adversaries with ammunition which they might use against him; but
could anything bespeak conscious innocence more strongly than his
voluntary avowal?

Luis de Leon heaped one indiscretion on another. In his protestations
of innocence, he went so far as to suggest to the Court what course it
should take. He told the judges plainly that they ought to order Leon
de Castro to be prosecuted for perjury.[174] Later on, he declared
with vehemence that his detention was without a shadow of legality,
that his imprisonment ought not to continue for a single day, and that
he ought to be compensated for the injury done him.[175] These may
have been truths; but they were decidedly unpalatable, and the
expediency of making these assertions to a prejudiced bench is at
least doubtful. But expediency was not an arm that Luis de Leon could
bring himself to use. He complained again and again of delays,
attributing this loss of time to official mismanagement and
incidentally reflecting on the competency of the judges. As time went
on, and as the prisoner's health grew weaker, he lost patience, making
his complaints of delay more frequently and with increasing
vehemence.[176] He impressed on his hearers the fundamental absurdity
of certain charges against him, and, waxing indignant at the statement
that he had thrown doubt on the coming of Christ, he objected to
having so senseless a jest fathered on him. There was always the
alternative that he might be supposed to have used in earnest the
words imputed to him; in which case, even if the evidence on this
point were far more decisive than it actually was, 'before believing
it, it would be your duty to ascertain whether I had gone out of my
mind at the time, or were drunk'.[177] It is, no doubt, difficult to
meet a contention of this kind; but such a contention is not
calculated to capture the sympathies of a wavering Court. Nor should