Premia depose that two men came to Premia on the 28th, that the pillage and incendiarism began immediately after, and that "they learned subsequently that one of them called himself Ferrer." Then another Republican patriot, who was himself arrested for complicity (on the testimony of nineteen witnesses) and was released after his deposition, declared that Ferrer had incited him. Then another citizen solemnly deposed that Ferrer had asked him, "What do you think of events?" This witness, whose deposition was utterly worthless, was ostentatiously confronted with Ferrer.
These statements of suspicious, or futile, or anonymous, or utterly illegal witnesses are interlarded with the simple denials of the accused. Three or four of them were brought before him by the prosecuting officer, and the farce of bald affirmation and denial repeated. There was no cross-examination, and Ferrer presumably knew nothing of the arrest of these men. Counsel was not allowed to him till all the witnesses had been discharged; and then not a lawyer, but an officer. On the other hand, two or three witnesses entirely confirmed Ferrer's account of his movements in Barcelona on the 26th, and said they knew nothing of his guilt. Soledad Villafranca is allowed to admit that Ferrer was in Barcelona on the 26th, but not to account for his movements, and call her witnesses, for the 27th and 28th.[1]
Next two soldiers solemnly depose that on the evening of the 26th they told an individual, whom they later recognised as Ferrer, to "move on," and he indignantly replied that he was reading the civil governor's proclamation! At this point, however, my source of information, Gil Blas, fails. After having given at length the depositions of these witnesses in its columns, it dismisses the rest with the disdainful observation: "At this point the reading of the report presented to the tribunal loses all interest." The writer had a shorthand copy of the whole before him. He merely adds that, when Ferrer was asked to choose an advocate—of
- ↑ The Dépêche for October 31 published a letter in which Soledad gives a minute account of Ferrer's movements from July 26 to 29. It entirely agrees with our story as to the 26th, and adds that he remained studying at home on the 27th and 28th. It was with the greatest difficulty that she induced him to take a serious view of the matter. All this would have been proved in a trial, as there were others at the house.
