diced b Jos e S. Arc a, - non

them, against which their defense should have been heard and the judgesacquitted or condemned them. This charge won the Captain General'sapproval who, "on his own authority, ordered that the 8 artillery men shouldbe executed by firing squad in Manila, the Corporal and the three soldiers ofthe Marine Infantry in Cavite, imposing on the rest 10 years of reclusion" byway of indult, "invading attributions which in another case the Superior CivilGovernor used and if he did not alter the sentence of the permanentcommission" he still ordered the execution of what he had decided on .52In the third trial which started with First . Corporal Rafael Calda, article26, Treatise 8, title 10 of the Ordinances was applied, according to the judges.But the Supreme Council declared that it could not explain "why, althoughexisting as a permanent Council, it had no qualms appealing to an exceptionallaw which excludes no one," considering that to pass judgment in keepingwith the Ordinances, the ordinary Council which the same Ordinancesprovide for should have met. Those condemned to capital sentence wereindulted, the Superior Civil Governor commuting the sentence to perpetualimprisonment, such that soldiers guilty!of sedition were amnestied followingjudgment according to the civil code upon arrangement with the military.And the military fiscal ended his report to Felipe Ribero: "no irregularitiesare missing [which were not perpetrated] and in regard to the aforesaidcommutation, Your Excellency acts- well in calling the attention of theGovernment of His Majesty.""With regards to the fourth case referring to 30 individuals of the Guias dela Torre involved through the connivance of the insurgents, which in itselfindicates the former had clearly not plotted the military sedition, the copy oftheir sentence offers something noteworthy where it says that the penalty wasadjusted to Article One of the law of 17 April 1821 for the eleven condemnedto imprisonment despite the absence of complete proofs, while the other 30were treated with greater rigor than those guilty under Article 3 of the samelaw which refers to those who "with fire or side aims, or with any otheroffensive instrument, offered resistance to the troop that apprehendedthem,"54 since nowhere does the law impose that penalty of imprisonment forten years.5 As regards the reference to those exempted from officialvigilance, it was impossible for the military fiscal of the Supreme Council toguess which law would be appealed to.Finally, in the trial of Burgos, Gomez, and Zamora, whose convictionwas based on Article One of the law of 17 April 1821, as mentioned, literallyobeyed in the case of those who were penalized with the loss of their lives, but55