“I was surprised on the following Wednesday morning to hear shots as of several volleys of musketry.  About three hundred soldiers—­ infantry and cavalry—­were, in fact, outside, having surrounded my house.  More soon appeared under command of Captain Cerezo Martinez.  In most brutal and vulgar terms he ordered all in the house to go outside.  The soldiers rushed in and dragged me out by the coat collar.  My wife, with her baby, was taken out, a rifle being pointed at her breast.  Eleutrie Zanabria, a negro servant, who was badly frightened, tried to hide.  He was pulled to the front, and before my eyes a soldier struck him a heavy blow with his machete, cutting him deep in the head and arm, leaving a pool of blood on the floor.  The wound was serious.

“An order was then given to take into custody all men on the estate.  Near a tree beyond the hill, one hundred yards from the house, I stopped, about forty paces from the others, to talk to the captain, who had been at the house the week before.  At that moment a young negro, Manuel Febels, made a dash to escape.  Some cavalrymen rushed after him, firing.  He fell, and they mutilated his body, taking out his eyes.  The officer, enraged at the negro’s flight, pulled out his sabre, and shouted to the others of the party:  ‘Get down on your knees!’ They obeyed and he had them bound and kept in that position a quarter of an hour.

“While I was talking to the captain my wife and five-year-old child were begging for mercy for me.  The cavalrymen helped themselves to corn for their horses, and finally started.  The officers told me that my nephew’s life and my own were only spared because we were Americans, and they did not want to get into trouble with the United States.  They then ordered me to leave San Miguel without waiting a moment.

“Their explanation of the raid was that the rebels had fired upon the troops, and that they saw one man run, as he fired, into my house, and that, under the major’s instructions, the whole family should have been killed.  My wife and children were in agony while I was away.  My employes were all taken away by the troops.

“An officer of high rank in the Spanish army passed my place after I left, came to me here, and said:  ’I know what has happened.  The man in command is unfit to be an officer of Spain.’  I heard that my men had been taken to the Spanish camp and shot while eating breakfast.”

Destruction of property.

The brothers Farrar, in presenting their claim for indemnity, made the following statement: 

“On Saturday, March 21, the dwelling house of the coffee plantation Estrella was the object of a wanton attack by the column of Gen. Bernat, operating in that region.  The said building received cannon shots of grape and cannister, breaking the door, one window, several piazza columns, and greatly endangering the lives of the families of my brothers, Don Tasio and Don Luis Farrar, both American citizens.