El filibusterismo by Jose P. Rizal

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Reign of Greed, by Jose Rizal

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Title: The Reign of Greed

Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo'

Author: Jose Rizal

Translator: Charles Derbyshire

Release Date: October 10, 2005 [EBook #10676]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

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[iii]

The Reign of Greed

A Complete English Version of El Filibusterismo from the Spanish of

José Rizal

By

Charles Derbyshire

Manila

Philippine Education Company

1912

[iv]

Copyright, 1912, by Philippine Education Company.

Entered at Stationers’ Hall.

Registrado en las Islas Filipinas.

All rights reserved. [v]

Translator’s Introduction

El Filibusterismo, the second of José Rizal’s novels of Philippine life, is a story of the last days

of the Spanish régime 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 José 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 [vi] 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

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