he set out for Manila. For this move on his part, in addition to the
natural desire to be among his own people, two special reasons appear:
he wished to investigate and stop if possible the unwarranted use of
his name in taking up collections that always remained mysteriously
unaccounted for, and he was drawn by a ruse deliberately planned and
executed in that his mother was several times officiously arrested
and hustled about as a common criminal in order to work upon the
son's filial feelings and thus get him back within reach of the
Spanish authority, which, as subsequent events and later researches
have shown, was the real intention in issuing the passport. Entirely
unsuspecting any ulterior motive, however, in a few days after his
arrival he convoked a motley gathering of Filipinos of all grades of
the population, for he seems to have been only slightly acquainted
among his own people and not at all versed in the mazy Walpurgis
dance of Philippine politics, and laid before it the constitution
for a Liga Filipina (Philippine League), an organization looking
toward greater unity among the Filipinos and cooeperation for economic
progress. This Liga was no doubt the result of his observations in
England and Germany, and, despite its questionable form as a secret
society for political and economic purposes, was assuredly a step in
the right direction, but unfortunately its significance was beyond
the comprehension of his countrymen, most of whom saw in it only an
opportunity for harassing the Spanish government, for which all were
ready enough.

All his movements were closely watched, and a few days after his
return he was arrested on the charge of having seditious literature
in his baggage. The friars were already clamoring for his blood, but
Despujols seems to have been more in sympathy with Rizal than with
the men whose tool he found himself forced to be. Without trial Rizal