The hero of the Filipinos : $b The story of José Rizal, poet, patriot and martyrRussell, Charles Edward
History
The hero of the Filipinos : $b The story of José Rizal, poet, patriot and martyr
Russell, Charles Edward
Rizal, José, 1861-1896
Across this repulsive story glowers a face permanently evil in history.
The governor-general that connived at these barbarities where he did
not order them was Emiliano Weyler, immortal in the records of Cuba as
“The Butcher,” accused of deeds there so horrible they can never be put
into print, accused in the Philippines of huge peculations as well as
stupid cruelties, a man that seemed to delight in cruelty as other men
delight in kindness. It was he that thought, “in the gloomy recesses of
a mind capacious of such things,” of the expedient of overawing Calamba
and the courts with artillery and martial law upon the heads of the
litigants; it was he that had made the most show of a violent hatred of
Rizal and furnished the proof that the persecution of Francisco Mercado
was revenge upon Francisco Mercado’s son. When Weyler transferred his
rule of blood and iron to Cuba, he left in the official archives
evidence of the real nature of the proceedings. He can have had no
suspicion that he was preparing evidence of his own iniquity to be
given to the world through the nation he most hated. His papers were
still in the archives August 13, 1898, when Manila surrendered to Dewey
and Merritt. Among them was a copy of a letter he had sent at this time
to certain of the friar landlords, expressing his full sympathy with
them and (with a characteristic touch) the pleasure he had in serving
them against the tenantry. [113]
In the spot from which it had been thus evicted the Mercado family had
lived for many years. There could have come upon these kinsfolk of
Rizal no sterner test of their fortitude. Before it they went their way
undaunted. At Los Baños was a small house to which Mr. Mercado had
title. There he led his family to a refuge and continued his fight
against the friars.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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