The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1905-03-29
Rousseau aySMaine Disaster
Was Horrible Mistake.
INTENDEDFOR SPANISH SHIP
But Wrecked sigbee's Battleship Instead
-Filibusters Sailed to Cuba With
Bombs of His Make, to Strike
Blow for Cubans.


New York, March 20 Gessler Ros-
seau's confessions which did not pre-
vent jury before Recorder Gofi in Gen
eral Sessions yesterday from eonyicting
him Of felony for which the maximum
penalty may be five years in state pris-
on, took more public turn today. The
man is in the Tombs awaiting sentence.
| lie had announced in whispers to the
jury yesterday That the supposed in
fernal machine containing 100 pounds
Of dynamite found on board the Cunard
liner Umbria last May was only prac-
teal Joke inspired BY his hatred Of
England. The jury didn't believe him.
Today he took the public into his con
tidenee BY declaring that be also made
the bomb that blew up the former Amer
lean battleship Maine. AT least he was
almost afraid that such was the case.
He felt, in spite Of official reports Of
lexperts To the contrary, that the Maine
was blown UP from the inside and not
from outside the hull as she lay III Ha-
lyana harbor in 1898,
Charles NJ. Kiefer, the attorney who
conducted Rosseau's defence, gave him
his head today, and let him have lis
say as be would
When seen in the Tombs, Rosseau
said;
y am patriot. Ay sympathies
were with the Americans and the Gu-
bans just before the Spanish war, and
| happened to be in Jacksonville, Fla,
I in December, 1897. There / met two
Cubans engaged III a flibustering expe.
dition. They We're officers high III the
Cuban patriot army.
Their names, as nearly as ! recall
them, We're Jose Wilton and Charley
Nannella
II had with me the mechanism Of
two Internal machines which | had made
| in ST. Louis There was no dynamite
in them, only the time mechanism and
all that | gave both machines to these
two Cubans for the purpose, as we
agreed, Of blowing up two Spanish ships.
II was gift. | got no money from
them. The machines were shipped from
jacksonville in steamship called. L
think, the Discovery.
The Cubans We're arrested in Havana
The Spaniards confscated all their MA.
terial and executed death sentence on
the two men. Thus they came into
possession Of the internal machines.
when the Maine was blown ap,
Rosseau continued, 4 made up my mind
that it was done BY the spaniards with
enc OF my bombs. / concluded that the
explosion was from the inside. You
see, the bombs could easily have been
struggled aboard in grocery boxes OF
packages delivered to the vessel in the
daytime the mechanism being set for
an explosion some hours ahead in the
course Of the following night.
It'd like TO have it understood that
was very sorry then that had let the
Cubans have those machines, because 1t
could happen, as | believe it did, that
they could fall into the HANDS of the
Cnban armys enemy and SO be nsed
against the government Of my cwn
country
h0sseau's attention was called To the
fact that the United States government
experts had reported thai tile wreck
showed that tine Maine was blown up
from below, part of her keel IN the
wreekage having been projected above
the waterline. He had nothing to saw
to that, except that he knew tile his.
tory of his bombs UP to the capture Of
the two flibusterers, and he believed
that internal machines had been rare
even IN Havana at that troubled period.
He insisted that one 81 those he made
would have wrecked the Maine.