Guipuzcoan personality, born near Pasaia on February 12, 1814. He died on December 7, 1903.
After studying in London and Paris, he was archivist at the Ministry of Finance during the term of office of Agust n Fernández de Gamboa, who in 1840 was Espartero's minister. In 1854 he founded a cotton spinning, weaving and printing factory in Andoain (later Zulueta and Isasi). A man of democratic-republican ideas, when Isabel II was dethroned he was proclaimed president of the revolutionary Junta of Government of the province. The following year he was elected popular mayor of Donostia-San Sebastián, occupying this position from January 1869 to 1873. On June 13, 1873 he had to face the takeover of the City Hall by the federalists commanded by Cantillo. In such a situation and after quelling the movement he uttered a phrase that became famous: "We have entered through the door and we will not leave through the window."
Under his government, water was brought to San Sebastian and schools, the institute and the market were built. He also enjoyed writing, as can be seen in some of his contributions to the magazine Euskal-Erria in the years 1881, 1884, 1905, 1908 and 1909. He argued with Luis de Eleizalde, aligning himself with Benito Jamar in defence of the most radical ideas on religious matters. His position regarding the Fueros was always made clear in articles such as Fueros que no se puede abolir and Cita que no debe olvidar ( Euskal Erria magazine, 1884 and 1909), referring to the abolition of 1876:
"You are in luck, gentlemen of the anti-Fuerzas; your crusade has had its effect: the fueros will soon be abolished. But what does it matter? After you take away our fueros, we will still have fueros. Do not take this as boasting. We know perfectly well that the Cortes with the King are the sovereignty; we know that this sovereignty can decree the abolition of the fueros; but we also know that there is another sovereignty higher, prior to and superior to yours, and that this sovereignty is with us. You ask what it is? It is the sovereignty of reason and nature: and as this sovereignty also has its fueros, eternal fueros that no human power can reach, not even yours, that is why we say that you cannot abolish them and that we will continue to enjoy, whether you like it or not, the fueros of reason and nature."
He also wrote librettos for zarzuelas such as La Tapada and En la c rcel , with the collaboration of his inseparable friend, the organist José Antonio Santesteban, author, despite being a liberal, of the Oriamendi hymn (he thought it was going to be a liberal triumph...). His personality is a curious exponent of a fuerist progressivism, still little studied, which reveals the interested love for the fueros of so many defenders of thrones and altars as there have been in Euskalerria. His patriotic-civic poems - El derribo de las murallas, Al ferrocarril del Norte, Los comuneros, A la muerte de Mari, A la libertad - are a challenge to immobility and a song to freedom and philanthropy.