He paid heavily for his political naivety; as the author Raul Brandão noted the man, "although profoundly altruistic and magnanimous, good-natured and honorable", had rapidly turned into a "political criminal" and accused of duplicity with the dictatorial and violent Pimenta de Castro. In his resignation (to his ministers and Party) he defended himself against these unjust accusations and declared his well-intentioned loyalty to the Republican cause, which he had supported throughout his life (but which had abandoned him disillusioned). The parliamentarian, writer and journalist, Augusto de Castro later recounted a conversation with the former President, shortly before his death (in 1917):