their home.

Weyler's motives in this matter do not have to be surmised, for
among the (formerly) secret records of the government there exists
a letter which he wrote when he first denied the petition of the
Kalamba residents. It is marked "confidential" and is addressed to the
landlords, expressing the pleasure which this action gave him. Then
the official adds that it cannot have escaped their notice that the
times demand diplomacy in handling the situation but that, should
occasion arise, he will act with energy. Just as Weyler had favored
the landlords at first so he kept on and when he had a chance to do
something for them he did it.

Finally, when Weyler left the Islands an investigation was ordered into
his administration, owing to rumors of extensive and systematic frauds
on the government, but nothing more came of the case than that Retana,
later Rizal's biographer, wrote a book in the General's defense,
"extensively documented," and also abusively anti-Filipino. It has been
urged (not by Retana, however) that the Weyler regime was unusually
efficient, because he would allow no one but himself to make profits
out of the public, and therefore, while his gains were greater than
those of his predecessors, the Islands really received more attention
from him.

During the Kalamba discussion in Spain, Retana, until 1899 always
scurrilously anti-Filipino, made the mistake of his life, for he
charged Rizal's family with not paying their rent, which was not
true. While Rizal believed that duelling was murder, to judge from a
pair of pictures preserved in his album, he evidently considered that
homicide of one like Retana was justifiable. After the Spanish custom,
his seconds immediately called upon the author of the libel. Retana
notes in his "Vida del Dr. Rizal" that the incident closed in a way
honorable to both Rizal and himself--he, Retana, published an explicit
retraction and abject apology in the Madrid papers. Another time,
in Madrid, Rizal risked a duel when he challenged Antonio Luna,
later the General, because of a slighting allusion to a lady at a
public banquet. He had a nicer sense of honor in such matters than
prevailed in Madrid, and Luna promptly saw the matter from Rizal's
point of view and withdrew the offensive remark. This second incident
complements the first, for it shows that Rizal was as willing to risk a
duel with his superior in arms as with one not so skilled as he. Rizal
was an exceptiona