Former Calif. officer says he pulled wrong weapon

[Henrika Vaghn]

Video: Oliver Stone: The U.S. Is a Sick Country Despite Controversy, Calif. Campus Set for Palin Our ship lay a good distance off, and we landed at a quarantine station, half a mile, at least, from the water-gate, to which we were compelled to walk along the beach.One of my journeys to the town produced a little adventure. The captain had ordered Cooper to boil some pitch at the galley. By some accident, the pot was capsized, and the ship came near being burned. A fresh pot was now provided, and Cooper and Dan McCoy were sent ashore, at the station, with orders to boil down pitch on the land. There was no wharf, and it was always necessary to get ashore through a surf. The bay is merely an elbow, half the winds blowing in from the open sea. Sometimes, therefore, landing is ticklish work and requires much skill. I went ashore with the pitch, and proceeded into the town on my errands, whilst the two lads lighted their fire and began to boil down. When all was ready, it was seen there was a good deal of swell, and that the breakers looked squally. Its a true wilderness, scrub-oak and cedar and second growth choked with underbrush, almost trackless.In five minutes you would be helplessly lost, in this blackness, with no stars to steer by. We need only wait till daylight to find you walking in a circle. Tell you what, giggled the lieutenant, leading his prisoner to the conning-tower hatch and lowering his voice: do just that, go below and be nice, and presently I will come back and well split a bottle. What do you say to that, eh? Wait. You shall see for yourself what it means to have the friendship of a man of my stamp. The lieutenant raised his voice, addressing the anchor watch: Attention. Heed with care: this gentleman is my friend. He is detained merely as a matter of form. I do not wish him to be annoyed. Do you understand? You are to leave him to himself as long as he remains quietly below. But he is not to come on deck again till I return. Is all that clear, imbeciles? He must have known that the enforcement of this edict meant certain starvation to thousands of the inoffensive inhabitants, but no thought of the misery and injustice which he thus wrought upon them deterred him in his determination to crush the unhappy people, and keep them still the slaves of Spain.The order found a very large proportion of the working classes absolutely destitute of money, and the men, knowing there was no work for them in the towns, hesitated about going with their families, while they did not dare to remain in their poor homes, where, at least, they could be sure of food. The consequence was that thousands of homes were deserted. The women and children were sent to the towns to look out for themselves as best they could, while the men joined the insurgent army. In a number of cases wives refused to be separated from their husbands, and followed them into the ranks of the revolutionists, where they fought like the Amazons of old.