That this newspaper was extremely liberal, may be judged by the articles
that were reprinted from it in _El Espectador_, the Masonic journal
published at Madrid during the period. Don Rafael had connections both
with constitutionalists and members of the Gallic party. There must have
been antecedents of a liberal character in our family, as Don Rafael's
uncle, Don Juan Jose de Baroja, at first a priest at Pipaon and later at
Vitoria, had been enrolled in the Basque _Sociedad Economica_.

Don Rafael had two sons, Ignacio Ramon and Pio. They settled in San
Sebastian as printers. Pio was my grandfather.

My second family name, Nessi, as I have said before, comes out of
Lombardy and the city of Como.

The Nessis of Como fled from Austrian rule, and came to Spain, probably
peddling mousetraps and _santi boniti barati_.

One of the Nessis, who survived until a short time ago, always said that
the family had been very comfortably off in Lombardy, where one of his
relatives, Guiseppe Nessi, a doctor, had been professor in the
University of Pavia during the eighteenth century, besides being major
in the Austrian Army.

As mementos of the Italian branch of the family, I still preserve a few
views of Lake Como in my house, a crude image of the Christ of the
Annunziatta, stamped on cloth, and a volume of a treatise on surgery by
Nessi, which bears the _imprimatur_ of the Inquisition at Venice.