Page:Civilization and barbarism (1868).djvu/383

Rh administration of Benavides, and to a place in his army. He desired it, and in the beginning had a great esteem for me; but I wished to rise in the world without sinning against morality or committing crimes against liberty and civilization. Public balls, societies, masquerades, theatres, I was always at the head of; to the growing ignorance I opposed colleges; to the crime of governing without law or justice I replied with a periodical; against the attempt to suppress such a publication illegally, I gave my person to the prison; against the holding of extraordinary powers I advocated by speech and writing the right of petitioning the representatives in order to make them fulfill their duty; to intimidation I opposed firmness and contempt; to the knife of the 18th of November, an impassible countenance, and patience under mocking impositions and ignoble deceit. Everything that is evil has been said of me, and some evil has been believed of me in San Juan; but no one has ever doubted my honor or my patriotism, and I appeal for the truth of this to the testimony of those who have chosen to call themselves my enemies. I lived honorably, making an efficient workman by means of some rudiments of practical geometry and the art of drawing up plans which I acquired in my childhood. Forced by want of lawyers, I defended some causes; and when Dr. Aberastain was supreme judge of Alzada, and my intimate friend, I lost before his tribunal the two most important ones. If this does not testify to my legal capacity, it at least shows the incorruptibility of the judge."

The next day, on passing through the baths of Zonda into exile, ancf turning his back upon all the comforts and pleasures of life, he wrote with a piece of charcoal, with the hand covered with the scars of his late encounter, that noble protest which he quotes in the prologue to "Civilization and Barbarism"—