was ordered deported to Dapitan, a small settlement on the northern
coast of Mindanao. The decree ordering this deportation and the
destruction of all copies of his books to be found in the Philippines
is a marvel of sophistry, since, in the words of a Spanish writer of
the time, "in this document we do not know which to wonder at most: the
ingenuousness of the Governor-General, for in this decree he implicitly
acknowledges his weakness and proneness to error, or the candor of
Rizal, who believed that all the way was strewn with roses." [11]
But it is quite evident that Despujols was playing a double game,
of which he seems to have been rather ashamed, for he gave strict
orders that copies of the decree should be withheld from Rizal.

In Dapitan Rizal gave himself up to his studies and such medical
practice as sought him out in that remote spot, for the fame of his
skill was widely extended, and he was allowed to live unmolested
under parole that he would make no attempt to escape. In company
with a Jesuit missionary he gathered about him a number of native
boys and conducted a practical school on the German plan, at the same
time indulging in religious polemics with his Jesuit acquaintances by
correspondence and working fitfully on some compositions which were
never completed, noteworthy among them being a study in English of
the Tagalog verb.

But while he was living thus quietly in Dapitan, events that were to
determine his fate were misshaping themselves in Manila. The stone had
been loosened on the mountain-side and was bounding on in mad career,
far beyond his control.