In spite of all that the press has published in regard to you, I have never been willing to give it belief and to base my judgment of your conduct on its statements; such an accumulation of atrocities, so many crimes repugnant and dishonoring to any man of honor, I thought it impossible for a soldier holding your high rank to commit. These accusations seemed to me rather to be made in bad faith, or to be the utterances of personal enmity, and I expected that you would take care to give the lie in due form to your detractors, rising to the height required of a gentleman, and saving yourself from any imputation of that kind, by merely adopting in the treatment of the wounded and prisoners of war, the generous course that has been pursued from the beginning by the revolutionists towards the Spanish wounded and prisoners. But, unfortunately, Spanish dominion must always be accompanied by infamy, and although the errors and wrongful acts of the last war seemed to be corrected at the beginning of this one, to-day it has become manifest that it was only by closing our eyes to invariable personal antecedents and incorrigible traditional arbitrariness that we could have imagined Spain would forget forever her fatal characteristic of ferocity towards the defenseless. But we cannot help believing evidence. In my march during the period of this campaign I see with alarm, with horror, how the wretched reputation you enjoy is confirmed, and how the deeds that disclose your barbarous irritation are repeated. What! must even the peaceful inhabitants (I say noticing of the wounded and prisoners of war), must they be sacrificed to the rags that gave the Duke of Alva his name and fame? Is it thus that Spain, through you, returns the clemency and kindness with which we, the redeemers of this suffering people, have acted in like circumstances? What a reproach for yourself and for Spain! The license to burn the huts, assassinations like those at Nueva Paz and the villa El Gato, committed by Spanish columns, in particular those of Colonels Molina and Vicuna, proclaim you guilty before all mankind. Your name will be forever infamous, here and far from here, remembered with disgust and horror. Out of humanity, yielding to the honorable and generous impulses which are identified with both the spirit and the tendency of the revolution, I shall never use reprisals that would be unworthy of the reputation and the power of the liberating army of Cuba. But I nevertheless foresee that such abominable conduct on your part and on that of your men, will arouse at no distant time private vengeances to which they will fall victims, without my being able to prevent it, even though I should punish hundreds of innocent persons.