No. 285.
Mr. Cushing to Mr. Fish.
Madrid, October 6, 1875. (Received October 29.)
Sir: I received a note from the minister of state on the 4th, appointing the next day, the 5th, for the interview requested by my note of the 3d, communicated to you with my No. 570.
[Page 520]I proceeded at once to inform the minister of the painful effect produced in the mind of my Government by the promotion of D. Juan Burriel, accompanied as it was by the omission of the Spanish government for a space of nearly two years to execute the explicit engagement of the protocol of November 29, 1873, and the absence still of any apparent progress in such investigation, even after the assurances on that subject given successively by Mr. Ulloa and Mr. Castro; in consequence of which I had received instructions to remonstrate and insist further in this behalf. And as a more efficient means of impressing on him the gravity of the situation than any words of mine could, I read to him your telegrams of the 28th ultimo and the 1st instant. He seemed not to be familiar with the early stages of the question; but proceeded to say, in repetition and enlargement of the suggestion made by Mr. Gastro in his note of the 23d of August, namely, that the promotion of D. Juan Burriel had been dictated exclusively by the consideration of military exigencies of the moment; that, oppressed as the Spanish government was by civil war in the peninsula and in Cuba, it was constrained to put its hand on every accessible military officer of competency; that it could not afford to leave such officers in idleness; and therefore—and therefore alone—it had promoted and employed D. Juan Burriel.
I replied that it seemed to me that Spain had general officers enough, and good ones, without being constrained to promote and employ an officer under such serious charges; that it was not customary in any service, within my experience or observation, to promote officers in such condition; that it would, it seemed to me, have been quite easy for the Spanish government, if satisfied of the immediate need of an additional general in the north, to promote some other of the many brigadiers in the army, or to bring D. Juan Burriel promptly to trial, acquit him if innocent, or punish him if guilty, and, after having thus discharged its obligation, then to decide whether the exigencies of the public service required his further employment in the army; and that, after all, it was the conjoint fact of promoting him while failing to try him which constituted the gravamen of the circumstances as respects the United States. He rejoined, reiterating the military argument, but professing his ignorance of the state of the criminal investigation, or the reasons of its having been so long delayed, while expressing earnest desire that everything should be done in the premises which could be justly called for by the United States. I then spoke to him of the odiousness of the acts of Burriel at Santiago de Cuba, of his want of upright sentiment in not relieving his government of embarrassment by demanding trial, as honorable men were accustomed to do in other countries; and of the repeated occasions on which the United States had subjected her officers to trial at the instance of foreign governments, including Spain. He seemed to be unacquainted with these cases.
I informed him that he would receive a note from me on the subject, to include reference to some of these cases, and general recapitulation of the diplomatic history of the case.
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I remain, &c.,