Page:The Martyrdom of Ferrer.djvu/15

Rh justification are the work of the clergy and the civic officials. I will show that the witnesses against Ferrer—who were never cross-examined—would have failed ignominiously in any civil court, and that in a fair trial a mass of rebutting testimony would have been produced. All this was known to the Home Secretary, Señor La Cierva, the Prime Minister, Señor Maura, and they also knew that only a military council would condemn Ferrer. I warned them that the evidence would be produced when Ferrer was dead. They have been swept from office by the indignation and disgust of Europe, but the memory of a brave and noble-spirited man remains to be vindicated.

This is the gist of the story which the following chapters will tell and substantiate. England stirred to some purpose with effective anger and disgust when Papal and Austrian power fought their bloody fight to retain the domination of Italy; but no single deed was done by those Powers comparable in enormity to this; for Ferrer used the pacific weapon of enlightenment. England was not restrained by consideration of France's internal politics when a corrupt body attempted to consign Dreyfus to a living death; and a greater wrong was done to Ferrer than was contemplated against Dreyfus. Many English journals, dissenting from Ferrer's views, have nobly pleaded for justice in Spain's treatment of him. But many English journals have opened their columns to the lying and reckless statements of the Spanish and clerical agents, mantled with anonymity, who have set out to poison the mind of Europe, and who fancied that bold mendacity would suffice where proof was wanting.

This little work is not made up of the contrary assertions of anonymous informants. It is built on solid and analysable evidence. I never met Ferrer, and do not write under the