Feb 26
Memorandum
to: Segismundo Bermejo, Minister of Marine to their Catholic Majesty's of Spain.
Do we not owe to our country not only our life, if necessary, but the exposition of our beliefs? I am very uneasy about this. I ask myself if it is right for me to keep silent, make myself an accomplice in adventures which will surely cause the total ruin of Spain. And for what purpose? to defend an island which was ours, but belongs to us no more, because even if we did not lose it by right in the war, we have lost it in fact, and with it all our wealth and an enormous number of young men, victims of the climate and the bullets, in the defense of what is now no more than a romantic Idea.
Pascual Cevera, Rear Admiral, Squadron of Cape Verde, commanding.
Court of Inquiry, US Lighthouse Tender Mangrove, Havana Harbor
Judge Advocate: Lt Commander Adolph Marix.
Witness: Ensign Wilfred Van Nest Powelson, supervising divers.
Q: What do you deduce from this information?
A: I think the explosion occurred on the port side somewhere about frame 18 . . . I should say . . . between frames 16 and 18 was the center of impact, and that this was under the ship, a little on the port side.
Q: How far from the keel?
A: . . . I should say . . . fifteen feet in a horizontal line.