on the frigate "Numancia", but only four days after the capitulation of Cartagena he published a document in the newspapers condemning the cantonal rebellion, despite being one of its main leaders and promoters. In the exculpatory letter he claimed that he was "in Cartagena because they wouldn't let me out" and that he had been "a prisoner, more of the besieged than the besiegers." And then he disqualified the cantonal movement and its leaders: «All my companions were very holy, very just heroes, but they were not good for the government of a village. [...] Federal Republicans: for the time being, let's not insist on raising federalism. It is an idea that is in the making. [...] Without abjuring my ideas, being what I always was, I recognize the current Government and I will be with it in the fight against absolutism». According to José Barón Fernández, after writing this, "Roque Barcia was discredited, forever, as a politician" and "became what we now call a demagogue". List of cantons The role of the International in the rebellion There has been a lot of discussion about the degree of participation of the International Workingmen's Association, but today it seems clear that the leaders of the International did not intervene in the cantonal rebellion and that the only place where internationalists took the initiative, in addition to the 'Petroleum Revolution' of Alcoy, was in San Lúcar de Barrameda – there a board was formed that was actually the Council of the section Local of the International, after the closure of the social premises by order of the authorities—, as recognized in a letter dated 4 August Tomás González Morago, member of the Federal Committee of the FRE-AIT: «The federation of Alcoy and San Lucar de Barrameda are the only ones that have attempted on their own account a movement against the established order of things." However, many "internationalists" participated in the rebellion, especially in Valencia and Seville, where some of them formed part of the Juntas. A letter from Francisco Tomás Oliver sent on 5 August to the IWA Commission recognized this: In a later letter, dated 15 September, Tomás differentiated the Alcoy insurrection, "a purely working-class, revolutionary socialist movement", from the cantonal rebellion, a "purely political and bourgeois" movement, and affirmed that "Seville and Valencia are the only two cities in which the internationalists have triumphed", although he acknowledged that they