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Most Humble Report!
From the attached notification from the commandant on St. Thomas, the court martial recorded on this occasion, my two pieces of correspondence, and together with the declaration of the commandant, Your Royal Majesty will note that despite all denials and all palliative circumstances, the fort commander on St. Thomas has exhibited the misconduct of arbitrarily punishing an inmate, who in armed conspiracy with others effected a jailbreak, and on which occasion soldiers were wounded.
This assassination presumably merits forfeiture of life or at least prison work for life and I have consequently had the perpetrator indicted since, if an attempted murder of soldiers by criminal prisoners could be dealt with by mere corporal punishment, the lives and limbs of soldiers would be placed at much risk.
During the interrogation, captain v. Einem has, truth be told, sought to give the matter the twist that he punished Ramos, not for the jail break, but for his blunt and naughty behavior against him; but, on one hand, a careful perusal of the interrogation will adequately show how little likelihood there is to that pretense, and, on the other hand, it should be noted that captain v. Einem does not understand a single word of Spanish and Ramos none other, and that, therefore, among a prisoner and his guard, in such a case, misunderstandings might easily occur, which misunderstandings would result in sad outcomes for the prisoner when one considers that the guard, be he military or civilian, has the unrestricted right to mandate or execute punishment upon those who are under indictment of the law and consequently also under the protection of the law.
Finally, I must note that the appointed Auditor Wormskiold has also performed his function poorly in as much as he has not interrogated the prisoners but has immediately placed the witnesses among the soldiers under oath thereby making a facing off of the prisoners against the soldiers impossible and has thereby parted with a means of discovering the truth, for now it is of no use to interrogate the prisoners, whose testimony against that of sworn legally bound witnesses may not be given consideration.
This case could easily have been determined by me with without troubling Your Majesty had not the commandant’s re- |