In vain he protested his innocence, but he was poor and unable to pay the great lawyers, so he was condemned to be flogged publicly and paraded through the streets of Manila.

Not so very long since they still used the infamous method of punishment which the people call the '_caballo y vaca_,' [133] and which is a thousand times more dreadful than death itself.

Abandoned by all except his young wife, my grandfather saw himself tied to a horse, followed by an unfeeling crowd, and whipped on every street-corner in the sight of men, his brothers, and in the neighborhood of numerous temples of a God of peace.

When the wretch, now forever disgraced, had satisfied the vengeance of man with his blood, his tortures, and his cries, he had to be taken off the horse, for he had become unconscious.

Would to God that he had died! But by one of those refinements of cruelty he was given his liberty.