With the pass that the governor-general had given him, Ruez Gonzales
came often to visit the imprisoned soldier, but as the day appointed
for the trial drew near, Ruez grew more and more sad and thoughtful
at each visit, for, boy though he was, he felt certain of Lorenzo
Bezan's fate. He was not himself unfamiliar with military
examinations, for he was born and brought up within earshot of the
spot where these scenes were so often enacted by order of the
military commission, and he trembled for his dearly loved friend.
At length the trial came; trial! we might with more propriety call
it a farce, such being the actual character of an examination before
the military commission of Havana, where but one side is heard, and
condemnation is sure to follow, as was the case so lately with one
of our own countrymen (Mr. Thrasher), and before him the murder by
this same tribunal of fifty Americans in cold blood! Trial, indeed!
Spanish courts do not try people; they condemn them to suffer--that
is their business.
But let us confine ourselves to our own case; and suffice it to say,
that Captain Bezan was found guilty, and at once condemned to die.
His offence was rank insubordination, or mutiny, as it was
designated in the charge; but in consideration of former services,
and his undoubted gallantry and bravery, the sentence read to the
effect, as a matter of extraordinary leniency to him, that it should
be permitted for him to choose the mode of his own death-that is,
between the garote and being shot by his comrades.
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