imprisonment or deportation, often with the concomitant confiscation
of property for the benefit of some "patriot," the book was widely read
among the leading families and had the desired effect of crystallizing
the sentiment against the friars, thus to pave the way for concerted
action. At last the idol had been flouted, so all could attack
it. Within a year after it had begun to circulate in the Philippines a
memorial was presented to the Archbishop by quite a respectable part of
the Filipinos in Manila, requesting that the friar orders be expelled
from the country, but this resulted only in the deportation of every
signer of the petition upon whom the government could lay hands. They
were scattered literally to the four corners of the earth, some to
the Ladrone Islands, some to Fernando Po off the west coast of Africa,
some to Spanish prisons, others to remote parts of the Philippines.

Meanwhile, the author had returned to the Philippines for a visit
to his family, during which time he was constantly attended by an
officer of the Civil Guard, detailed ostensibly as a body-guard. All
his movements were closely watched, and after a few months the
Captain-General "advised" him to leave the country, at the same
time requesting a copy of Noli Me Tangere, saying that the excerpts
submitted to him by the censor had awakened a desire to read the
entire work. Rizal returned to Europe by way of Japan and the United
States, which did not seem to make any distinct impression upon him,
although it was only a little later that he predicted that when
Spain lost control of the Philippines, an eventuality he seemed to
consider certain not far in the future, the United States would be
a probable successor.[9]

Returning to Europe, he spent some time in London preparing an edition
of Morga's Sucesos de las Filipinas, a work published in Mexico about