Rizal was tried by court-martial, on a charge of sedition and rebellion. His guilt was manifestly impossible. Except as a prisoner of the state, he had spent only a few weeks in the Philippines since his boyhood. His life abroad had been perfectly open, as were all his writings. The facts stated in General Blanco's letter to the Minister of War were well known to all Rizal's accusers. The best they could do was to aver that he had written "depreciative words" against the Government and the Church. Some testimony was given against him by men who, since the American occupation, have made affidavit that it was false and forced from them by torture. Rizal made a splendid defence, but he was condemned, and sentenced to the death of a traitor. On that day Jose Rizal y Mercado and Josephine Bracken were married. Then the sweetness and strength of his character and his singleness of purpose made a beautiful showing. In the night, which his bride spent on her knees outside his prison, he wrote a long poem of farewell to his patria adorado, fine in its abnegation and exquisite in the wanderings of its fancy. He received the ministrations of a Jesuit priest. He was perfectly calm. "What is death to me?" he said; "I have sown, others are left to reap." At dawn he was shot. The poem in which he left a record of his last thoughts was the following: MY LAST THOUGHT. Land I adore, farewell! thou land of the southern sun's choosing! Pearl of the Orient seas! our forfeited Garden of Eden! Joyous I yield up for thee my sad life, and were it far brighter, Young, rose-strewn, for thee and thy happiness still would I give it. Far afield, in the din and rush of maddening battle, Others have laid down their lives, nor wavered nor paused in the giving. What matters way or place--the cyprus, the lily, the laurel, Gibbet or open field, the sword or inglorious torture, When 'tis the hearth and the country that call for the life's immolation? Dawn's faint lights bar the east, she smiles through the cowl of the darkness, Just as I die. Hast thou need of purple to garnish her pathway? Here is my blood, on the hour! pour it out, and the sun in his rising Mayhap will touch it with gold, will lend it the sheen of his glory. Dreams of my childhood and youth, and dreams of my strong young manhood, What were they all but to see, thou gem of the Orient ocean! Tearless thine eyes so deep, unbent, unmarred thy sweet forehead. Vision I followed from far, desire that spurred on and consumed me! Greeting! my parting soul cries, and greeting again!... O my country! Beautiful is it to fall, that the vision may rise to fulfilment, Giving my life for thy life, and breathing thine air in the death-throe; Sweet to eternally sleep in thy lap, O land of enchantment!