William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 1

Postscript.

Capitan Vasquez has been tried, found guilty, and executed. As all the twelve jurors on the panel are English in name, we need not wonder that they agreed to hang the murderer. Rosalia figures largely in the evidence; the theory set up in favour of Vasquez being rather Indian than Spanish in character. Vasquez and Leiva were pictured to the jury as rivals in love with the same woman; Vasquez having advantages of person, Leiva advantages of position. Any reference to Leiva's rights as Rosalia's husband was thought superfluous. Rosalia was represented as fair game for any lover to run down and capture. Vasquez ran her down; on which his rival, stung by jealousy, sold his secret to the sheriff. Mexicans would side with the bold wooer and the false wife, not with the deceived and outraged husband. Leiva admitted he was jealous, and that his jealousy drove him to betray his chief; but he denied that any of the facts which he had stated under oath were false.

Judge Belden told the jury that a man's oath is not to be rejected on the ground that his wife has