



Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the distributed proofreaders team







                           The Reign of Greed



 A Complete English Version of _El Filibusterismo_ from the Spanish of
                               Jose Rizal

                                   By

                           Charles Derbyshire



                                 Manila
                      Philippine Education Company
                                  1912






Copyright, 1912, by Philippine Education Company.
Entered at Stationers' Hall.
Registrado en las Islas Filipinas.
_All rights reserved_.





TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION


El Filibusterismo, the second of Jose Rizal's novels of Philippine
life, is a story of the last days of the Spanish regime in the
Philippines. Under the name of _The Reign of Greed_ it is for the
first time translated into English. Written some four or five years
after _Noli Me Tangere_, the book represents Rizal's more mature
judgment on political and social conditions in the islands, and in
its graver and less hopeful tone reflects the disappointments and
discouragements which he had encountered in his efforts to lead the
way to reform. Rizal's dedication to the first edition is of special
interest, as the writing of it was one of the grounds of accusation
against him when he was condemned to death in 1896. It reads:


    "To the memory of the priests, Don Mariano Gomez (85 years
    old), Don Jose Burgos (30 years old), and Don Jacinto Zamora
    (35 years old). Executed in Bagumbayan Field on the 28th of
    February, 1872.

    "The Church, by refusing to degrade you, has placed in doubt
    the crime that has been imputed to you; the Government, by
    surrounding your trials with mystery and shadows, causes the
    belief that there was some error, committed in fatal moments;
    and all the Philippines, by worshiping your memory and calling
    you martyrs, in no sense recognizes your culpability. In so
    far, therefore, as your complicity in the Cavite mutiny is not
    clearly proved, as you may or may not have been patriots, and
    as you may or may not have cherished sentiments for justice
    and for liberty, I have the right to dedicate my work to
    you as victims of the evil which I undertake to combat. And
    while we await expectantly upon Spain some day to restore
    your good name and cease to be answerable for your death,
    let these pages serve as a tardy wreath of dried leaves over
    your unknown tombs, and let it be understood that every one
    who without clear proofs attacks your memory stains his hands
    in your blood!

        J. Rizal."


A brief recapitulation of the story in _Noli Me Tangere_ (The Social
Cancer) is essential to an understanding of such plot as there is
in the present work, which the author called a "continuation" of the
first story.

Juan Crisostomo Ibarra is a young Filipino, who, after studying
for seven years in Europe, returns to his native land to find that
his father, a wealthy landowner, has died in prison as the result
of a quarrel with the parish curate, a Franciscan friar named Padre
Damaso. Ibarra is engaged to a beautiful and accomplished girl, Maria
Clara, the supposed daughter and only child of the rich Don Santiago
de los Santos, commonly known as "Capitan Tiago," a typical Filipino
cacique, the predominant character fostered by the friar regime.

Ibarra resolves to forego all quarrels and to work for the betterment
of his people. To show his good intentions, he seeks to establish,
at his own expense, a public school in his native town. He meets with
ostensible support from all, especially Padre Damaso's successor,
a young and gloomy Franciscan named Padre Salvi, for whom Maria Clara
confesses to an instinctive dread.

At the laying of the corner-stone for the new schoolhouse a
suspicious accident, apparently aimed at Ibarra's life, occurs, but
the festivities proceed until the dinner, where Ibarra is grossly and
wantonly insulted over the memory of his father by Fray Damaso. The
young man loses control of himself and is about to kill the friar,
who is saved by the intervention of Maria Clara.

Ibarra is excommunicated, and Capitan Tiago, through his fear of the
friars, is forced to break the engagement and agree to the marriage of
Maria Clara with a young and inoffensive Spaniard provided by Padre
Damaso. Obedient to her reputed father's command and influenced
by her mysterious dread of Padre Salvi, Maria Clara consents to
this arrangement, but becomes seriously ill, only to be saved by
medicines sent secretly by Ibarra and clandestinely administered by
a girl friend.

Ibarra succeeds in having the excommunication removed, but before he
can explain matters an uprising against the Civil Guard is secretly
brought about through agents of Padre Salvi, and the leadership is
ascribed to Ibarra to ruin him. He is warned by a mysterious friend,
an outlaw called Elias, whose life he had accidentally saved; but
desiring first to see Maria Clara, he refuses to make his escape,
and when the outbreak occurs he is arrested as the instigator of it
and thrown into prison in Manila.

On the evening when Capitan Tiago gives a ball in his Manila house to
celebrate his supposed daughter's engagement, Ibarra makes his escape
from prison and succeeds in seeing Maria Clara alone. He begins to
reproach her because it is a letter written to her before he went to
Europe which forms the basis of the charge against him, but she clears
herself of treachery to him. The letter had been secured from her by
false representations and in exchange for two others written by her
mother just before her birth, which prove that Padre Damaso is her
real father. These letters had been accidentally discovered in the
convento by Padre Salvi, who made use of them to intimidate the girl
and get possession of Ibarra's letter, from which he forged others
to incriminate the young man. She tells him that she will marry the
young Spaniard, sacrificing herself thus to save her mother's name
and Capitan Tiago's honor and to prevent a public scandal, but that
she will always remain true to him.

Ibar