Barcelona
The Filipinos at Barcelona wish Rizal “Happy trip!” – Both Rizal and Lopez Jaena are victims of their envious compatriots – “Let us join together to knock down those who exploit patriotism for their own benefit” – Recommends to Rizal the Asociacion Filipina at Hong Kong, founded by him – Luna has separated from La Solidaridad – Jaena, candidate for deputy of a district in Cataluna – The Philippines must win with blood her rights as well as her independence.
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Barcelona, 15 October 1891
MR. JOSE RIZAL
Marseille
DEAR RIZAL,
I have received your letter for the Filipino colony of Barcelona and your letter to me in particular. Everyone appreciates your courtesy, wishing you a happy trip and prosperity.
With regard to what you tell me about the displeasures and disappointments you have been receiving from the Filipinos I, like you, have experienced and experience them, as you well know. I, who have done nothing but good, you and I who have done nothing else but give everything, the little that we are worth, to those who envy you and envy me, we are a sustaining loss. You have lost everything for them, and I am misery. I am not an optimist as you say; I, like you, am a pessimist.
Well then, you know those envious ones who now are heaping ignominies on you, have done the same thing to me. I was everything to them when they arrived here in Spain; I have done something for them; I have introduced them to the associations, to political personages, and when they believed they could frisk about by themselves, they abandoned me to whom they owe everything, even their worth in Spain. They starved me to death; they declined to give me lodging where I could take shelter.
You well remember that you sent me twenty pesos on behalf of Basa through Mariano Ponce by means of a postal card. Well, Marcelo and Mariano hid it from me. Six months later I saw your card and I felt ashamed for not having written Basa to thank him. You must have been told about it by your cousin Galicano and others. I was the founder and editor of La Solidaridad in Barcelona, but I was treated like a criminal, an editor in name responsible to the law rather than editor in fact. And I did not know that a Committee of Propaganda existed in Manila until I got there.
In Manila these envious men have divulged that I was dissolute, a gambler, I who never had a liking for gambling.
And so I write you in the month of the Paris Exposition asking you for money to go there, because here in Barcelona I was considered their servant, despite the fact that I was then editor of La Solidaridad.
So then you and I join together to knock down those pseudo-patriots who exploit patriotism for their own benefit.
Before, I kept quiet because I was alone. Today, you, like me, experience the disappointments, the anguish produced by envy. Let us then vow to impede by all means the triumph of pseudo-apostles of the redemption of the Philippines.
In Hong Kong you will find a handful of enthusiastic young men, not yet contaminated by mean passions that divide us in Europe. I founded for them the Asociacion Filipina, which is working well. Develop their enthusiasm, guide their ideals along the right path. With your exquisite tact you will get out of them much good for the Philippines.
Above all prevent Kastilas and foreigners from joining the Asociacion as members. The members should be pure and genuine Filipinos, so that our lofty purposes may be realized. I recommend to your strongly that Association in Hong Kong; may it not fail. Make of those young and old men in that Association a Pleiades of heroes. I have already written them and they will receive you at Hong Kong as teacher and counselor.
Before you leave, answer me if you have received this letter.
I have transmitted your request to Vicente. Luna tells me that he has separated from La Solidaridad. Well done.
As I live here in Spain, I have joined a revolutionary party which is in consonance with my leanings and convictions for the Philippine as well as for here. Well then, the republican parties of Barcelona have agreed to make me select one of three electoral districts for deputy to Cortes so that when the general elections come I may present my candidacy. You know that in these things one has to work beforehand and spend something. Certainly, if I want to be deputy in Spain, it is only to satisfy personal ambitions, nothing more; I do not pretend, once invested as deputy, to give the Philippines rights or liberties. She has to win them with her blood, the same as our independence.
If I want to be a deputy, it is just to enable me to say proudly that a Filipino has been elected by the Kastilas themselves in a Spanish district, as a district in Cataluna is.
Such is my personal ambition, very personal. For this reason, encourage the Filipinos there to help me in some way, to see to it that I become a deputy and I can say to my envious enemies with the face elated with pride that the time I have spent in Spain has not been in vain; that I am not a lost man, nor am I depraved as they are spreading, but a man who has won with his own efforts the place that I am going to fill in the Cortes, if I would be lucky.
Never believe that I connect the fate of the Philippines with my election as deputy. That would be madness. I always think that the Philippines would obtain her separation by means of an uprising. Tell that to everybody, that I wish to be Spanish deputy to satisfy personal ambitions, nothing more.
I write you at night and at a late hour. Pardon my handwriting, if it is not too legible.
Answer me before you sail.
Regards and an embrace for Basa, his son Emilio, and compliments to his other sons and daughters.
An embrace for E. R. de Luzuriaga and for Y. R. Laurel of your province who has been dismissed from the Procuracion because of you. Embraces for all the members of the Asociacion Filipina and Beltran, captain of the steamer Don Juan.
And to you, I wish you happy trip, prosperity, and riches.
Yours,
GRACIANO
03-664 [Reformists]