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<blockquote><p>A few days ago, two of the Spanish officers. Colonel Marcos de Villiers, generally called Colonel Coulon, and Arnaldo Guillemard, arrived here in a vessel from Havana. It was first intimated to me that they had resigned their commissions in the Spanish service; but were arrested by my order, and brought before me, they declared they had come with the intention of asking permission to attend in person to the settlement of their private affairs, and the removal of their families. They solemnly declared, that they had not returned in defiance of the proclamation, which they had promptly obeyed, and that they are ready to submit themselves to any order which should be taken in their case. For the present, I ordered them into confinement; but the calaboze being in no condition to receive them, for, excepting the officer's room, it has no fire-place; and as Coulon is a very old man, and his wife, at this time extremely ill, I thought it best to confine them in their own houses. The situation of old Coulon was such, that it would have been cruel to confine him in the dungeon with the common malefactors; and I could not, with propriety, make a distinction with respect to Guillemard. They then presented the enclosed memorial, in which they throw themselves on the mercy of the government.</p><p>After these concessions, and the humble manner in which they sue to be permitted to remain, I was well convinced that you would have granted them the indulgence they prayed for. But, under my instructions, although a state of things was presented by the returning sense of propriety on the part of these people, different from what is contemplated in these instructions, yet, 1 I did not consider myself authorized to go any farther than to continue them in the same confinement until further orders. I was well convinced that, while on the one hand you were determined to cause the government provisionally established over these provinces to be respected by every one living under it; and, as far as you were concerned, to cause the stipulations of the treaty to be enforced; yet, I also knew, from the magnanimity of your disposition, that you would instantly relent on the first manifestation of respect to the government, and submission to its determinations. This course, however, was not adopted by me until after consultation with Colonels Fenwick and Clinch, Major Denkins, and Judge Brackenridge, who all concurred in the opinion, that this was, under all circimistances, the most proper.<ref name="sundrypapers"/></p></blockquote>