In the spring, Rizal took a voyage to British North Borneo and with Mr. Pryor, the agent, looked over vacant lands which had been offered him by the Company for a Filipino colony. The officials were anxious to grow abaca, cacao, sugar cane and coconuts, all products of the Philippines, the soil of which resembled theirs. So they welcomed the prospect of the immigration of laborers skilled in such cultivation, the Kalambans and other persecuted people of the Luzon lake region, whom Doctor Rizal hoped to transplant there to a freer home.
| Don Eulogio Despujol. |
A different kind of governor-general had succeeded Weyler in the Philippines; the new man was Despujol, a friend of the Jesuits and a man who at once gave the Filipinos hope of better days, for his promises were quickly backed up by the beginnings of their performance. Rizal witnessed this novel experience for his country with gratification, though he had seen too many disappointments to confide in the continuance of reform, and he remembered that the like liberal term of De la Torre had ended in the Cavite reaction.
He wrote early to the new chief executive, applauding Despujol’s policy and offering such coöperation as he might be able to give toward making it a complete success. No reply had been received, but after Rizal’s return from his Borneo trip the Spanish consul in Hongkong Page 175Page 176assured him that he would not be molested should he go to Manila.
Proposed settlement in Borneo.
Rizal therefore made up his mind to visit his home once more. He still cherished the plan of transferring those of his relatives and friends who were homeless through the land troubles, or discontented with their future in the Philippines, to the district offered to him by the British North Borneo Company. There, under the protection of the British flag, but in their accustomed climate, with familiar surroundings amid their own people, a New Kalamba would be established. Filipinos would there have a chance to prove to the world what they were capable of, and their free condition would inevitably react on the neighboring Philippines and help to bring about better government there.
Rizal had no intention of renouncing his Philippine allegiance, for he always regretted the naturalization of his countrymen abroad, considering it a loss to the country which needed numbers to play the influential part he hoped it would play in awakening Asia. All his arguments were for British justice and “Equality before the Law,” for he considered that political power was only a means of securing and assuring fair treatment for all, and in itself of no interest.
With such ideas he sailed for home, bearing the Spanish consul’s passport. He left two letters in Hongkong with his friend Doctor Marquez marked, “To be opened after my death,” and their contents indicate that he was not unmindful of how little regard Spain had had in his country for her plighted honor.
One was to his beloved parents, brother and sisters, and friends: