The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 51, July 1947 - April, 1948 Page: 227
406 p. : ill., ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Don't Fence Me In
intervened to have them released, but the prisoners replied that
they did not want to be released: instead, they preferred to make
Leal state his reasons for locking them up; then they would
appeal their case and sue him for damages. Normally they would
have been liberated within eight days at the most, since Lhat
was the term provided by law for a first offense, but a principle
was involved. They wanted to show Leal that he had no right
to imprison them. Arocha, believing that he had a good case,
wanted to fight it out according to due process of law.
No sooner had the prisoners been confined to the guardroom
than Arocha, the notary, began drafting the first of a long series
of involved legal documents, a practice in which he was par-
ticularly adept, both by profession and by natural inclination.
Speaking for himself and the other two prisoners, neither of
whom could even sign his own name, he alleged that they had
been summoned by "a creature unworthy of our attention" (a
little boy nine years old), whereas the Nueva Recopilacidn, the
Spanish code then in force, said that meetings of the Cabildo
should be held after citation by the ringing of a bell, by trumpet,
town crier, messenger, or porter. To this Leal retorted that the
boy had been at least fourteen years old and that San Fernando
did not have a town crier or any of the other things required
by law.
Soon Leal began to hear rumors that his prisoners were not
suffering unduly from the rigorous confinement to which he had
sentenced them. Don Joseph de Vrrutia, captain of the presidio
in which they were supposed to be imprisoned, apparently agreed
with Richard Lovelace, the English lyric poet, that
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage.
Captain Vrrutia had a kind heart. He also had a general store
where he sold merchandise to his soldiers, and that store needed
a good cashier and bookkeeper. Therefore when Captain Vrrutia
saw Arocha, a clerk by profession, idle and unhappy in the
guardroom next to his home, his heart was moved with com-
passion. He invited the prisoners to come over and spend the
day, eat their meals, and take their siesta in his home. His son,
Joseph Miguel, brought out a weighty legal tome for Arocha,sa
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 51, July 1947 - April, 1948, periodical, 1948; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101119/m1/295/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.