Eugento Garcia Ruiz to I saw last night, casually, for I am not in the habit of reading the Correspondencia , that that journal knowingly errs in stating on its own account (or of others) that the deportations which, for political motives , were made, according to what is said by some newspapers, to the number of 1,300 during the last year, took place in the time of Mr. Garcia Ruiz, immediately after the 3d of January , that journal thereby endeavoring to cause the odium of all the imprisonments and deportations to fall upon me personally, leaving therefore untouched Mr. Sagasta and other, April 7, 1875

I saw last night, casually, for I am not in the habit of reading the Correspondencia, that that journal knowingly errs in stating on its own account (or of others) that the deportations which, for political motives, were made, according to what is said by some newspapers, to the number of 1,300 during the last year, took place in the time of Mr. Garcia Ruiz, immediately after the 3d of January, that journal thereby endeavoring to cause the odium of all the imprisonments and deportations to fall upon me personally, leaving therefore untouched Mr. Sagasta and other ministers of his political color. Vain task and insensate pretension!

I, who always have said and will say the truth, even when it be against myself, because I am one of those who believe (and events justify me therein) that only with truth and good faith can anything be established in the world, must put in evidence the following facts, which I am ready to prove now and at any time and place:

• First. Apart from what the captains-general did in several districts, not a single imprisonment, still less deportation, was decreed while I was minister of gohernacion, which was not agreed upon in council of ministers, being entered in the minute-book, kept by the secretary, Mr. Balagner, in respect to which I always insisted that the proceeding should be in due order, for I knew my isolated position in the ministry of the 3d of January, and I knew beforehand that time would bring with it complaints, accusations, and even calumnies, of all of which I did not wish to bear more than the share that belonged to me.
• Second. In the time of Mr. Garcia Ruiz, as the Correspondentia says, when it should have said in the time of the Duke de la Torre, Messrs. Sagasta, Zavala, Martos Garcia, Garcia Ruiz, &c., there were deported, by formal and solemn accord of the council of ministers, only 143 Cantonalists, made prisoners in Cartagena, who were turned over by the military authorities under the orders of the government in Almeria, at which point the steamer touched in order to take them on board, and 134 civilians, prisoners at Centa, the greater number (88) sent thither in the time of Messrs. Salmeron, Castelar, Maisonnave, in consequence of the events in Andalucia, &c., and the remainder (46) prisoners in Madrid not for political opinions, but because they were guilty of common crimes, as relapsed thieves and discharged (or licensed) convicts of evil life and habits.
• Third. All the remaining persons deported were sent away in the time of Mr. Sagasta to the number of 1,000, which is known not through the person who may have said so to the Correspondencia, but through the agency of the steamers which took the prisoners to the Philippine Islands, with the dates of their departure from port.
• Fourth. The first vessel which, by accord of the council of ministers, (the list of them being read name by name,) took to the Philippine Islands the 134 persons deported from Ceuta and Madrid, and the 143 from Cartagena, 277 in all, which was the steamer “Leon,” set sail the 16th of May, 1874, and not immediately after the 3d of January; as also set sail from the same port the Irurac-bat with 696 deported persons on the 10th of October following, and the Leon, (second voyage,) with 300 other deported persons on the 23d of November last.
• Fifth and last. I do not rest under the charge of having imprisoned or deported any individual on my own representations, and if as minister I acceded to what the others proposed and in the degree already stated with respect to the cabinet of the 3d of January, it was because the ministry unanimously believed it necessary and salutary to send beyond the seas a few persons whom they judged to be dangerous, whether as common criminals or whether compromised by the events of Cartagena, and when, society being enervated, the civil war was raging with more strength than ever.

To sum up, during the ministry of the 3d of January, which fell on the 13th of May, there were only deported for civil causes 46 persons, all common and relapsed criminals.