it transferred to Madrid together with the prisoner
released on bail, or by causing it to be finally terminated through
the exercise by Spain of executive clemency, whether in the
form of a full pardon, or of such a commutation of the sentence
as might involve the freedom of the prisoner.
It was clear to his mind that as long as the circumstances of
the war in Cuba should continue to exist, the courts of that
Island would never do more in favor of his client, than leaving
some door open to further appeals to the Supreme Court of
Spain, where the wrongs would be righted, only to the effect
of commencing the case de novo and having it retried, — and
that therefore, to the great detriment of Sanguily's interests,
the probabilities were that the case would be protracted indefi
nitely, going forwards and backwards between Havana and
Madrid, until the termination, if ever, of the Cuban war.
Founded upon these reasons, and others equally satisfactory
to him, the writer of these pages decided upon a plan of
defense, to which his client fully agreed, which substantially
embraced the following elements : —
ist. To secure for Sanguily as full and efficient legal defense
at Madrid before the Supreme Court as could possibly be
obtained ; to see there that every point of law, both international
and municipal would be properly attended to ; and to make an
effort, taking advantage of a well known precedent, to obtain
from the said high tribunal a mandate for the release of the
prisoner on bail, so as to enable him to personally present him
self at Madrid, and appear before the court, if his counsel
should deem it necessary, or advisable.
2nd and principally : To secure, if possible, through diplo
matic effort the release of Sanguily by Royal command, whether

55
by applying to him the benefits of the decrees of amnesty of
Governor-General Calleja, dated respectively February 27th and
March 4th, 1895, or by the direct exercise in his favor of the
Royal pardoning power.
In harboring the conviction which led him to the adoption
of this plan, the writer of these pages did not mean to be
unjust towards the court which tried Sanguily, to the extreme
of imputing to it any deliberate purpose of doing harm to the
prisoner. He merely was afraid that the Court should be sub
servient. He knew very well what the situation of things in
Cuba turns to be when circumstances of the character of those
which surrounded the Sanguily case present themselves,— and
founded upon experience, he entertained serious doubts about
the possibility that anything which might mean in any way
whatever judicial independence should exist at that time. He
remembered the days of 1869, when a man, but only one, —
namely, Chief Justice Don Joaquin Calbeton, — dared to raise
his voice, (circular of January 27th, 1S69, ) urging the courts
of Cuba to consider that the first duty of any one entrusted
with the administration of justice is to have " civic courage "
and resist outside pressure from whatever source it might come,
— and he could not see now, when the circumstances were just as
bad as in 1869, if not worse, another Senor Calbet6n making
his bold appearance in the Cuban horizon.
Much less was he guilty, when seeking above all the release
of Sanguily through Spanish executive clemency, of sharing
in any way whatever the slanderous imputations which so-
called friends of Cuba and others have industriously heaped
upon the administration of President Cleveland and his Secre
tary of State Mr. Richard Olney. He knew by his own
personal experience, covering more than a quarter of a century
of daily contact with the State Department, not to say anything
of historical teachings, that in the matter of protection to
American citizens against injustice and oppression on the part
of Spain, and in the fulfillment of this duty, manly as well as

56
efficiently, the administration of Mr. Cleveland, with Secretary
of State Mr. Gresham, and Secretary of State Mr. Olney,
has a record, which its enemies cannot obscure, and which
challenges comparison with that of all the other administrations
which preceded it.
Poor student of history is the one who does not know what
that protection was from 1869 to 1884, and how powerful Spain
was in this country during those fifteen years. American
citizens were murdered in Cuba, sometimes for no other crime
than wearing a blue necktie : — one of them was executed, even
in violation of a Spanish safe conduct given him by the Spanish
Minister; — and in spite of all. even in the case of the Virginius,
which was settled at the niggard rate of $2,500 per life of an
American, Spain was always able to get out of her difficulties,
as a prominent Spaniard established in New York telegraphed
to Havana, in 1873, in the most graceful manner.
The mere fact that an executive commission was allowed to
be established, without the approval of the Senate, and without
more formalities than an exchange of notes, to adjust all kinds
of claims of American citizens arising out of injuries to the
persons or property of American citizens in Cuba during the
revolution which broke out in that Island in 1868, and that it
was permitted further to remain in existence in Washington
for over twelve years, from 1871 to 1883, and to close its ses
sions leaving more than one-half of the 140 cases which had
been referred to it unsettled and undecided for alleged want of
jurisdiction, or for other reasons still more futile, not to say
anything of the astounding errors which said commissioners
were allowed to make in point of law, to such extreme as to
have deserved afterwards official condemnation, might be suffi
cient by itself to demonstrate what the situation was during that
period. (*)

(*) Out of eight cases of American citizens killed in Cuba, from
January, 1869, to February, 1870, namely: Samuel Alexander Cohner,
shot in Havana, January 21st, 1869; Juan Francisco Portuondo, shot near

57
An Executive Document of the Senate of the United States,
No. 108, 41st Congress, 2nd session, shows that on July 9th,
1870, the Spanish authorities of Cuba had already seized five
American vessels, killed eight American citizens, unduly im
prisoned thirty-six more, and seized and confiscated the prop
erty of no less than twenty. All of that went headlong into
the deadly waters of the famous arbitration of 1871-1883,
where with some disreputable exceptions, the whole thing was
wrecked (*). And it shows also, and this is more to the point
at issue, that even in the opinion of high officials of the United
States Government, officially expressed, the status of American
citizens in the eyes of Spain at those eventful days was more
than miserable. Admiral Hoff, U. S. N. , who had been sent
to Cuban waters on an errand of investigation, could not
refrain from suggesting, upon absolutely correct comparison,
that Great Britain's laws of citizenship ought to have some
peculiarity as to efficiently protecting British subjects, —
peculiarities well known by the Spanish authorities of Cuba,
because, in sad contrast with what usually happened to Ameri
cans, British subjects were always shown greater consideration

Santiago de Cuba, in 'February, 1869; George Bodel, shot on May 24th,
1869; Charles C. Polhamus, shot on June 13th, 1869 ; Charles Speakman,
shot on June 16th, 1869; Albert Wythe, shot on June 21st, 1869; Ernest
McCarty, shot on July 17th, 1869 ; and Vincent Dawney, shot on Febru
ary 2nd, 1870; only one, namely, the case of Juan Francisco Portuondo,
was decided favorably. All the others were dismissed or abandoned.
The Portuondo family was awarded $60,000; but the award was not made
until after seven years of unrelenting struggle.
(*) The vessels seized were :— The Mary Lowell, captured at Ragged
Island, on March 15th, 1869;— The Colonel Lloyd Aspinwall, captured
on the high seas, on January 21st, 1870 ;— The sloop Champion, seized at
Santiago de Cuba, where she entered in distress, on February 20th,
!86g ; — The schooner Lizzie Major, seized on the high seas, on April,
1869;— The sloop Fulton, seized and mobbed at Havana. The case of
the Lloyd Aspinwall was submitted individually to two arbitrators in
New York, and decided in favor of the United States. All others were
either lost or abandoned.

58
when captured or wrecked upon the Cuban coast. (Ex. Doc.
No. 108, Senate, 41st Congress, 2nd session, page 165.)
But leaving all comparisons aside, and returning to the
plan of action which the writer of these pages adopted, and to
the reasons which induced him to adopt it, the confession must
be made further, that at the time of its adoption no indication
of any idea to assist Sanguily could at all be perceived either
in the horizon of Congress (*) or in the legion of impromptu
self constituted defenders, who swarmed around Sanguily as
soon as they discovered that his case could be used to harrass
the administration of Mr. Cleveland, or to provoke, through
Congressional agitation, a conflict with Spain.
The writer of these pages saw from the beginning that his
client was safe in the hands of the Honorable Secretary of
State, Mr. Olney : that the latter and his subordinates in the
State Department had done, and done earnestly and successfully,
in favor of Sanguily, in spite of the serious difficulties which
the perplexing Cuban problem in its general features brought
continually into existence, all that could possibly be done under
the law and diplomatic usages. He saw also that the life, as
well as the comfort of the prisoner, if comfort can ever be found
inside a casemate of Fortress La Cabana, or of any other fortress,
had been strongly guaranteed. He saw that the grave question,
whether the legal proceedings to which Sanguily was subjected
during his trial were or were not regular and in keeping with
the treaty stipulations between the United States and Spain,
had been handled skillfully and given occasion to strong diplo
matic representations, which would be continued and insisted
upon, whatever the result of the case might be judicially, and
that these representations, as long as the war in Cuba would

(*) The resolution introduced in the Senate of the United States, by
Mr. Call, of Florida, calling for all papers and correspondence in the
Sanguily case, — which was the first Congressional movement ever made
on the subject, — was introduced on the 5th of December, 1895, three days
after the decision of the Court at Havana.

59
exist, would never in the end be disregarded by Spain. And
he saw, in fine, that after all, in determining to pursue such a
course of action as has been indicated, he only followed the
example which Sanguily's learned lawyer in Havana had
given, when he asked the Court to apply to the prisoner the
benefits of General Calleja's proclamation of amnesty, a
petition which was not granted, chiefly upon the ground of
want of jurisdiction, because the matter was, in the opinion
of the court, not judicial, but political and executive.
The first letter which the writer of these pages had the honor
to address to the Honorable Mr. Richard Olney, Secretary of
State, in behalf of Sanguily, was written in the spirit above
explained. It substantially conveyed a request for a diplomatic
effort towards securing the release of the prisoner, either
temporarily on bail (founded on the Spanish precedent of the
case of Don Juan Francisco Ramos), during the pendency of
the appeal, or finally through some act of clemency, as well as
of comity towards the United States, on the part of Spain.
When the prisoner was informed of this movement, he was
pleased beyond measure. In his letter of July 3rd, 1896, he
said to the writer of these pages: "Hope, which I had
lost, has revived in my soul through your action. Do all
that you can, my dear friend, to secure my freedom through a
pardon (indulto), or if not possible in that way, try at least to
obtain my release on bail. — But I pray you, to prevent, if
possible, my being sent to Madrid."
This latter request alludes to an idea, afterwards abandoned,
of the writer of these pages, about which he had had the honor
to confer verbally with the Honorable Secretary of State, Mr.
Richard Olney, of securing, if advisable and possible, from the
Supreme Court of Madrid, a change of venue in the case of the
prisoner, so as to have the said case finally tried in the capital
of the Spanish monarchy far from Havana and from the
passions and influences adverse to Sanguily which appeared to
exist in Cuba.

6o
That the Honorable Secretary of State kindly complied with
the wishes of the prisoner's counsel, is shown by this letter.
Department of State,
Washington, July 9th, 1896.
J. I. Rodriguez, Esquire,
Washington, D. C.
Sir:— In reply to your letter of the 3rd instant, I have to say
that our Minister at Madrid has been instructed to see whether
he can bring about the release of Mr. Julio Sanguily by means
of the provisions of General Calleja's amnesty proclamation of
February, 1895.
This suggestion had also been previously made to Mr.
Taylor in connection with the effort to obtain Mr. Sanguily's
release on bail pending his appeal.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Richard Olney.
The following correspondence, which is published especially
for the purpose of showing how much in earnest the writer of
these pages was in trying to secure the freedom of Sanguily
through some manner of pardon, independently of whatever
action the Supreme Court of Spain might deem proper to take,
will also prove that the diplomatic machinery of the United
States was not as unfriendly to the prisoner, or as slow in act
ing in his favor, as the enemies of Mr. Cleveland's administra
tion, cum ira et studio towards it, not for love to Sanguily, or
even for the sake of principle, have attempted to represent.
Washington, D. C, July 21, 1896.
Honorable Hannis Taylor,
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary
of the United States of America, etc., etc., etc., Madrid.
Dear Sir : — I know well that when a Diplomatic representa
tive is conducting a negotiation, in the name of his Government
and in behalf of one of his fellow citizens, any attempt of the
latter or of his counsel to make suggestions, or communicate

6i
ideas, no matter how respectfully, might perhaps be considered,
with reason, as a kind of intrusion, difficult to be forgiven.
And I know better than all, because I, as counsel for the claim
ant in the Mora case can speak on the subject upon personal
experience, that when that diplomatic representative is Mr.
Hannis Taylor, — backed by such a man as Mr. Richard Olney,
— all suggestions, or communication of ideas besides being
blamable in general are particularly unnecessary. But as
Mr. Olney told me that he had sent to you my letter on behalf
of Julio Sanguily, a prisoner for over sixteen months in the
Fortress La Cabana at Havana, with instructions to do your
best to secure the application to him of General Calleja's
indulto of February 25th, 1895, and as something has happened
in Havana of official character which might help your efforts
in that direction, I venture to address this letter to you, not
without accompanying it with a sincere appeal to your kind
ness and forbearance.
The prisoner himself has sent to me from Havana, in letter
received to-day, the inclosed slip of a newspaper containing the
circular issued on the 9th instant by General Weyler of Cuba,
indicative of a spirit of comparative leniency towards political
prisoners. And I have thought of sending it to you, both
because of the absence of Mr. Olney, to whom otherwise I
would have shown the paper, and because of the assistance
which it might give you, if any, in conducting this negotiation.
— If the birthday of Her Majesty the Queen Regent brought
about as a very appropriate celebration the freedom of prisoners
subject to military jurisdiction in Cuba, why would not the
same spirit pervade the spheres of civil justice and aid in
securing the liberation of Sanguily ?
I beg to be allowed to say, as I had the honor to say to Mr.
Olney, and he said that it was true, that every day which is
added to the sixteen months of imprisonment which my client
has already suffered increases his danger immensely. His
safety may be said to be dependent now upon the preservation
of the present aspect of the political sky. If for any cause
whatever, domestic or international, that sky grows darker :
who can foretell what may happen to the prisoner ? This is
one reason more for which it is to be hoped that the success
of your efforts may be speedily obtained.
With feelings of sincere distinguished consideration, I am
happy to subscribe myself your obedient servant.
J. I. Rodriguez.
This letter was answered as follows :

62
Legation of the United States,
Madrid,
San Sebastian, August 14th, 1896.
J. I. Rodriguez, Esq.,
Washington, D. C.
Dear Sir: — I have carefully read your letter of the 21st ult.
and I am very willing to tell you in reply of the special efforts
which I have made in behalf of your client under the directions
of the State Department.
Immediately after receiving the last letter from that source I
dined with the Minister of State, and in order to make a final
appeal to him personally I took the letter with me and made it
the subject of a long conversation after dinner. The result
was that the Minister promised me to write a personal letter to
the Prime Minister invoking his special interest in the matter.
A day or two ago he read me the reply of the Prime Minister,
written at great length in his own hand, the substance of which
was that while he personally desired to comply with my request
he said it was impossible to pardon Sanguily while his brother
continued to be one of the most dangerous and bloody of the
insurrectionary chiefs. He said that such an act upon his part
would cause an outburst of indignation which he could not
venture to excite. He further said that Sanguily's case would
be heard in the Tribunal Supremo on the 19th of September,
and if at that time the case should be reversed and sent back
for a new trial he would try to have an order made to the effect
that Sanguily's imprisonment should be made as comfortable
as possible. Beyond this nothing can be expected, as I have
exhausted both my personal and official influence in the matter.
I remain, Very truly yours,
Hannis Taylor.
Far from feeling discouraged by this result, the writer of
these pages took advantage of the first opportunity which pre
sented itself to him, to submit again this matter, conversation
ally, to the attention of the Honorable Secretary of State, and
request a further effort in favor of the prisoner, by showing
to the Spanish Government how unjust it would be on its part,
and how much at variance with its friendly feelings towards
the United States and towards the prisoner himself, to make

63
the latter suffer for the alleged doings, whatever they might
be, of his brother. It was at that conference, when in discuss
ing the possibility to find out some proper way of removing
the apprehensions felt by Spain as to Sanguily's conduct
towards her, subsequent to his release, the idea that Sanguily
could be paroled was naturally suggested and accepted.
Julio Sanguily, although a Cuban by birth, was a citizen of
the United States of America, who in becoming such had
solemnly declared on oath, before the court which admitted
him to citizenship, that ' ' he absolutely and entirely renounced
and abjured all allegiance and fidelity," not only to Spain, but
" to every foreign Prince, Potentate or Sovereignty;" foreign
in this case meaning ' 'foreign to the United States of America, "
which certainly includes Cuba. He, as such a citizen of the
United States of America, had the plain duty to be, while
living in Cuba at least, perfectly neutral in the contest between
Cuba and Spain. He had said, furthermore, and insisted upon
it repeatedly, that he had had nothing to do with the present
Cuban revolution and had kept aloof from it, a statement
which was corroborated by the deposition of Don Antonio
Lopez Coloma, who paid with his life his allegiance to the
Cuban cause and said that he did not think, in spite of what
he had been told, Sanguily would ever join the insurrection.
In pledging his word of honor not to take arms against Spain,
if released, Sanguily besides satisfying his obligations as a law
abiding citizen of the United States of America, would not by
any means violate any duty belonging to him as a Cuban,
because one thing is to be a Cuban and a lover of the liberty
of Cuba and of her independence from Spain, and to be ready
to sacrifice all things for the success of that undertaking, as
Sanguily had done during the war of 1868-1878, and another
thing is to approve of and join the revolution which broke out
in the Island of Cuba on February 24th, 1895. He had ex
pressed repeatedly, in his letters to the writer of these pages,
that he wanted to get out through the indultoes of Generals

64
Calleja and Weyler, and place himself therefore in the legal
position of the presentados, or men who had abandoned the
rebellion and surrendered to Spain. Many a military leader,
of great merit and renown, even when engaged in actual war,
did not hesitate to submit to the necessities of the occasion
and seek for liberty on parole. For these and some other
reasons, the writer of these pages deemed it to be his duty to
call the attention of his client to the conversation aforesaid and
to expectation entertained by him that a negotiation with the
Spanish Government, on such a base as this, would probably
be successful. Sanguily was left, however, in absolute liberty
to decide one way or the other, as the impulses of his heart,
or his engagements, if any, might cause him to do.
The letter of Sanguily's counsel, wherein this plan was de
veloped to the proper extent, was not written to him directly
for fear that it might fall into Spanish hands. It was written
to the United States Vice-Consul General at Havana, Mr.
Joseph A. Springer, a common friend of the prisoner and of
his counsel here, and in it Mr. Springer was requested to go
and see Sanguily, at Fortress La Cabana, or in some other
proper way communicate with the prisoner, make him ac
quainted with the plan, and hear and transmit his decision.
The result of this step can be shown by the following letter : —
United States Consulate General,
Havana, Cuba, October 22nd, 1896.
Jose Ignacio Rodriguez, Esq.,
Washington, U. S. A.
My Dear Sir: — Your letter to Mr. Springer, Vice-Consul
here, dated October 13th, has been properly referred to me.
You write that if Julio Sanguily will take his liberty on a
pledge or parole, that he will not take up arms against the
Spanish Government here, during the continuance of the pre
sent war, and that he will not aid, directly or indirectly, the
insurgents, as they are called here, during the period above
referred to, an effort will be made by the proper authorities to
have him released from his cell in Fort " Cabanas," where he
has been confined now for some 20 months.

65
I am prepared to state in reply, that Sanguily will sign any
pledge or parole, concerning the points I have named, and that
he will leave the Island and reside in the United States, during
the war now being waged on it.
I hope this can be done, because of the long confinement
Sanguily has already experienced (and the re-trial of his case
means, probably, further long imprisonment), and because he
is suffering from impaired health and old wounds.
The particular parole to be used might be drawn by the
Spanish authorities. Very truly yours,
Fitzhugh Lee,
Consul-General.

The fact that Sanguily as late as September 30th, 1896, was
still urging Consul-General Lee, ' ' to insist before the Spanish
authorities for his release on pardon under the terms of General
Calleja's proclamation of amnesty (see General Lee to Mr.
Rockhill, Mr. Sanguily to General Lee, and General Lee to
Mr. Sanguily, Doc. No. 104, Senate, 54th Congress, 2d Session,
pages 87 and 88), will help to explain the facility, it might be
said the eagerness, with which the prisoner acquiesced to be
paroled. The letter of his counsel had left Washington, if it
left at its date, on the 13th of October, 1896, and nine days
afterwards the acquiescence of the prisoner had been expressed.
The writer of these pages was so anxious to secure the release
of his client, so sure of the earnest and sincere support which
anything conducive to obtain his liberty, or that of any other
citizen of the United States of America in Sanguily's predica
ment, would find on the part of the State Department, — and so
fully convinced that the real obstacle which prevented Spain
from releasing Sanguily was the fear that he would do, when re
leased, as Aguirre and Carrillo had done, — that without waiting
for any further evidence of the determination of his client than
the letter of General Lee above copied, communicated at once
with the Honorable Secretary of State, transmitting to him the
original of the said letter and expressing himself as follows : —

66
Washington, D. C,
October 28th, 1896.
Honorable Richard Olney,
Secretary of State, etc., etc., etc.
Sir : — In pursuance of the conversation I had the honor to
have with you, I communicated with Mr. Julio Sanguily, in
Havana, and expressed my desire that he should give some
pledge, satisfactory to Spain, of his determination not to assist,
if released from imprisonment, the insurrection in Cuba. I did
not write to him directly, but through the Consulate at Havana,
for fear that the letter would not reach him, or that its contents
would be revealed to any one except American officials. The
letter of General Lee, which I have the honor to inclose, re
ceived by me, yesterday afternoon, at a late hour, will show
you that Mr. Sanguily will, if released, leave the Island and
reside in the United States, and that he will sign any particular
parole which the Spanish authorities may draw at their own
satisfaction. I hope that you, having this letter in your possession, will
be able to negotiate successfully with the Spanish Government
for the release of a citizen of the United States who has been
kept in prison ever since February 24th, 1895, w^o was con
victed and sentenced in violation of the law and through errors
in the proceedings, which if I am not misinformed have now
been ordered to be corrected by a recent mandate of the
Supreme Court of Spain.
I am, sir, very respectfully your obedient servant,
J. I. Rodriguez.

The negotiation, however, could not be carried to success as
promptly as the prisoner's counsel desired. Whether it was
because Spain did not feel satisfied with the manifestations of
the prisoner through Consul-General Lee, and needed some
thing stronger or more direct from the prisoner himself, or
because of other facts and circumstances which it is unnecessary
to explain, the fact is that three months elapsed without any
practical result having been obtained.
From the correspondence subsequent to Document No. 104,
Senate, 54th Congress, 2nd Session, printed in Foreign Relations
of the United States, 1896, page 844 and the following, it

67
appears that Sanguily in addition to the verbal statements
which General Lee had reported on October 22, 1896, signed
on January 21, 1897, one copy in English and another copy in
Spanish, of the following paper :
I, Julio Sanguily, an American citizen, confined at La
Cabana Fortress, Havana, do hereby sacredly affirm to the
United States and to Spain, that if I am released by pardon of
the latter Government, I will leave and remain away from
Cuba, and will not aid directly or indirectly the present insur
rection against the Government of Spain ; and I hereby promise
that should I do so at any time I will not claim the protection
of the United States Government. I certify that this pledge is
given of my own free will and without compulsion on the part
of any one.
Fortress La Cabana,
Havana, January 21st, 1897. Julio Sanguily.
Witnesses : Ernesto La Fosca,
Donnell Rockwell.
Seven days afterwards, for some reason or other, which the
record does not explain, Sanguily signed a second pledge as to
his intentions in regard to the former one. General Lee tele
graphed to the State Department, January 28th, 1897, as
follows : —
Sanguily signed personal pledge to me that he will faith
fully observe terms already mailed. Recommend case be con
sidered on said terms. {Foreign Relations of the United
States, 1896, page 845.)

68
IX.
SECOND TRIAL AND SENTENCE.
While the efforts to secure the pardon of the prisoner, as re
ferred to in the preceding chapter, were being made, the second
trial took place, and the second sentence was pronounced.
The new trial began on the 21st and terminated on the 23rd
of December, 1896, the Government being represented by the
Prosecuting Attorney Senor Don Joaquin Vidal y Gomez, and
the prisoner by his new lawyer Doctor Don Antonio Meza y
Dominguez. An account of the proceedings was transmitted
by Vice-Consul Springer to Assistant Secretary of State Mr.
Rockhill, on December 24th, 1896 (Doc. No. 104, Senate,
54th Congress, 2nd session, page 92); and from it and from
the accounts of the Havana newspapers, the fact can be dis
closed that the defense was conducted substantially on the fol
lowing grounds: (1) The nullity of all proceedings of mili
tary origin and the a fortiori inadmissibility in evidence against
Sanguily of whatever was done by the Judge Advocate prior to
the 1 6th of March, 1896, when the case was transferred from
military to civil jurisdiction : — (2) The futility of the so-
called evidence produced against the prisoner: — (3) The denial
by the prisoner of having been connected in any way whatever
with the Cuban insurrection.
The Havana paper called La Lueha published, on Decem
ber 23rd, 1895, an account of the trial, in which the argument
of the prosecution was paid the doubtful compliment of being
described as passionate to the extreme, palpitante de pasidn;
and in reality it was no other thing than one of those outbursts
of rhetorics, which the Spaniards of modern times call eloquence,
and which is their present substitute for past learning and
statesmanship. In the opinion of the prosecuting attorney,
even the candor, called by him arrogance, with which Sanguily
admitted to have been a General in the Cuban War of
Independence of 1868-1878, was evidence of his guilt, — as it

69
proved, as he said, that Sanguily was capable of committing
the offense for which he was on trial {Al ver tan arrogante al
Senor Sanguily lo he creido capaz de su delito). The past
connection of the prisoner with a war ended seventeen years
ago, had to drag him necessarily, the prosecution said, to join
the insurrection {sus antecedentes lo arrastran forzosamente d
la insurreccidn ) . The naturalization of Sanguily in the
United States of America rendered him subject, the prosecution
maintained, at least to suspicion {la segunda naturaleza tiene
que ser sospecho sa). The prisoner in reality was not, in the
opinion of the prosecution, an American citizen, but a Spaniard ;
and the reason was, among others, because Sanguily was very
handsome and his vernacular Spanish. {El Senor Sanguily
en actitud, en figura, en gallardia, lleva aunque no quiera, el
sello de su antigua nacionalidad espanola?) Sanguily was guilty
because public opinion pointed at him as a leader of prestige.
{La opinion piiblica reconoce en Sanguily uno de los cabecillas
de mas prestigio.) If Sanguily was not convicted, he, the
prosecuting attorney, although compelled to acknowledge to
have been defeated, would proclaim however not to have been
conquered; and the satisfaction of having complied with the
duty that the Spanish society demanded from him against an
enemy of Spain would always go with him and comfort him.
(Si el Tribunal lo absuelve, me confesarS vencido, mas no domi
nado; derrotado, pero no vencido : y me quedari satisfecho de
haber cumplido con mis deberes y con lo que la sociedad espanola
exige de mi contra los enemigos de la nacidn. )
Such a cheap firework trash seems to have had some effect
with the court. The so-called conclusions which the prose
cution had made were accepted, and a sentence, adverse to the
prisoner, was passed on the 28th of December, 1896. Sanguily
was convicted of the crime of rebellion and condemned to
imprisonment for life at hard labor.
This is the text of the sentence :—

70
"In the city of Havana, on the 28th of December, 1896:"
' ' This cause of the Government, on the one side, and Don
Julio Sanguily y Garitt, a native and a resident of this city, but
a citizen of the United States of America, 45 years old, married,
engaged in commercial business, the son of Don Julio Sanguily
and Dona Maria Garitt de Sanguily, and a man of learning,
having no criminal record, on the other side, — initiated and
prosecuted against the latter by the Judge of El Cerro District,
for the crime of rebellion, — having been heard and examined
by this Section No. 1 of the Criminal Court, all the require
ments of law having been fulfilled, the Government having
been represented by the Prosecuting Attorney, and Don Julio
Sanguily y Garitt by Don Luis Plutarco Valdds as solicitor,
and Don Antonio Meza y Dominguez as counsel :
Associate Justice Don Ricardo Maya having been placed
in special charge of the case and entrusted with the duty of
writing this decision : —
" 1. Whereas, the fact appears proved that on the 24th of
February, 1895, by order of the Governor General, Don Julio
Sanguily y Garitt was arrested at his house in El Cerro Dis
trict of this city, because the Governor General had received
from abroad and from this city confidential information to the
effect that Sanguily was one of the promoters of the separatist
rebellion which broke out in this Island on that very same day,
and that he and Don Jose Maria Aguirre had been chosen to
be the leaders of the revolutionary movement in the provinces
of Havana, Matanzas and Santa Clara; — and, furthermore,
because according to the reports of the police, which had closely
and efficiently watched the movements of Sanguily, the latter
had been in communication and correspondence with the Revo
lutionary Junta of New York and with other foreign abettors
of the insurrection, and with the separatist committees secretly
organized in this Island ; and, finally, because in a report of
the Governor of the Region of Havana it was stated that
Don Julio Sanguily, owing to his record in the last war, and to
the fact that public rumor pointed at him as called to command
one of the insurgent bands, had become an object of suspicion,
and had been watched by the authorities :
"2. Whereas, the Chief of the Police and Police Inspector
Trujillo, when examined before this Court, said that they had
not received any express order to watch Don Julio Sanguily,
that they knew his separatist ideas because they were publicly
known, and that they had no knowledge that he was con
spiring when by order of the Superior authority of the Island
he was arrested :

7i
' ' 3- Whereas, the prisoner, when examined on the very same
day of his arrest, stated that he could not remember to have
spoken at all with any person about separatist movements or
plans, or received propositions to lead or take part in any up
rising : that owing to his political record, he was sure that any
serious plan which might have been formed in that line would
have been communicated to him ; and that his being entirely
ignorant of any such plans was fully proved by the fact that he
had not moved from Havana, or even from his house, when he
was arrested :
' ' 4. Whereas, the fact is proved that Don Antonio Lopez
Coloma, when made a prisoner by forces of the Army at the
Casualidad Colony, while commanding a body of insurgents
which had occupied that place since the 24th of February, 1895,
was searched by his captors, and that a letter now forming
page 36 of the record, was found in his pocket and reads as
follows : — ' Cerro, Saturday, the 9th of February, 1895. —
Senor Betancourt, Matanzas. — Dear friend : I had intended to
have a long talk with you ; but as you are always in a hurry
I could not do it. I asked yesterday, Joaquin Pedroso to
lend me 25 centenes (*) which I needed to go to-day to the
country, redeem my revolver and my machete which are
pawned, and leave something in my house ; but he did not
give them to me. He said that he had not that money. So
it is that I cannot move, nor can I even get anything to eat. I
wish you would hasten, and this is the purpose of this letter,
to get for me just $2,500, not one cent less, which I need.
Believe that the situation in my house, if I do not get that
money soon, will be difficult. On the other hand, as long as I
remain in this situation, my head will not be able to occupy
itself of what it is important. Therefore I entreat you to send
me the said amount as soon as possible, thereby enabling me
to think only of our affair. I cannot find any one here from
whom I might borrow 30 or 40 centenes. Had I found such
a person I would have gone right away to the country and as
sisted you in raising the money aforesaid. I have told John
to-day that Cervantes had no supper to eat on the day on which
he finished Don Quijote, and that I, on the eve of placing my
self at the head of a work of redemption, find myself so penni
less as to have been unable to give my cook any money to go
to-day to the market.— Very truly yours,— Gener.'
"5. Whereas, the fact is proved that two days before the
uprising of the band of Lopez Coloma, the latter came to

* A centen is a Spanish $5 gold coin.

72
Havana, by order of Doctor Don Pedro Betancourt, of Matan
zas, to see Don Julio Sanguily, Don Josd Maria Aguirre, Don
Juan Gualberto Gomez and other individuals, numbering 16
in all, inform them that on the morning of the said 24th of
February, 1895, quite a number of people from Havana would
go to the Casualidad estate, where sufficient arms and ammu
nitions had been deposited, and ask them to place themselves
under the command of said Betancourt, and temporarily, during
his absence, either of Lopez Coloma himself or of Juan Gualberto
Gomez : — and that the letter above copied, signed Gener, had
been sent to Lopez Coloma by Betancourt, who, as it seems,
became indignant at the action of the man who wrote it, to the
extreme of doubting his good faith, because, as it appeared, no
part would be taken by him in the movement if the money
asked for was not sent :
" 6. Whereas, Don Antonio Lopez Coloma said that he had
not had any conference with Sanguily, whom he only knew
by sight, and that through Betancourt only he knew that
Sanguily and Aguirre should lead the movement :
"7. Whereas, Don Julio Sanguily while constantly denying,
in all the stages of the case, to have had any intervention in
the separatist conspiracy, or to have entered into any engage
ment with the conspirators, has contradicted the statements of
Lopez Coloma, by saying that the latter came to see him and
tried to induce him to join the rebellion, which he refused to
do, and that he (Sanguily) had endeavored to dissuade Lopez
Coloma, and to show him that the movement was ill advised
and imprudent, — all of which he supplemented by saying that
he had not had with Betancourt any other relations than those
purely social :
"8. Whereas, the fact is proved that the Judge who con
ducted the proceedings received an anonymous communication
enclosing a letter, which was put on file, for what it might be
worth (page 45 of the record), and reads as follows: — ' Cerro,
Thursday, the 14th of February, 1895 — Esteemed Friend : I
have been indoors for several days, on account of illness, both
of mine and of my wife. — The latter is still in delicate con
dition. Do me the favor to explain this to His Excellency.
I had promised to go and personally confer with His Excellency
about the banished man, Michelena ; but I have been unable.
to go out. I have to communicate something of interest about
this matter, as the police officer is again troubling him. I
cannot go out and see you to-day, as requested, because I have
taken a medicine ; but I will go to-morrow. Believe that no
man rejoices more than I that you feel better. — Your affect
ionate friend. — fulio Sanguily.'

73
" 9. Whereas, it appears that the two letters referred to in
the preceding clauses were shown to the prisoner for the pur
pose of identification ; and that he, in all the stages of the
case, persistently denied to have written the one signed 'Gener,'
while in regard to the other letter of page 45 of the record, he
at first said, during the preliminary proceedings, that the letter
was his, and then, during the trial, he doubted the accuracy
of his former statement, because the letter which he had really
written had been written to a gentleman :
"10. Whereas, the fact is proved that the experts in cali
graphy who examined both letters and compared them with
others which are undoubtedly in the handwriting of Don Julio
Sanguily, stated their opinion, that, owing to the similarity of
the handwriting in all of them, they all were written by the
same person, — this identity being in the judgment of the court,
upon their own inspection of the documents, a perfectly well-
established fact :
"n. Whereas, the fact is proved that on or about Novem
ber, 1894, Don Julio Sanguily pawned at the pawnbroker's
office called ' La Equitativa, ' corner of Compostela and Luz
streets, in this city, a machete and a revolver, — and that both
articles were sold by the pawnbroker, in April, 1895, with the
consent of the prisoner, who was then at La Cabana and ex
pected to be sent to Spain :
" 12. Whereas, the fact is proved that the police of this city
having been informed that Don Josd Inocencio Azcuy was
expected to arrive in Havana, on board the American steamer
from Tampa, which was due on the 29th of May, 1895, and
that he was the bearer of important papers of revolutionary
character, waited for his arrival, and arrested him ; and that
then, it was found that the said Azcuy carried inside the knot
or beau of his necktie a paper which Police Inspector Trujillo
seized, but which was snatched from his hands by Mr. Azcuy,
who put it in his mouth and endeavored to swallow it, a
struggle between the Police Inspector and his prisoner having
then taken place, with the result that the fragments in page
236 of the record were recovered :
" 13. Whereas, the fact is proved that shortly before the
outbreak of the present separatist revolution Don Nemesio
Azcuy sent Don Josd Inocencio Azcuy to Tampa to bring back
to Havana a son of his who was at that place; and that the
said Don Josd Inocencio Azcuy did not succeed in bringing
back the young man and returned to Havana without him :
that he, while in Tampa, used to call himself a colonel
and liked to be addressed in such way, and that Don Enrique

74
Collazo told him that only in the war the position and the rank
of a colonel could be won :
" 14. Whereas, the fact is proved both by the testimony of
Don Josd Inocencio Azcuy and by the context of the fragments
of page 236, that the paper found in Azcuy's necktie was his
commission as colonel in the insurgent army, issued by one
who called himself competently authorized to make the appoint
ment, giving him power to organize forces and situate them
at the places which he might deem advisable, and to make in
his turn such other appointments as were necessary, — all of it
written in the handwriting of Julio Sanguily and signed by
him, as testified by the experts in caligraphy, whose opinion
the court indorses, upon actual inspection and comparison of
the handwriting of that paper with all others on file :
"15. Whereas, the fact is proved that two officers of the
Civil Guard and the Police Inspector of the town of Aguacate,
who had gone in the earlv part of May, 1895, to tr*e San
Rafael estate, belonging to the Portela family, to see some
furniture which was for sale there, having obtained permission
of a negro woman called Caridad Manzano, who was in charge
of the estate, to go through the different rooms of the dwelling
house, found in the parlor, hanging on the wall, one carbine
which Sanguily has acknowledged to belong to him, and which
he says to have used for hunting purposes, whenever he came
to that estate, as he frequently did : and that the same officers
and Police Inspector found also in a wardrobe several papers,
among them a diary kept by Sanguily which has not been
offered in evidence, a pamphlet on the independence of
Cuba and the letter on file from page 94 to page 97 of
the record :
"16. Whereas, the fact is proved that the said letter,
written abroad and dated December 9th, 1893, refers to
preparations for a rebellion in Cuba, and says that the move
ment ought to be started in the Island and not outside of its
territory, — that he (the man to whom it is addressed) ought
not to place himself in a subordinate position, or receive orders
from other chiefs, because none was more entitled than him,
for his respectability, the guarantee which his name as a
revolutionist and a soldier offered the rebellion, and the posi
tion that he always had held in the party, to exercise the
command, — neither a Sartorius, nor a John Nobody, ought
to be allowed in preference to him to claim the glory of
having caused the dreams of a part of the population of Cuba
to be materialized ; — that he, being a man adored by the
Cubans, ought not to allow any other person to occupy his

75
place of honor,— that he ought to start at once and gather the
resources necessary for the movement, whether voluntarily, from
those who had offered assistance, or by force, he being assured,
in the meantime, that proper care would be taken of the sup
port of his family :
"17. Whereas, the fact is proved that this letter, in spite of
the opinion of the experts in caligraphy, was not written by
Don Julio Sanguily, — because, even if its statements are dis
regarded, the comparison made by the court between its hand
writing and that of the other papers on file, allows the court
positively to say that it was written by a different person :
"18. Whereas, the fact is proved that Sanguily registered
himself at the office of the Governor-General of the Island, on
July 8th, 1889, as a citizen of the United States of America,
and that owing to his character as such a citizen of the United
States of America the ordinary courts of justice have taken
cognizance of this case, under the protocol of 1 877 (*) :
"19. Whereas, the sentence passed in this cause, on Decem
ber 2nd, 1895, by Section No. 3 of this Court, was revoked by
the Supreme Court, because of the rejection of certain evidence
offered on behalf of the prisoner, which evidence, however,
has never been produced in the second trial :
"20. Whereas, the prosecuting attorney in submitting his
conclusions, stated that the prisoner, Don Julio Sanguily y
Garitt, an American citizen since 1878, and a native and a
resident of this Island of Cuba, had been, up to the day of his
arrest, namely the 24th of February, 1895, one of the most
active promoters and instigators of the armed insurrection
which broke out on that date against the mother country, for
the purpose of securing the independence of this Island ; that
he had been selected to lead the insurrectionary movement in
this province and in those of Matanzas and Santa Clara ;
that he, in his capacity of chief and principal leader of the
movement and as delegate of the Revolutionary Junta estab
lished at New York, had made such appointments, as he had
deemed conducive to the success of his plans, as for instance
the one of Don Josd Inocencio Azcuy to be a colonel in the
insurgent army ; and that, in view of these facts, the prisoner
ought to be adjudged guilty of rebellion, as defined by section

(*) This childish attempt of the court to base the treaty rights of an
American citizen, not upon the fact that he is such an American citizen,
whether matriculated or not, but upon the fact of his matriculation, — an
attempt which has been over and over discredited and defeated, — shows
perhaps more strongly than anything else the condition of things which
prevailed in Havana at the time of the decision.

76
i, article 237 of the Penal Code, without any extenuating
circumstances, and punished as provided by article 238 of the
same, with imprisonment for life at hard labor, and with the
other penalties provided by article 53 of said Code, and the
payment of half of the costs of the trial :
"21. Whereas, the defence maintained that there was no
legal ground to convict Don Julio Sanguily, asked for a verdict
of acquital, and claimed in favor of the prisoner, even if con
victed, the benefit of the amnesty of February 27, 1895 :

Considering :
"ist. That while in the proper disposition of all criminal
cases it is always of interest for the court to become acquainted
with the history and the personal record of the party on trial,
said record and history being safe guides to pass judgment
about the capability or aptness of the said party to commit
the offense with which it is charged, — such a knowledge is still
more necessary in cases for rebellion, as the commission of a
crime of this nature presupposes a clear and well known
purpose in that direction on the part of the rebel, and a
certain degree of firmness and determination on his part to
carry out his criminal purposes :
" 2d. That the personal record of Don Julio Sanguily shows
that for some years he was fighting in Cuba against the
sovereignty of Spain, and that when convinced that he could
not separate Cuba from Spain he gave up and relinquished his
Spanish allegiance, all of which demonstrates his deep and well
rooted separatist sentiments, which as long as concealed within
his own mind could escape penal sanction, but which when
made public by verbal and written arrangements, and by other
punishable acts, serves to reveal that Sanguily's old criminal
tendencies have not been changed either through time or repent
ance ;-— it being therefore proper for the court in order to form an
exact idea of the charge and the proof thereof, to take careful
notice of all the facts relating to the prisoner's history, without
thereby forgetting that the latter is to be adjudged guilty, or be
acquitted only upon evidence relating to the specific charge
preferred against him :
' ' 3d. That at the time in which the revolution was about to
break out, Don Julio Sanguily y Garitt, was considered by the
authorities who are entrusted with the duty of preserving
public peace and security as a decided separatist, and that the
information transmitted to the superior authority of this Island,

77
subsequently corroborated, represented him as one of the
boldest promoters and leaders of the insurgent movement, who
was for that purpose in relation with the revolutionary agents
abroad and with the separatist committees of this Island, — a
charge which is not destroyed or weakened by the fact that
neither Don Josd Paglieri nor Don Josd Trujillo received special
orders, in spite of their positions in the police, to watch San
guily, because it was optional for the superior authority to use
the services of those two officials, or to employ others to assist
in the investigation :
' ' 4th. That it is not rash to suppose that the letter found in
the house at the San Rafael Estate, which Sanguily frequented
so much, was really written to him in 1893, an(i was bis pro
perty ; this idea being confirmed by the fact that all the other
papers which were found together with the said letter, at the
same place and at the same time, and which have been returned
to Sanguily, belonged to him, not to say anything of the
coincidence between the description made in the letter of the
man to whom it was addressed, and the record and the circum
stances of the prisoner, a coincidence which is so striking as
to leave little doubt of their identity ; — all of which indicates
that Sanguily had been conspiring long before his arrest :
"5th. That the explanation given by Don Julio Sanguily
for doubting the authenticity of the letter spoken of in
the 7th Whereas, which authenticity he had acknowledged in
the preliminary examination, is not satisfactory ; that the said
letter is therefore to be considered as written by Sanguily ; and
that this being the case, the other letter referred to in the 4th
Whereas, which Don Pedro Betancourt sent to Don Antonio
Lopez Coloma, is also Sanguily's, because not only of the
absolute identity of the handwriting in both letters, but also on
account of other minor details, as for instance the habit of
naming the day of the week when writing the date, and the
fact that it refers to the pawning of a machete and a revolver,
an act which coincides with another of the same nature done
by the prisoner :
"6th. That in the said letter Sanguily acknowledged his
character of chief of the separatist movement, by lamenting
to be so poor when about to place himself at the head of a work
of redemption ; a phrase which cannot possibly be miscon
strued, either because of its own plain import or because
of the feeling of indignation which Don Pedro Betancourt
experienced when he saw that a sum of money was demanded
by the writer as a condition previous to his lending, as ex
pected, his personal and principal assistance to the insurrection :

78
' ' 7th. That a further proof of the guilt of Sanguily is the
appointment made by him of Don Josd Inocencio Azcuy to be
a colonel in the insurgent army, a fact which shows not only
that he took an active part in the preparation of this criminal
struggle, but also that he was a chief, because only those
who exercise authority can make appointments, or organize
the forces which they propose to lead :
"8th. That according to Section i of Article 237 of the
Penal Code those who publicly rise up in open hostility to the
government to proclaim the independence of the islands of
Cuba or Puerto Rico, are guilty of rebellion, — and that accord
ing to Article 238 of the same Code, those who promote the
rebellion, or plan or support it, and are principal leaders, incur
the full penalty of the law, even if they do not go to the field and
show themselves there in personal and open rebellion against
the government, — their character of promoters or leaders being
sufficient to render them liable to the punishment provided for
in Article 238 aforesaid :
" 9th. That Don Julio Sanguily having been recognized as
chief by Don Pedro Betancourt in the letter of February 9th,
having been waited for by Don Antonio Lopez Coloma to
conduct the separatist war in the provinces of Matanzas and
Havana, having made appointments of such importance as
that which he made of colonel in favor of Don Josd Inocencio
Azcuy, is and must be adjudged, for penal purposes, a principal
leader in the insurrection ; and that he is therefore to be
punished, with either imprisonment for life at hard labor, or
with death, the former penalty to be chosen because of the fact
that no aggravating circumstances appear from the record :
" 10th. That the weapon belonging to the prisoner, seized
at the estate above named, must be confiscated, as provided by
article 7 1 of the Code : and that the prisoner must also be con
demned to pay the costs of the trial :
" nth. That the benefits of the amnesty of February 27th,
1895, are not applicable to Don Julio Sanguily who did not
surrender himself to the proper authorities :
"Upon examination of the articles above cited of the Penal
Code, and of articles 1, n, 12, 26. 53, 62, 78 and 89 of the
same, and article 741 of the Law of Criminal Procedure ;
"We do hereby decide: that we must condemn, as we do,
Don Julio Sanguily y Garitt to imprisonment for life at hard
labor, with the accessory penalties of" deprivation of civil rights
and perpetual vigilance by the authorities, — and in case that
he be granted a pardon, and thereby be relieved from the
imprisonment, to perpetual disability and subjection to perpetual

79
vigilance by the authorities, unless these two penalties are also
expressly wiped out in the pardon, — and to the payment of
one half of the costs of the trial. We declare furthermore that
the weapon seized in this case must be forfeited to the use of
the Government and that it should be delivered to the Military
Governor of this city : and finally, and for the purposes of
this sentence, we do also declare the prisoner to be insolvent.
"And by this our sentence, we have so adjudged, ordered
and decreed. Witness our hands.
' ' Ricardo Maya,
"Juan Valdes Pages,
"Adolfo Astudillo de Guzman,
' ' Manuel Vf as Ochoteco,
"JosE Novo y Garcia."

8o

THE COMMUTATION OF THE SENTENCE AND THE
RELEASE OF THE PRISONER.
How little practical effect can be put to the credit of the
foregoing decision, in spite of its length and its elaborate
pomposity, can be easily discovered by a simple comparison
between its date, and the date of the release of the prisoner.
The sentence had been passed on the 28th of December, 1896, —
and less than two months afterwards, on the 25th of February,
1897, the man whom it condemned to imprisonment for life in
chains and at hard labor, had recovered his liberty, gone out
of the fortress where he had been kept for two years, and
allowed to return, as he had promised, to his adopted country.
Sanguily's lawyer in Cuba had taken an appeal, as it was
his duty, against the sentence of the Court, and had fixed
every thing in the proper shape so as to insure that the case
should again be transferred, upon a writ of error, to the
Supreme Court at Madrid. But this prudent step, which no
other man of the professional eminence which Sanguily's
counsel had deservedly reached would have failed to take,
gave, however, occasion to a somewhat serious difficulty, which
thanks to his good sense could be promptly removed.
The interposition of the appeal, which paralyzed for a
moment the diplomatic effort, had practically the effect of
obstructing, pro forma at least, the realization of the agree
ment which had been entered into between the two govern
ments, because it was alleged, and alleged with reason, that
the pardoning power of Her Majesty the Queen Regent of
Spain could not, under the laws, be called into exercise, until
after the sentence of the court had become final (*) . And it was
(*) Even Senator Frye, who was so unmerciful in scolding Sanguily's
lawyer for the withdrawal of the appeal, had to admit that otherwise the
release of Sanguily could not have been then obtained Spain, he said,
"could not pardon him (Sanguily) until he was a sentenced criminal,
which is the law of all nations."— (Congressional Record, 54th Congress,
2nd Session, February 25, 1897, page 2383.)

8i
for this reason that the Spanish Government, while reaching
the conclusion to comply with the wishes of the United States,
by releasing Sanguily from imprisonment, as it was duly
communicated to the State Department, suggested also, separ
ately, that in order to expedite matters the appeal which had
been taken should be withdrawn.
This suggestion was made in the following manner :
Legation of Spain in Washington,
February 22nd, 1897.
(Personal and private.)
Mr. Secretary : — Referring to the confidential note which I
have had the honor to address to Your Excellency, on this
date, relating to the American citizen Julio Sanguily, I have
the honor to inform Your Excellency confidentially that in
order that the benevolent intentions of H. M. the Queen Regent
of Spain with regard to that citizen may take effect, it is neces
sary that he should withdraw the appeal which he has taken
against the sentence of the court which condemned him.
It is absolutely necessary under the Spanish laws that in
order that Her Majesty may exercise the right of pardon the
sentence should be final.
The Minister of the Colonies in obedience to the order of the
Council of Ministers has telegraphed to Cuba to have the
necessary proceedings expedited, in case that Sanguily, or his
counsel, withdraws the appeal taken.
When this is done, and when the pardon can be decreed in
accordance with the law, it will be communicated by cable.
I avail myself, Mr. Secretary, etc., etc.
E. Dupuy de Lome.
Hon. Richard Olney,
etc., etc., etc. (*)
Upon the receipt of this letter the Honorable Secretary of
State telegraphed to Consul-General Lee at Havana, in the
following language :

(*) A copy of this letter was given by the Honorable Secretary of
State Mr. Richard Olney, to the Honorable Chairman of the Committee
on Foreign Relations of the United States Senate, on the 24th of Febru
ary 1897. It was published in full with other papers in the Washington
Post of February 28th, 1897.

82
Department of State,
Washington, February 23d, 1897.
Inform Julio Sanguily and his counsel that in order to perfect
issuance of pardon, appeal should be withdrawn and notice of
withdrawal at once given here and in Madrid.
Olney.

The response which was given to this dispatch was prompt
and satisfactory. No hesitation was shown. No questions
were asked. No doubts were entertained. Full reliance was
placed upon the action of the distinguished head of the Wash
ington State Department, and all the papers necessary to
effectually withdraw the appeal were prepared on the same
day and properly filed.
Consul-General Lee reported this fact on the 24th of Feb
ruary, 1897, by the following telegram: —
Have absolute withdrawal of appeal Sanguily's case. Can
so cable Madrid. It is understood, of course, if not pardoned,
appeal be again taken, as withdrawal leaves original sentence
in full force.
By the removal of this impediment the consummation of the
plan practically agreed upon since early in February (*), could
be effected at once. Her Majesty the Queen Regent could
then, with no impropriety, exercise her high prerogative.
And so she was pleased to do by the following decree :
In conformity with the opinion of my Council of Ministers,
and in use of the power vested in me under section 3rd, article
24, of the Constitution :
Upon inspection of the law of June 18th, 1870, which

(*) A letter of the Honorable Secretary of State, Mr. Richard Olney, to
the Honorable Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the
United States Senate, Mr. John Sherman, dated February 17, 1897, and
published in the Washington Post of February 28, 1897, states that "a
cable from Madrid ordering the release (of Sanguily) may be expected
any moment."

83
regulates the exercise of the pardoning power, and acting in
accordance with articles 3rd, 21st and 29th of the same law :
Considering that the Government of the United States has
friendly and confidentially communicated with the Government
of Spain, and asked the pardon of Julio Sanguily, an American
citizen, condemned by the Audience of Havana, in a cause for
rebellion, to imprisonment for life at hard labor, — said appli
cation being founded upon the facts that the prisoner has
suffered already about two years of incarceration, that while
he, the said prisoner, could possibly, at the outbreak of the
insurrection in Cuba, have endangered there the safety of
Spain, such is not now the case under the very different circum
stances which exist at present, and that he, the said prisoner,
has solemnly pledged his word to the two Governments, as set
forth in writing by him, that he will not aid directly or indirectly
the present insurrection :
In the name of my august son the King Don Alfonso
XIII. , and as Queen Regent of the kingdom :
I do hereby commute into perpetual banishment and the
disabilities incident and subsequent thereto the penalties of
imprisonment for life at hard labor and civil interdiction
imposed upon Don Julio Sanguily by the Audience of Havana
in cause for rebellion.
Given at Palace on the twenty-fifth of February, eighteen
hundred and ninety-seven.
Maria Cristina.
Tomas Castellanos y Villaroya,
Minister for the Colonies.

As this decision of Her Majesty was transmitted at once by
cable to the Governor-General of Cuba, the official who was
acting as such, during the absence of General Weyler, could
write almost immediately to Consul-General Lee, in the follow
ing terms : Havana, February 25th, 1S97.
The Minister of the Colonies telegraphs to me to-day that
Her Majesty the Queen Regent has signed a decree commuting
the penalties of perpetual imprisonment and civil interdiction
imposed by the Audience of this territory on the American
citizen Mr. Julio Sanguily, into that of perpetual exile and its
accessories.

84
And as I have ordered that the command of Her Majesty be
complied with, I have the honor to inform you of the above,
as well as of the fact that proper instructions are now being
given for the immediate release of the prisoner, so as to enable
him to leave this port for the United States by the steamer
sailing next Saturday, the 27th instant.
May God preserve you many years.
El Marques de Ahumada.

A few hours afterwards, Sanguily found himself, a free man
again, in the office of the United States Consul-General at
Havana, and together with his family and friends commenced
his preparations to depart from Cuba.
The writer of these pages, to whom the Honorable Secretary
of State had the kindness to inform, almost instantly, that
Sanguily had been released, — as Consul-General Lee immedi
ately reported by cable, — was favored on the day following,
with the following communication :
Washington Office of the Chicago Record,
William E- Curtis,
Post Building.
Washington, D. C, February 26, 1897.
My Dear Doctor : — Mr. Dupuy, the Spanish Minister, has
just telephoned that Sanguily will sail from Cuba on the Plant
Line to-morrow (Saturday), and that he (Mr. Dupuy) is very
anxious that you should know it at once, and not having your
address he asks me to inform you.
Very truly yours, J. T. Sutter. Jr.
This act of courtesy, so much the more to be appreciated as
it was purely spontaneous and gracious, completed the infor
mation of Sanguily's counsel in this country and caused his
mind to be at rest.
Three days afterwards, Julio Sanguily himself telegraphed
to him (March 2nd) from the S. T. Depot, Tampa, Florida,
announcing his safe arrival.

85
XI.
CONGRESSIONAL INTERFERENCE.
Nine months and eleven days had elapsed since the imprison
ment of Julio Sanguily, when the idea first occurred to some
alleged friend of the prisoner to start Congressional action in
his behalf. Undue advantage was taken undoubtedly of the
overflowing generosity which in favor of Cuba was always
shown by the Honorable Mr. Wilkinson Call, Senator from
Florida, where the voting element is largely Cuban, and
where, if organized and disciplined, the said vote would per
haps be decisive, and an effort was made, successfully, to in
duce him to interfere in the prosecution of the case, without
consulting at all with the State Department, or putting himself
in touch with the prisoner's regularly constituted agent or
representative. Up to that time the defense of Sanguily had never trans
gressed the limits of judicial or diplomatic action ; but from
this moment forward a new element forced itself in the case,
which owing to its independence, to its being prompted prin
cipally by political reasons, and to the facilities which it
afforded to create irritation, imposed upon the parties to which
the interests of the prisoner were legitimately entrusted addi
tional anxieties.
This first interposition consisted in a resolution which some
one, not sufficiently familiar with the requirements of form and
courtesy prevailing in such cases, had prepared for the Honor
able Mr. Call, and which he consented to introduce in the
Senate of the United States, on the 5th of December, 1895,
reading as follows:
Resolved, That the Secretary of State be directed to send to
the Senate all the correspondence relating to the trial, con
viction and sentence to hard labor for life of General Sanguily,
an American citizen, for alleged complicity in the war against
Spain by the Cubans; and if no authentic record should be on
file in the State Department, that the Secretary of State be
directed to obtain a copy of the record of such trial.

86
The record shows that this resolution having been considered
by unanimous consent of the Senate, and agreed to, was
communicated to Consul-General Williams, on December 7th,
1895, by Assistant Secretary of State Mr. Uhl, with instruction
to ask and forward to the State Department as soon as practicable
a certified copy of the record of Sanguily's trial. (Doc. No.
104, Senate, 54th Congress, 2nd Session, page 69.)
The fact that in the opinion of some people something grand
had been gained by causing, as upon the face of the resolution
could be maintained, the Senate of the United States to ignore
the President, to use twice in seven lines imperative language in
addressing the Secretary of State, as if the latter official were
a subordinate of the Senate, to designate Sanguily by no other
name or title than that of General, and to term the Cuban
struggle "the war against Spain by the Cubans," fortunately
produced the effect of satisfying the authors of the measure
and quieting their ardor.
Whether it was for this, or for some other reason, that this
movement was allowed to die out, without the slightest effort
having been ever made to find out what had become of the
' ' mandate ' ' of the Senate, it is unnecessary to investigate.
But the fact is that the Honorable Mr. Call's resolution was
followed by a period of fully thirteen months of absolute repose,
in which the diplomatic Department of the United States, and
the counsel for the prisoner, each one in its proper sphere, were
left undisturbed.
But on the 5th of January, 1896, the Honorable Mr. Call
got up again in the Senate of the United States and said as
follows :
Mr. President : I submit two resolutions, which I ask may
be read and printed, and lie over, under the rule, until to
morrow morning, when I shall submit some observations upon
them. One of these resolutions, evidently prepared by him person
ally, framed in proper language, and aiming at nothing which
was not practical and reasonable, was couched as follows :

87
Resolved, That the President be, as he is hereby, requested
to send to the Senate, if in his opinion not incompatible with
the public interest, all the correspondence and reports of the
Consul-General of the United States at Havana, relating to the
arrest, imprisonment, trial and condemnation to perpetual im
prisonment in chains of Julio Sanguily, a citizen of the United
States, by the authorities of Spain in Cuba.
The other, acknowledged by the Honorable Mr. Call to have
been ' ' prepared by an eminent citizen in Havana, who is
cognizant of all the facts connected with the case, and a man
of high character," — and " to reflect the opinions, the feelings
and the judgment of a man whose name, if it were permitted
to disclose it, would carry conviction with it everywhere"
(Congressional Record, 54th Congress, 2nd Session, page 489),
was given by the Senate, with the consent of the Honorable
Mr. Call, the form of a joint resolution, — thereby becoming
subject to the action of the House of Representatives and to
the approval of the President. Its language is the following :
Whereas, Julio Sanguily, an American citizen, arrested in
his home in Habana the day before the outbreak of the present
insurrection, has been confined in his cell in the Cabanas prison
for the past twenty-three months ; and
Whereas, the lawyer who defended him in his first trial has
also been imprisoned in said prison ; and
Whereas, his principal witness, Lopez Coloma, was shot in
said prison by order of the Spanish authorities immediately
preceding the second trial of said Sanguily ; and
Whereas, the attorney who conducted the proceedings in the
appeal before the authorities at Madrid has since been deprived
of his office and emoluments attached thereto by the authorities
at Madrid in consequence thereof ; and
Whereas, the said Julio Sanguily has been tried and con
demned to perpetual imprisonment in chains, without evidence
against him and without the opportunity of defense: Therefore,
° Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled, That the
President of the United States be instructed to demand the
immediate release of the said Julio Sanguily with permission
to return to the United States.

88
The wishes of the Honorable Senator were complied with,
and the resolutions were read and allowed to wait, without
action, until the day next following.
The record shows that on that day (January 6th, 1896) the
Honorable Senator from Florida, after having caused both
resolutions to be read again by the Secretary, said : " I ask
that the resolution requesting information may now be ac
cepted." To this the Senate agreed, and the resolution was
passed. (Congressional Record, 54th Congress, 2nd Session,
page 485.)
Immediately afterwards he took up his second resolution
demanding the release of Sanguily, which he acknowledged,
as has been quoted, not to have been prepared by him but by
an eminent citizen, etc., etc., and embarked into a lengthy
speech, which covered other cases besides Sanguily's, and
dealt most principally with the question of Cuba, the Cuban
war, and the necessity for the United States to assist the insur
gents in wiping out from Cuba the power of Spain. His pur
pose was, apparently, to put himself on record, once more, on
these matters, without aspiring however, for the moment at
least, to any practical result. "I move," he said: "that the
joint resolution be referred to the Committee on Foreign Rela
tions and I hope for speedy action on the matter." (Con
gressional Record, 54th Congress, 2nd Session, page 489.)
In the course of his speech, the Honorable Mr. Call found
the way to repudiate a second time the paternity of the joint
resolution which he had consented to introduce. He said : ' 'The
statements and the preamble of the above resolution were made
by persons of character and veracity, and the evidence as sub
mitted to me from such witnesses authorizes me to say that
they are true. I am informed from reliable sources that evidence
of the facts as above stated is to be found amongst the files of
the State Department." {Ibid page 486.) Perhaps, on this
account, the responsibility which befalls him for stating that
" Mr. Sanguily could not secure the services of any lawyer to

89
prosecute his case," — that the prisoner was kept in solitary con
finement, and "not allowed to see, or to have communication
by letter, or otherwise, with any person except the authorities
immediately in charge of him," and that "a witness who
could have proven Sanguily's entire innocence, namely, Lopez
Coloma, was a few days before his last trial taken from his cell
in the Cabanas, where he had been imprisoned for a consider
able time, and shot without any trial, as Sanguily said, for the
purpose of preventing him from testifying" {Ibid page 486),
is not as grave as might have been otherwise.
The Senate, which had listened to these remarks, and to
some others elicited by them, decided to comply with the
wishes of the Honorable Mr. Call and ordered the joint resolu
tion to be referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
The fact must not be forgotten that although the Honorable
Senator from Florida declined to explain in the Senate, what
the sources of his information were, and said : "I am not at
liberty to give the name, " — he came nevertheless, on the follow
ing day (Congressional Record, January 7th, 1896, page 545),
and asked "unanimous consent to present a paper from a
gentleman who has been elected as a Republican member of
the next Congress, who has recently been in Havana. ' ' He
moved, further, the said " statement to be read and printed in
the Record,"
As this motion was agreed to, the record of that day's session
contains a statement prepared and signed by Mr. Edward E.
Robbins, which in the part relating to Julio Sanguily, reads as
follows :
I also had a talk with Julio Sanguily, who stated that he had
been confined in the Cabanas for a period of twenty-three
months. It appears from his statement that the day before
the rebellion broke out in Cuba, while taking a bath in his
house, he was arrested and thrown into prison. He was tried
and condemned to punishment by a military tribunal, the
sentence being that he should be punished perpetually in
chains, etc. The United States authorities protested, on the

90
ground that Sanguily was a citizen of the United States, he
having been naturalized in New Orleans and having resided
there for some time, and that he was taken without arms and
should be tried by the civil authorities and not the military
authorities. An appeal was taken to the authorities at Madrid,
and this sentence was set aside.
He was retried and a few days ago a similar sentence im
posed upon him. The lawyer who conducted the first trial of
Sanguily was also thrown in prison, and is now in the Cabanas
along with Sanguily. The lawyer who managed the appeal in
Spain has been deprived of his office and all emoluments at
tached thereto by the authorities at Madrid. A witness who
could have proven Sanguily's entire innocence, namely, Lopez
Coloma, was a few days before this last trial taken from his
cell in the Cabanas, where he had been imprisoned for a con
siderable time, and shot without any trial, as Sanguily said, for
the purpose of preventing him from testifying.
An appeal must be taken within a few days, or, unless the
United States interferes, the witness {sic) will be transferred to
the penal colony in North Africa, in accordance with the sentence
passed a few days ago. Sanguily stated that he did not believe
that he could get any lawyer to take his case and conduct his
appeal, as the fate of his other two lawyers who conducted the
former proceedings would deter others from undertaking the
case again.
Sanguily seems to be a man of about sixty years of age, quite
gray, and complained that the imprisonment, during the past
twenty-three months, was breaking his health, so that he could
not longer endure it : and he desired that the United States
Government take action in his case at once, by inquiring into
the cause of his detention and the unfair method by which he
has been tried and convicted. He claims that there is no pos
sible testimony as to his being implicated in the rebellion, but
that he was simply confined because he might perhaps have
been guilty of some offense in the future, yet that he was guilty
of no offense whatever when arrested, and nothing was proven,
or could be proven against him.
In response to the request of the Senate, President
Cleveland transmitted to that body, on February ist, 1897, a
report from the Secretary of State, accompanied by copies of
correspondence concerning the Sanguily case; and the papers
so sent were referred by the Senate to the Committee on Foreign
Relations, and ordered to be printed. They form the matter

91
of a printed pamphlet of 96 pages, entitled Document No. 104
of the Senate, 54th Congress, 2nd session, on the "Arrest,
imprisonment, etc., of Julio Sanguily,"— which was reprinted,
first, as an "Appendix " to the Senate Report No. 1534,— and
subsequently with several additions, as a part of the volume
entitled Foreign Relations of the United States in 1896, from
Page 75° to Page 846.
Upon consideration of these papers, the Committee decided
to set aside the Joint Resolution introduced by the Honorable
Mr. Call, which had been marked " Senate Resolution No.
186, " and report as a substitute, another one which was marked
' ' Senate Resolution No. 207 ' ' and reads as follows :
Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives in the
United States of America in Congress assembled, That the
Government of the United States demands the immediate and
unconditional release of Julio Sanguily, a citizen of the United
States, from imprisonment and arrest under the charges that
are pending and are being prosecuted against him in the mili
tary and civil courts of Cuba upon alleged grounds of rebellion
and kidnapping, contrary to the treaty rights of each of said
Governments and in violation of the laws of nations.
And the President of the United States is requested to com
municate this resolution to the Government of Spain, and to
demand of that Government such compensation as he shall
deem just for the imprisonment and sufferings of Julio Sanguily.
This resolution was submitted in behalf of the committee by
the Honorable Mr. John T. Morgan, of Alabama, on the
24th of February, 1897, together with a quite lengthy report
(Senate Report No. 1534, 54th Congress, 2nd Session), which
was ordered to be printed and placed on the calendar.
In making this submission, the Honorable Mr. Morgan said:
" I am directed by the Committee on Foreign Relations to
report a joint resolution which I ask may be read at length.
The Committee thought it was their duty to request very early
action upon the joint resolution, but inasmuch as one or more
members of the Committee were absent at the time, who had
not the opportunity of understanding the whole subject, it may

92
be better that I should give notice, and I will do so, with the
concurrence of the Honorable Chairman of the Committee,
* * * that in the morning hour to-morrow the joint resolution
will be called up for action."
The Honorable Mr. John Sherman, Senator from Ohio, and
Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations having ex
pressed his assent to letting the resolution lie over until the
following day, an order was made accordingly. (Congress
ional Record, 54th Congress, 2nd session, pages 2305 and
2306.) It seems to be the fact that during the twenty-three days
which elapsed between the reference to the Senate Committee
on Foreign Relations on February ist, 1897, of the papers re
lating to this case which the President of the United States
had sent to the Senate, together with a report from the Secre
tary of State, and the day on which the Honorable Mr. Morgan
submitted the report of the Committee, the chairman of the latter
had interested himself considerably, as it was just, in the con
sideration of the subject, and made, as proper and usual in such
cases, by correspondence and otherwise, such inquiries at the
State Department as were necessary to aid him in reaching a
right conclusion, and in conducting properly the deliberations
of the important body over which he presided.
The Honorable Mr. Richard Olney had said in his report,
that ' ' in view of all the circumstances of this case, and
especially of the long imprisonment already suffered by the
accused, representations have been made to the Spanish Gov
ernment, which it is believed will not be without effect, that
the case seems to be one in which executive clemency may be
reasonably exercised," and when, as it appears, the idea came
to the mind of the Honorable Mr. John Sherman, Chairman
of the Committee, in consequence of that statement, to send a
message, seventeen days afterwards to the Honorable Secretary
of State, asking him for information about the present condition
of the case, the Honorable Mr. Olney responded as follows :

93
Department of State.
Washington, February 17th, 1897.
Dear Mr. Sherman :
In reply to your message of to-day about the Sanguily case,
I desire to say for your own use and information, exclusively,
that since my report of February ist, certain confidential com
munications have taken place between this Government and
the Spanish Government, which I confidently expect to result
in Sanguily's release. Indeed, I am given to understand that
a cable from Madrid ordering the release may be expected any
moment. The matter is of a somewhat delicate nature, and I shall be
very sorry to have the present favorable prospects for Sanguily's
release injuriously affected, as they would be very likely to be
by any public discussion of the case in the Senate, or elsewhere.
Very truly yours,
Richard Olney.
Hon. John Sherman,
United States Senate.

Four days after this letter, and three before the date in which
the Honorable Mr. Morgan submitted to the Senate the report
of the Committee of which he was such a distinguished mem
ber, the negotiations, to which the Honorable Secretary of
State had alluded in the foregoing communication, were ended
successfully, the Spanish Government having agreed to accede
to the wishes of the United States, and advise Her Majesty
the Queen Regent of Spain to exercise in favor of Julio Sanguily
her pardoning power.
Reference has been made in the foregoing chapter to the
letters addressed by the Spanish Minister fn Washington to
the Honorable Secretary of State, on February 22nd, 1897,
reporting in one the conclusion reached by the Spanish Gov
ernment, and suggesting in the other the proper manner of
removing the purely technical obstruction which had been
encountered in carrying into effect that decision.
The facts have been explained furthermore that telegraphic
instructions were sent to Havana on the 23d of February, 1897,

94
by the Honorable Secretary of State to the United States Con
sul-General there, concerning the withdrawal of the appeal ;
that the United States Consul-General telegraphed back on the
day following (February 24, 1897) that the appeal had been
withdrawn as desired ; that information of these facts was in
stantly transmitted by cable to Madrid ; and that the Honor
able Secretary of State in pursuance of the policy which he had
adopted of keeping the Honorable Chairman of the Senate Com
mittee on Foreign Relations well posted with all that happened
in the case, provided him with a copy of the note addressed to
him by the Spanish Minister on the 22nd of the same month(*)
and has been printed elsewhere.
Whether the Honorable Mr. Morgan knew, when he sub
mitted his report on the 24th of February, 1897, that the
culmination of this business had been successfully reached
three days before; or whether he, ou that memorable 25th of
February, 1897, urged the passage of Senate Resolution No.
207, knowing that the case was settled, and that the decree of
Her Majesty the Queen Regent of Spain, releasing Sanguily
from imprisonment, was being flashed by cable to the city of
Havana, and the gates of La Cabanas Fortress being open to
the prisoner, it is unnecessary to investigate. But the fact is
that notwithstanding the utter uselessness of the proposed
measure, it gave occasion to one of the most extraordinary and

(*) Mr. Olney 's letter reads as follows:
Department of State,
Washington, February 24, 1897.
Honorable John Sherman,
Chairman Committee on Foreign Relations,
United States Senate.
Sir : Referring to the case of Julio Sanguily, I am just in receipt of a
note from the Spanish Minister at this capital, copy of which (in trans
lation) I herewith inclose. Respectfully yours,
Richard Olney.
The inclosure has been printed in page 81.

95
excited debates which have ever been witnessed in the Federal
Senate. True it is that as shown by the Record (page 2382, Congres
sional Record. February 25th, 1897), that passionate discus
sion, where no consideration whatever was shown either to the
Government of the United States, the Government of Spain, or
historical truth, was not held in the Senate properly, but in
the Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, a fact which deprived
the speeches, as well as the measure itself, of all immediate
practical importance, as it rendered it necessary for the reso
lution, even if passed without amendments, to be reported to
the Senate, and be subject again in it to amendments and
debate (*) . But the freedom of speech, and the absence of
parliamentary restraint, which were displayed in this case,
although proper and necessary in all Committee discussions,
and much more in Committees of the Whole, which were
devised precisely to facilitate the free exchange of views, open
the valve to passion, and thoroughly shake up the subject, until
finding the truth, — created a situation of great danger for the
liberty of Julio Sanguily, and even for the maintainance of the
good relations between the United States and Spain.
Such a distinguished Senator as the Hon. John W. Daniel,
from Virginia, carried away by his sympathy and good will
towards the prisoner, was heard to represent the latter as
"languishing sick and sore and wounded in the Cabanas
Fortress in Havana,"— as "treated rigorously, harshly, cruelly,
and brutally," — as dealt with in a manner which "is a disgrace
to this century and to civilization," — and as "compelled by
sickness, by poverty, by delay, and by the failure of his own
Government to defend him" * * * "to withdraw the appeal
as a condition of his liberty." The Honorable Senator ex
claimed : " If I represented this country in any place in which

(*) It has been seen very often, even in the discussions affecting the
Cuban question, that at the moment of voting, many an ardent supporter
of extreme measures has failed to be present.

96
I could act with authority, I should telegraph Sanguily not to
withdraw his appeal."
When in response to this vehement peroration the Honorable
Mr. Eugene Hale, Senator from Maine, read a telegram an
nouncing that Sanguily's lawyer had filed the proper papers
withdrawing the appeal, his colleague, the Honorable Mr.
William P. Frye, Senator from the same State, did not hesitate
a moment in declaring that that distinguished lawyer had
' ' done an exceedingly wicked and unjust act towards his client "
indulging afterwards in the utterance which brought down
upon him the applauses of the galleries, that if he had his way,
" a ship of war would start forthwith to Havana and deliver
him." Things were carried to such an extreme as to cause the Hon
orable Mr. W. V. Allen, Senator from Nebraska, to say that
it had become necessary to test in some way, " whether there
was really any sincerity ' ' in all that noise. The Honorable
Mr. John M. Palmer, from Illinois, was forced also to remind
the Senate that there was in the White House ' ' a bold,
brave, patriotic, manly statesman, whose purpose is to enforce
the laws of the country and international law," on whom the
American people could rely, and to say in addition that he
had listened to the debate attentively, and regarded it "asa
mere tempest in a teapot. ' '
The Honorable Mr. John T. Morgan, from Alabama, who
stated, no doubt upon good authority, that Sanguily "refused
absolutely to participate in the present rebellion'' because he had
" some recollections of what he had suffered before," because
"his wounds would have kept him out of military service,"
and because ' ' his age would have prohibited him from going
into military service," referred to the first examination of the
prisoner by the military Judge Advocate as an "Inquisition
process, worthy of the strong condemnation, performed with
out the presence of counsel, or of witnesses." (Congressional
Record, February 25, 1897, page 2379.)

97
In the report of the Committee, which the Record shows was
never read in the Senate (*), many statements are found to the
same effect as those copied. It repeats the assertion that " a
military officer subjected Sanguily to an inquisitorial exami
nation at 1 1 o'clock at night, without the presence of witnesses
or of counsel ; " and states that Sanguily "is now an old and
feeble man, still suffering from severe wounds received in battle. "
But the principle is strongly vindicated by it, that the duty of
American citizens to their own country, while residing abroad,
involves respect and obedience to the laws of their domicile.
' 'It is only just and in accord with the well established opinions
of mankind, " the report says referring to Sanguily, ' 'to attribute
to a man, who has exhibited high courage and devotion to
honorable duties, — of which his many wounds are eloquent
witnesses, — a due sense of obedience to whatever obligations he
has voluntarily assumed towards the United States with refer
ence to Spain, under his petition and oath of naturalization, until
the contrary is made to appear. In this instance, there is no
evidence or suggestion growing out of the facts of the case that
Mr. Sanguily has manifested toward the Spanish authorities in
Cuba any hostility, ill feeling, or want of due respect to the
laws. In all respects he has been true to his duty to the United
States, while residing in Cuba, his native country, under the
passport and registry of the United States and also of Cuba,

(*) The report was submitted on February 24, 1897. It was then
ordered to be printed; and it was printed and distributed in the Senate
Chamber on February 25th, when it was taken up. The Honorable Mr.
George F. Hoar, from Massachusetts, got up and said: "I desire to know
whether the report which has been within sixty seconds, or thereabout,
laid on my desk, is the report upon this case ? " He being assured that
it was added : — " It has just come from the printer. It is a report of 96
pages. I desire to ask the Senator (the Honorable Mr. Morgan) if he
does not think the members of the Senate ought to have an opportunity
to read the report before they act upon the joint resolution, and that the
matter ought to go over long enough to enable us to read it ?— I never
have seen it before." (Congressional Record, February 25, 1897, page
2379-)

98
and the only ground of proceeding against him in Cuba has
been an unjust suspicion, derived from the honorable and
devotional courage he exhibited in his efforts to free Cuba from
Spanish dominion in the former revolution that ended nearly
twenty years ago. ' '
At the conclusion of this extraordinary debate, the joint
resolution was reported to the Senate without amendments
(Congressional Record, February 25, 1897, page 2392), and
then and there the matter ended. The Honorable Mr.
Stephen M. White, of California, addressed the Senate for
some time, and the debate went over to the following day, when
the Honorable Mr. George Gray, from Delaware, formally
informed the Senate that Julio Sanguily had been released,
and that no further action in regard to this matter was therefore
necessary. "Sanguily has been released," said the Honorable
Senator, " and thanks to God is to-day a free man. So much
has been accomplished by an American Secretary of State,
who throughout all this business has never failed to assert the
rights and dignity of this country in behalf of this Spanish-
American citizen."
During the course of the discussion on the 25th of February,
1897, the writer of these pages, feeling apprehensive as to the
effect which the action of the Senate in Committee of the
Whole might produce both in Cuba and in Madrid, deemed it
to be his duty to address himself to the Honorable Chairman
of the Committee on Foreign Relations of that distinguished
body, and request in his client's name the suspension of
a movement which endangered his liberty. He went to the
Senate Chamber, and having been granted there the honor and
the favor of a personal interview with that distinguished
Senator, explained to him verbally what the real situation of
the case was in Havana, and how perhaps at that very moment,
as it proved exactly to be the fact, the order for the release of
the prisoner had already reached there. In addition to these
statements, which the distinguished Senator kindly listened

99
to and considered, the writer of these pages left in his hands
the following letter :
Washington, D. C,
February 25th, 1897.
Honorable John Sherman,
Chairman of the Senate Committee
of Foreign Relations, etc. , etc. , etc.
Sir: — Shall I be permitted, in my capacity of counsel and
representative of Mr. Julio Sanguily, imprisoned in Havana,
to request you, in all earnest, in the name of my client, and for
his benefit, to prevent, if possible, the passage of the resolution
directing a demand to be made upon the Spanish Government
for the release of my client ?
Said release having been already granted by the Spanish
Government, upon no other condition than the fulfilment of a
certain technical requirement of the Spanish law, a condition
to which I here, and Sanguily's lawyer in Havana, do readily
assent : would it not be injurious to the prisoner to afford the
Spanish Government a plausible opportunity to withdraw from
its engagement in this respect ?
Of course, I can not but be grateful to the generous spirit
shown by the resolution to which I refer, — as I am with all
my heart, and my client is, grateful to the Honorable Secretary
of State for his manly, untiring and benevolent efforts in favor
of Mr. Sanguily. I can not but see and recognize that the
movement in the Senate is inspired in the same generous feeling
which from the beginning has inspired the Honorable Secretary
of State. But I am afraid that the effect which the resolution,
if passed, will necessarily produce in the Government circles of
Spain, and perhaps among the masses, will result in the defeat
of the efforts, both of the State Department and of the Senate.
I make to you therefore an earnest appeal, in the name of
Mr. Sanguily, to submit this letter, if proper, to the consider
ation of the Senate, which in its wisdom will no doubt pay
attention to the statements therein contained.
I am, sir, with the greatest respect
Your obedient servant,
J. I. Rodriguez,
Counsel for fulio Sanguily.
The announcement made by the Honorable Senator from
Delaware, Mr. George Gray, caused, as it was natural, the
whole matter to stop. There was, of course, some show of

100
the disappointment felt by some political opponents of the
Honorable Secretary of State, in seeing, that his wise and
patriotic action had been vindicated by that greatest of human
tests which is called success, and that therefore the possibility
to harrass him in this respect had vanished. But beyond
some weak expressions of that feeling, nothing else was done,
except the presentation by the Honorable Mr. John W. Daniel,
from Virginia, of a document which contradicts the so-called
statement of facts presented to the Senate by the Honorable
Mr. Call, on January 7th, 1897, in the part thereof which
refers to the place of naturalization of Sanguily. This docu
ment is a certified copy of the record of Sanguily's naturaliza
tion, on August 6th, 1878, in the Superior Court of the City of
New York, under Section 2167 of the Revised Statutes of the
United States, commonly known by the name of the ' ' Law of
minors. ' '
The Honorable Senator requested that this certified copy
should be printed in the Record, and so it was ordered and
done. (Congressional Record, February 27th, 1897, page
2404.)

101

XII.

COMPARISON BETWEEN THE CASE OF JULIO SANGUILY
AND OTHER CASES OF SIMILAR CHARACTER.
I. The Trasher Case.
Mr. John Sidney Trasher, a native of the city of Port
land, in the State of Maine, of the United States of America,
residing in Havana, was arrested on the 1 6th of October, 1851,
tried for alleged "treason " to the Spanish Government by a
military tribunal, namely the Permanent and Executive
Military Commission of the Island of Cuba, and condemned,
on the 1 6th of November following, to imprisonment for eight
years in chains and at hard labor in the penal settlement of
Ceuta, in northern Africa.
The State Department, at whose head was at that time a
man of such force and pronounced Americanism as the great
Daniel Webster, did not accede however to interfere in behalf
of the prisoner, or to urge that the privileges of Article VII of
the treaty of 1795, should be extended to him. The action
which he took, and indeed most reluctantly, was in favor of a
pardon, and gave up from the outset the great point upon which
the intervention by the Government of the United States could
only be warranted. Mr. Webster explained in his remarkable
report of December 23rd, 1851 (Executive Document No. 10,
House of Representatives, 32nd Congress, ist Session pages from
2 to 7), that while there was " no doubt that John S. Trasher is a
citizen of the United States by birth," even admitting that the
treaty between the United States and Spain granted such privi
leges as were claimed by the prisoner and his friends, the point
Still remained to be settled whether those rights secured by
treaty, "be not justly limited to such persons as are, at the
time, in all respects, American citizens, having never volun
tarily changed their domicile, or taken upon themselves a new
allegiance."

102
In fact it might be said, that Mr. Webster would not have
interfered at all in this business, if Mr. Daniel M. Barringer,
United States Minister at Madrid, would have not ventured to
take up the subject there "without official instructions " (Mr.
Barringer to Mr. Webster, January 14, 1852, Executive Docu
ment, No. 86, House of Representatives, 33d Congress, ist
session, page 106), and succeeded in persuading the Spanish
Government to apply to Mr. Trasher the benefits of a general
amnesty granted in those days by Her Majesty the Queen of
Spain. The Cuban question at that time was not less prominently
than now before the eyes of the American statesmen, and the
friends of Mr. Trasher had taken all the advantage that the
circumstances afforded them to create agitation. The public
press had not been negligent in helping Mr. Trasher's cause,
and his friends in Congress had also done their best. A reso
lution was passed, on the 15th of December, 1851, by the House
of Representatives of the United States, ' ' requesting the Presi
dent, so far as in his judgment may be compatible with the
public interest, to communicate to the House any information
in possession of the Executive respecting the imprisonment,
trial and sentence of John S. Trasher in the Island of Cuba,
and to his right to claim the protection of the Government as a
native born citizen of the United States;" and the President in
response to this resolution sent first a report from Mr. Webster,
Secretary of State (the report to which reference has been made
before) and the papers which together with it were printed and
are known as "Executive Document, No. 10, House of Repre
sentatives, 32nd Congress, ist session, Information respecting
the imprisonment, etc., of John S. Trasher." Additional
papers were transmitted on January 2nd, 1852, which were
likewise printed and form "Executive Document No. 14, House
of Representatives, 32nd Congress, ist session, Further in
formation respecting the imprisonment, etc., of John S.
Trasher."

103
In April, 1854, st^l further information was forwarded to the
House of Representatives, as enclosures to a report from the
Secretary of State, Mr. W. L- Marcy, to the President of the
United States ' ' in regard to Spanish violations of the rights of
American citizens." — Executive Document No. 86, House of
Representatives, 33rd Congress, ist session. — The papers
relating to Mr. Trasher's case included in this volume can be
found from page 105 to page 127.
Mr. Trasher himself, who always was loud in his denunciation
of the treatment to which he was submitted, had caused his
Appeal to the Government of the United States and to his
fellow-citizens, written " in a dungeon of the Punta Castle,"
Havana, November 21st, 1851 (Ex. Doc. No. 14, House of
Representatives, 32nd Congress, ist session, pages 6 to 8), to
be published and widely circulated in the United States.
And Mr. Allen F. Owen, who was then the United States
Consul at Havana, had been so diligent and energetic in
defending the rights of Mr. Trasher, that the Governor-General
of Cuba told him officially, November 23rd, 1851. "You are
well aware that Consuls are nothing else than mere commer
cial agents, and I nothing more than a deputy of the Spanish
Government in this province. The complaints and reclamations
of Mr. J. S. Trasher are therefore out of the sphere of those
reclamations which you, in the exercise of your consular
functions, have the power to prefer. My duty could never
permit me to answer to them." (Executive Document No. 10,
House of Representatives, 32nd Congress, ist session, page 20.)
Marquis Miraflores, the Spanish Secretary of State, in writing
to Mr. Barringer, the United States Minister at Madrid, August
20th, 1 85 1, explained to him that the Captain-General of Cuba
had the power "to suspend" a Consul, and "even to compel
him to leave the Island, without such an act being considered as
an infringement of the respect due to the Government which
he serves," and suggested in consequence "the propriety of
Mr. Allen F. Owen's making himself thoroughly acquainted
with the nature and extent of his duties." {Ibid, page 10.)

104
In spite of all this, Mr. Webster, while yielding as he said
to the pressure of Mr. Trasher's friends, not without explain
ing the reason why he believed that Mr. Trasher ought not to
be protected (Mr. Webster to Mr. Barringer, December 13th,
185 1, Ibid, pages 30-32), — confined his action, as above stated,
to instruct Mr. Barringer to recommend to the Spanish Govern
ment "the expediency of pardoning" Mr. Trasher.
When these instructions reached Madrid, Mr. Barringer had
done motu proprio, and done successfully, what in this note
he was told to do.
And now comes another feature which strongly contrasts
this case with the case of Sanguily. Not only was the latter
much better protected by the State Department than Mr.
Trasher was, but special care was taken from saving him from
humiliations and sufferings which Mr. Trasher could not
escape. Mr. Trasher was not pardoned until after he had been made
to travel, in irons, as a convict, from Havana to Vigo, from
Vigo to Cadiz, and from Cadiz to Ceuta, and until he had
entered the African penal establishment, and had had his hair
cropped, his face clean shaved, his body dressed in the convict's
attire, his limbs burdened with the regulation fetters, and his
soul afflicted by tremendous humiliation and agony.
Fourteen months after his release, when the administration
had been changed, and Mr. W. L. Marcy was Secretary of State,
Mr. Trasher presented a claim against the Spanish Govern
ment asking for an indemnity to the amount of $350,000.00.
His letter was endorsed by Mr. John L. Hayes, and Mr.
Alexander N. Lawrence, counsellors at law in the City of
Washington, as the claimant's attorneys. (Executive Document
No. 86, House of Representatives, 33d Congress, ist session,
page 125 and the following.)
It appears that this claim was admitted in principle, as
there is a letter in which Mr. Marcy informed one of the
lawyers of Mr. Trasher that a proposition had " been recently

105
made to Spain and other powers for the organization of a board
for the mutual adjustment of all existing claims between the
respective Governments." {Ibid, page 127.)
Seven years, afterwards, March 5th, i860, a convention was
concluded in Madrid between the Governments of the United
States and Spain, establishing a joint Commission for the final
adjudication and payment of all the claims of the respective
parties, — a convention by which, according to Dr. Wharton's
authorized opinion, "the validity and amount of the Cuban
claims were expressly admitted and their speedy payment was
placed beyond question." The negotiation failed, however,
because the Senate of the United States ' ' greatly to the surprise
of the President and the disappointment of the claimants"
refused to approve the convention. — (Dr. Wharton's, Digest of
the International Law of the United States, section 38, Vol. I,
page 164.)
Whether Mr. Trasher's claim was included in that arrange
ment, or whether it is still in abeyance and waiting with the
others, which the failure of the convention left again in nubibus,
or whether it was acted upon in some other way, the writer of
these pages does not know.
The fact has been mentioned only to demonstrate that the
opinion so absolutely and dogmatically maintained by the
Honorable Mr. Wm. P. Fry, in the Senate of the United States,
on the 25th of February, 1897, tnat tne granting of a pardon
involves for the pardoned man and his family the loss of all
claims whatever for damages, was not shared on this occasion
either by his fellow-citizen from Maine, Mr. Trasher, his attor
neys, Mr. Alexander N. Lawrence, and Mr. John L- Hayes,
or perhaps Mr. Marcy himself. Even if it were true, absolutely,
that a pardon has the effect attributed to it by the distin
guished Senator from Maine, the slightest investigation of
the subject might have shown him that one thing is a pardon,
by which the penalties of a sentence are wiped out, and another
thing is a commutation of a sentence, by which a penalty is
imposed in place of another.

io6
II. The Houard Case.
Mr. John Emilio Houard, a native of the City of Phila
delphia, in the State of Pennsylvania, of the United States
of America, residing in Cienfuegos, Island of Cuba, where he
was engaged in the practice of medicine, was arrested on the
20th of July, 1871, tried by a council of war, on the charge of
being in sympathy with the insurgents, and having given
them money and medicines (*), and sentenced on December
15th, 1871, to imprisonment for eight years in chains and at
hard labor in the penal settlement of Ceuta in northern Africa,
and to the confiscation of his property.
The State Department, at whose head was at that time a man
so prominent and conspicuous in the History of the United
States as the Honorable Mr. Hamilton Fish, of New York,
was, did not feel much more affected by Dr. Houard's mis
fortunes, than it formerly had been by Mr. Trasher's.
Friends and relations of Dr. Houard urged the Honorable
Mr. Hamilton Fish to protect the prisoner. A number of
trustworthy citizens of Philadelphia sent to him a memorial
requesting him to take action for the discharge of Dr. Houard
from his confinement. The Vice President of the United
States, Mr. Schuyler Colfax, put himself personally in com
munication with him respecting this business. And the House
of Representatives of the United States passed a resolution
(March 19th, 1872) requesting the President to communicate
to that body, " if not incompatible with the public interest all
the information in possession of the Government relative to the
case of Dr J. E. Houard, a native of Philadelphia, and a citizen
of the United States, now held by the Spanish authorities on
the Island of Cuba, and what steps, if any, have been taken to
protect the rights of this American citizen, who it is alleged
from various respectable sources has been unjustly arrested,

(*) The latter charge rested on the fact that a small box of homeopathic
medicines, on the interior of which the Doctor's name was stamped, was
found by a Spanish column, in a rebel encampment.

107
condemned and transported to a penal settlement on the coast
of Africa."
In addition to this resolution, the Honorable Mr. Samuel J.
Randall, of Pennsylvania, introduced on April 8, 1872, another
one which recited at length the wrongs done to Dr. Houard,
and ended by declaring that in the judgment of the House the
President should promptly demand his unconditional release
and the return of his confiscated property.
In response to the resolution of the House, the President sent
the papers which were printed and form: (1) Executive Docu
ment No. 223, House of Representatives, 42nd Congress, 2nd
session; (2) Executive Document No. 223, part 2nd, House of
Representatives, 42nd Congress, 2nd session; and (3) Miscel
laneous Document No. 188, House of Representatives, 42nd
Congress, 2nd session.
Mr. Alfred T. A. Torbert, who was then the United States
Consul-General at Havana, and who as shown by his despatch
of February 19, 1872 (Executive Document No. 223, House
of Representatives, 42nd Congress, 2nd session, page 125),
entertained an opinion as to Dr. Houard's American citizen
ship, different from that of the Honorable Mr. Hamilton Fish,
interposed all his influence with the Governor-General of Cuba,
in favor of Dr. Houard, who to his judgment was "beyond
a doubt " a citizen of the United States of America, and suc
ceeded in securing that the prisoner, who had already "his
beard and hair cut off" and donned "the prison garb,"
"would not be sent to work outside of the prison."
In his letter to Vice President Colfax the Honorable Mr.
Hamilton Fish alleged against the claim of American citizen
ship made by Dr. Houard and his friends, that it did not
appear that Dr. Houard "interested himself, as did so many
citizens at home and abroad, in behalf of the union cause dur
ing our own war, that he offered his services as surgeon in our
volunteer army, that he subscribed to any of the war charities,
or that he paid at any time income tax or other tax to the

io8
United States." (Executive Document No. 223, House of
Representatives, 42nd Congress, 2nd session, page 29.) And
what was still worse for the prisoner, the Honorable Mr.
Hamilton Fish went further on and said : " The strong point
which prevents the intervention of this Government in behalf
of Dr. Houard from being efficacious for his release is the fact
that he has been regularly tried and found guilty by a duly
constituted tribunal in the Island of Cuba. " {Ibid, page2g.)(*)
It will be seen without difficulty that while opinions of this
kind prevailed at the State Department, the action of the latter
in favor of the prisoner was necessarily lukewarm. There was
nevertheless at that time at Madrid, as diplomatic represen
tative of the United States, such a strong and able man as
General Daniel E. Sickles, and through his efforts, not entirely
unaided by the unexpected appearance of an American man-
of-war at the port of Cadiz, a pardon was granted to Dr.
Houard, who was already at Ceuta. -Don Cristino Martos,
Spanish Secretary of State, informed General Sickles of the
decision reached, on July 4th, 1872; but it took a long while
for the orders to reach the penal settlement, and Dr. Houard
was not actually released until the ist of August, 1872.
One year afterwards, Doctor Houard presented a claim for
damages against the Government of Spain, and asked for an
indemnity of $50,000. The Honorable Mr. Hamilton Fish
referred this claim to the United States and Spanish Claims
Commission of Arbitration, which some time before had been
established in Washington, and there it was entered under
No. 107. The Advocate of the United States, who was then
the learned and distinguished jurist, Mr. Thomas J. Durant,
defended the case and attended to the rights of the claimant
and of the United States in his behalf, as zealously and ably as
he always did. The American Arbitrator recognized the
validity of the claim and made an award for $50,000. The

(*) The record of this trial before a Council of War is on the files of the
United States and American Claims Commission of 1871-83, case No. 107.

109
Arbitrator for Spain disagreed and dismissed the case. The
Umpire who was then Baron Blanc, the Italian Minister in
Washington, was called therefore to decide the case ; but that
distinguished gentleman, as set forth in his opinion of February
4th, 1880, — fully eight years after the presentation of the
case, — launched the claim out of existence on the following
grounds :
' ' The Umpire does not deem it consistent with the character
of his office, nor required by the interests of either party, that
the questions involved in the sentence, those disposed of here
tofore and intended to be closed by a conditional pardon granted
as the result of an international agreement should now be re
opened. With this view of the case it is unnecessary to deter
mine whether or not (*) the alleged loss of claimant's nationality
of origin by expatriation is sustained. On the other ground
above stated the Umpire must hold against the claimant and
therefore dismisses the claim."
The Umpire said, however, that "the injustice complained of
(by the claimant) is hardly open to dispute."
III. The Pouble Case.
Mr. Cirilo Pouble, a naturalized citizen of the United
States, residing in New York, went to Cuba, with an American
passport, vised by the Spanish Consul at Key West, Fia., and
was arrested at the very moment of his arrival at Havana on
the 23d of November, 1884. The Spanish Consul after visaing
his passport informed the Cuban authorities that Mr. Pouble
was going there, and they waited for him, and put him under
arrest as soon as he landed.
They searched his baggage, and found nothing either in his
trunk or about his person.

(*) The determination of this question was however the only duty
devolved upon the Umpire under the agreement which created the
Commission.

1 10
From there he was taken- to the public jail and then to a cell
in the La Punta Castle situated at the entrance of the Havana
harbor. His offense consisted in having been the editor, in the City
of New York, of a newspaper, printed in the Spanish language,
and called El Separatista, — a paper which was no longer in
existence, and which had strenuously advocated the cessation of
the Spanish rule in Cuba, — in having been a member of a political
club established in New York devoted to the propagation of the
same ideas, — and in having issued, or signed, while in the
United States, as member of that club, or in some other capa
city, certain printed blanks of commissions to serve in the
revolutionary Cuban army.
The Spanish authorities of Cuba did not make any effort to
contradict Mr. Pouble' s American citizenship, and decided to
try him by civil jurisdiction under the terms of the Cushing-
Calderon y Collantes Protocol, and according to the provisions
of the Law of April 17th, 1821. At the end of thirty-two
months (August 10th, 1886), a sentence was passed by the
Court, which condemned Mr. Pouble to imprisonment for life
at hard labor.
This most remarkable case attracted in its day to consider
able extent the attention of the public. The claim that Mr.
Pouble was liable to punishment by the Spanish authorities in
Cuba, when caught there, for alleged offenses against her, com
mitted, if committed at all, outside of the Spanish territory, in
volved an assertion of extra-territorial jurisdiction which could
not be easily acquiesced by the people of this country. The
arguments that the result of the offense committed here was
to have its effect there, — and that promoting here ill feeling
against Spain was equivalent to making war against her, which
a private citizen certainly cannot do, — were strained to such
an undue extent, that all their force was lost.
The friends of Mr. Pouble, and the writer of these pages,
as Mr. Pouble' s counsel, exhausted all the means which were

1 1 1
at their disposal for the relief of the prisoner. Nothing could
be obtained from the State Department ; but the Senate of the
United States, whose attention was called to the subject by
means of a memorial, took not entirely without effect, some
notice of the case. The Senate Committee on Foreign Rela
tions reported, on March 24, 1886, that there is nothing that at
present calls for any action on the part of the Senate, or of Con
gress. But, " if there should be much further delay in the trial
of Pouble, it will become a subject for very serious consider
ation on the part of the Government of the United States."
(Senate Report No. 275, 49th Congress, ist session.)
An effort was then made to release Mr. Pouble by imploring
his pardon, but not even this movement was undertaken by
the Honorable Mr. Frederick T. Frelinghuysen or fostered
with his assistance.
A sister of the prisoner was requested by the friends of the
latter, to file a petition to the Supreme Government of Spain,
requesting the pardon of her brother; and the United States
Consul-General at Havana, Mr. R. O. Williams, interposed
in great earnest all his personal influence with the Gover
nor-General to secure, as he did, that the petition should
be sent to Madrid, with favorable recommendation. On
October 25th, 1888, he was still working, together with the
writer of these pages, in securing the desired release (*). But
the pardon was not granted until the 23rd of January, 1889;
and then Mr. Pouble, after four years and two months of im
prisonment in La Punta Castle was set at liberty.

(*) Mr. Williams addressed then to the writer of these pages the follow
ing letter : Havana, October 25, 1888.
tvtv tiwar Mr Rodriguez:
T am ^lad to be able to inform you that the petition of Miss Pouble has
been most favorably reported upon by the authorities having cognizance
of aif matter and that it goes forward to Spain to-day endorsed by the
hearty "commendation of the Governor-General in favor of the pardon
of her brother Mr. Cirilo Pouble.
01 iicj uiuu j am^ yours very truly,
T I RODRIGUEZ, ESQ., RAMON O. WILLIAMS.
J' Ebbitt House, Washington, D. C.

I 12

CONCLUSION.

The reader of these pages will find out, without difficulty,
especially if he is in any way conversant with public affairs, or if
he feels some interest, whether professional, political, or merely
historical, in the subject to which they refer, that the lessons
to be taught by the study of the Sanguily case are in numerous
respects exceedingly important. And indeed, were it not for
this reason, the excuse for increasing, with this new allusion to
a case finally disposed of, the burden already ponderous of the
juridical and diplomatic literature of the day, would be rather
flimsy. One aspect more than others commends the case especially
to the attention of students, — and it is the close resemblance
which it bears, from its inception to its end, and through all its
different evolutions, to the general perplexing and most in
volved political and social problem of the Island of Cuba, — a re
semblance which increases the interest to be felt in its study, as
it takes away from the subject its individual character and raises
it up to higher grounds, where universal justice and far sighted
statesmanship can be called into exercise.
The Sanguily case reveals, prominently above all its other
features, and in the most striking similitude with all the phases
of the political situation in Cuba, ever since 1825, that a
feeling of deeply rooted, almost invincible distrust, capable
to put down and smother all sentiment of kinship, good
will or even magnanimity, — is the prevailing element in the
relations between Spain and Cuba. It shows, also in common
with the Cuban question, that this nefarious, sterilizing senti
ment, causes wrongs to be done, even in spite of generous im
pulses, and prevents them from being righted, except, if ever,
at a late hour, through outside pressure, and in a manner cal
culated to produce no lasting effect. It bears testimony, ex
actly the same as the Cuban problem, to the fact, whether
willingly or unwillingly accepted, and each time better estab-

ii-3
lished, that in all questions concerning the action of Spain in
this continent the United States of America are a party to the
contention, — and that in obedience to eternal laws, historical
• and social, as inevitable in their effect as the laws of Nature,
the wishes of the Government of the United States of America
have always to prevail in the end. And it shows, in fine, and
in no lesser a degree than the Cuban problem, that all attempt,
no matter how much accompanied by noise and alleged popu
lar support, to force upon the administration, an undesired
attitude, or to dictate to it the manner and the form in which
its duty must be performed, — is foolish to the extreme, and
dangerous even if it is sincere.
There is an incident in the military career of Julio Sanguily,
to which his brother Don Manuel, with all the fervor of his
eloquence made a brilliant allusion at the banquet given by
some friends of the former in the city of Philadelphia, Pa. , in
celebration of his freedom and his return to the United States.
The distinguished orator compared what he called ' ' the first
rescue" of his brother, — when the latter prostrated by the
enemy at an encounter during the ten years war, and made a
prisoner and wounded, and tied to the back of a horse, and carried
in this way to some safe place of imprisonment, or perhaps to
the scaffold, was restored to liberty by the sudden appear
ance of the heroical Cuban General Don Ignacio Agramonte,
who with characteristic impetuosity threw himself in the midst
of the group of soldiers who surrounded his helpless friend and
attacked them and caused them to fly in terror and abandon
their prey, — with what he called very properly "the second
rescue," when the American eagle snatched him again out of
the hands of his enemies and opened for him the gates of the
prison. The writer of these pages was not present at that festivity,
but what he learned of this well devised comparison impressed
him by its correctness. Had it not been for this giant, who is
called the American Government : had it happened for its ex-

ii4
ecutive and diplomatic department to be entrusted to less faith
ful hands, or to persons of less supreme manliness and political
honesty than President Cleveland and his Secretary of State,
Mr. Olney, the fate of Sanguily would have been very different.
Thanks to the courage of those two great Americans, to their
wonderful power of resistance to improper pressure from what
ever side, and to their kindness towards the prisoner in whom
they saw only a fellow-citizen, Julio Sanguily is not still linger
ing inside a Spanish fortress, or serving a sentence as cruel as
ignominious. It was printed by the Washington Post, in its edition of the
4th of March, 1897, in a review of " Mr. Cleveland's second
term as President," that "if there were nothing else to the
credit of his administration, the diplomatic victory obtained
by Secretary Olney over the British Foreign Office in a series
of masterly dispatches (the Venezuelan affair), would suffice
to set off" all errors or shortcomings, if any, which might be
found. ' ' But this glorious chapter, ' ' the paper further said
' ' is happily not alone. By its side must be placed the negotia
tion of the general arbitration treaty, which no matter when,
or in what manner ratified," (or rejected the writer of these
pages says) ' ' must always stand as another monument to the
skill and power of Secretary Olney."
The release of Sanguily stands also by its side ; and so stand
other victories, and more than all the cessation of the system
and of the influences which for long time before had made
Spain almost omnipotent in Washington.
The intervention of the Achilles of the Cuban war of 1868-
1878 saved Sanguily upon the field of battle. The intervention
of the Achilles of the American diplomacy saved him now
from his enemies and perhaps also from his friends.