Such a character was not likely to escape the attention of the Holy

Office. On July 16, 1800, Fray Joaquin Huesca, a teacher of philosophy

in the Order of Merced, denounced him to the commissioner of Mechoacan

for various unorthodox utterances, at which Fray Manuel Estrada, of the

same Order, had been present, and Estrada, on being summoned, confirmed

and amplified the accusation. In transmitting these depositions to the

tribunal, July 19th, the commissioner reported that Hidalgo was a most

learned man, who had ruined himself with gambling and women, that he

read prohibited books and, while professor of theology, had taught from

Jansenist works. The tribunal necessarily started an investigation,

which lasted for more than a year and included the testimony of some

thirteen witnesses, resulting in proof of a wide variety of most

heretical utterances, any one of which, if pertinaciously maintained,

would have sufficed to consign him to the stake. Moreover, he was

described as revolutionary in his tendencies, speaking of monarchs as

tyrants and cherishing aspirations for liberty; he was well-read in

current French literature and had little respect for the censorship--in

short he was what was subsequently termed an _afrancesado_. The

commissioner of San Miguel el Grande reported, March 11, 1801, much

about Hidalgo’s disorderly life and that he carried about with him an

Alcoran but, in a second report of April 13th, he stated that in the

recent Easter, Hidalgo had reformed, a matter which was widely discussed

and seems to have aroused general attention. In due time, on October 2,

1801, the fiscal reported on this accumulated testimony that, if Hidalgo

had uttered the propositions ascribed to him, he should be arrested with

sequestration of property, but the witnesses were contradictory and

Estrada had the reputation of an habitual liar. He therefore recommended

that the case be suspended and the papers be filed for future reference,

to which the tribunal assented.

The case rested until July 22, 1807, when a priest named José María

Castilblane came forward to say that, in 1801, Estrada had told him

scandalous and heretical things about Hidalgo. More serious was a

denunciation made, May 4, 1808, by María Manuela Herrera, described as a

woman of good character who frequented the sacraments. By command of her

confessor she deposed that she had once lived with Hidalgo as his

concubine, when he told her that Christ had not died on the cross, but

that it was another man; also that there was no hell--this latter she

supposed being to quiet her conscience, as they had an agreement that

she was to provide him with women and he was to provide her with men.

This was again laid before the fiscal who reported, June 8th, in favor

of awaiting further proof. Then, on March 15, 1809, Fray Diego Manuel

Bringas deposed that he had found Hidalgo in possession of prohibited

books, such as Serry’s History of the Congregations _De Auxiliis_, under

his own name and that of Augustin Leblanc, also his Dissertations on

Christ and the Virgin, in which he speaks without measure of María de

Agreda; that Hidalgo praised this work and called María a deluded old

woman.[536] Still, with singular moderation, no action was taken to

restrain Hidalgo’s audacity and, had he been content to let politics

alone, it is safe to say that the Inquisition would not have troubled

him, so inert had it become in the exercise of its ostensible functions.

When, however, he started the revolution, September 16, 1810, this

lethargy gave place to the utmost activity. The official Gazette of

September 28th asserted that he was disseminating among the people the

doctrine that there is neither hell, purgatory nor glory; an extract

from this was sent to the commissioner at Querétaro, with instructions

to obtain its verification, which he had no trouble in doing, although

the evidence was hearsay. Without awaiting this, however, the testimony

which had been so long slumbering in the _secreto_ was laid before

_calificadores_, October 9th, with orders to report at once. This they

did the next day, to the effect that, as he was a sectary of French

liberty, they pronounced him a libertine, seditious, schismatic, a

formal heretic, a Judaizer, a Lutheran, a Calvinist, and strongly

suspect of atheism and materialism. The same day the tribunal resolved

that, as he was surrounded by his army of insurgents and could not be

arrested, he should be summoned by edict to appear within thirty days.

On the 13th the edict was printed, on the 14th it was posted in the

churches and was circulated as rapidly as possible throughout the land.

The edict is a singular medley of politics and religion, illustrating

the dual character of the Inquisition of the period and the enormous

advantage to the Government of possessing control over the

ecclesiastical establishment, whereby an attack on the civil power could

be made to assume the appearance of an assault on the faith. All the

heretical utterances, discredited nine years before by the action of the

tribunal, are put forward as absolute facts. It is impiety that has led

him to raise the standard of revolt and to seduce numbers of unhappy

dupes to follow him. In the inability to reach him personally, he is

summoned, under pain of excommunication, to appear for trial within

thirty days, in default of which he will be prosecuted _in rebeldía_ to

definitive sentence and burning in effigy if necessary. All who support

him or have converse with him and all those who do not denounce those

who favor his revolutionary projects are declared guilty of the crime of

fautorship of heresy and subject to the penalties decreed for it by the

canons. When to this are added the proclamations of excommunication

issued against the insurgents by the Archbishop of Mexico and the

bishops of the disturbed districts, it will be seen how powerful was the

restraining influence exercised by the Church over a population trained

to submission, and how intense were the passions that braved its

anathema.[537]

In fact, the hatred of the creoles and the Indians for the _Gachupines_,

or Spaniards, was so bitter that four-fifths of the native clergy

espoused the cause of the insurgents, in spite of the censures of the

Church, and questions of faith became inextricably involved in the

contest between the factions. To the loyalists, Hidalgo became a heretic

or indeed a heresiarch, and the confessional was so largely used by them

that the insurgents became guilty of a new heresy, by asserting that

confession to a Gachupin priest was invalid. They found great comfort,

moreover, through their belief in the protection of Our Lady of

Guadalupe, who was universally revered, and especially by the Indians,

as the sovereign patroness of Mexico. On the fateful 16th of September,

when Hidalgo was marching on San Miguel el Grande at the head of his

little band of insurgents, in passing through Atolonila, he chanced to

take an image on linen of the Guadalupe Virgin and give it to one of his

men to carry as a banner. It was adopted by the other bands as they rose

and it became the standard of the insurrection, usually accompanied with

an image of Fernando VII and of the eagle of Mexico, and the inscription

“_Viva nuestra Señora de Guadalupe! Viva Fernando VII! Viva la America y

muere el mal gobierno!_” Second in rank as a tutelary power of the

insurrection was Our Lady of Puebla and against these the loyalists

pitted a new-comer, Our Lady of los Remedios, who was denounced as a

Gachupina by the natives. There is a subject of study for the student of

mythology in this modernization of the triform Hecate and in the revival

of Homeric divinities presiding over the two sides of the battlefield.

The Inquisition labored earnestly to get evidence of sacrilegious acts

on the part of the insurgents and, as they were beaten back, it had its

emissaries in the territory from which they had been driven, collecting

testimony as to individuals who had sympathized with them or had opposed

the posting of its edict. The most active of these was Fray Simon de la

Mora, who accompanied the royal army in its advance. He reported that it

was useless to attempt to enumerate the common people, but he sent the

names of fifty-nine persons of standing, many of them ecclesiastics,

with the evidence against them, and the notes on the margin of the MS.

show that they were forthwith entered for prosecution.

The edict was duly posted in the towns occupied by the army but, in the

course of a night or two, it was generally torn down or defaced with

paint, in spite of the heavy penalties incurred for thus impeding the

Inquisition. Hidalgo felt it necessary to issue a manifesto in defence,

protesting that he had never departed from the faith and pointing out

the contradictory character of the heresies imputed to him. To this the

Inquisition replied with another edict, January 26, 1811, reiterating

its charges, stigmatizing him as a cruel atheist and prohibiting certain

proclamations issued by the insurgents.[538]

Meanwhile his trial, _in absentia_, was proceeding through its several

stages as deliberately as though he were an ordinary heretic in time of

peace. On November 24, 1810, the tribunal declared that, having evidence

that, on October 27th, he had knowledge of the edict, the thirty days’

term should run from October 28th. On November 28th, therefore, the

fiscal demanded that he should be treated as _rebelde_, or contumacious,

and that ten days, as usual, should be allowed him to appear in person.

The prescribed three terms of ten days each, with two days additional,

were scrupulously observed. Then further delay followed and it was not

until February 7, 1811, that the formal trial began with the

presentation by the fiscal of the accusation. This was in the ordinary

form, reciting that Hidalgo was a Christian, baptized and confirmed, and

as such enjoying the privileges and exemptions accorded to good

Catholics, “yet had he left the bosom of holy Church for the filthy,

impure and abominable faith of the heretic Gnostics, Sergius, Berengar,

Cerinthus, Carpocrates, Nestorius, Marcion, Socinus, the Ebionites,

Lutherans, Calvinists and other pestilential writers, Deists,

Materialists and Atheists, whose works he has read and endeavored to

revive and to persuade his sect to adopt their errors and heresies,

believing wrongly, like them, as to various articles and dogmas of our

holy religion and revolutionizing the whole bishoprics of Mechoacan and

Guadalajara and great part of the arch-diocese of Mexico, being moreover

the chief cause of the great abominations and sins, which have been and

still are committed. All this and more, which I shall set forth,

constitute him a formal heretic, apostate from our holy religion, an

atheist, materialist and deist, a libertine, seditious, schismatic,

Judaizer, Lutheran and Calvinist, guilty of divine and human high

treason, a blasphemer, an implacable enemy of Christianity and the

State, a wicked seducer, lascivious, hypocrite, a cunning traitor to

king and country, pertinacious, contumacious and rebellious to the Holy

Office, of all of which I accuse him in general and in particular.” The

fiscal then proceeds to recite the evidence taken since 1800, followed

by a long statement of Hidalgo’s share in the insurrection and winding

up with the customary petition that, without requiring further proof,

the accused shall be condemned to confiscation and relaxation, in person

if he can be had and, if not, in effigy; or, if the evidence be deemed

insufficient, he shall be tortured if attainable.

The inquisitors received the accusation and gravely ordered, according

to form, that a copy be given to Hidalgo and, in view of his

contumacious absence, that due notification be made in the halls, which

was accordingly done and record made. Then, on February 19th, the fiscal

accused the contumacy of the absent and fugitive Hidalgo in not

answering and asked that the case be concluded and received to proof.

The inquisitors assented and the proof was presented. May 20th, the

fiscal demanded the publication of evidence, which was duly ordered to

be made, with the ordinary suppression of their names. A large portion

of this consisted of evidence taken during the insurrection, showing

acts of sacrilege, contempt for the Inquisition and its edicts and the

like, on the part of Hidalgo and his followers. A copy of this was

ordered to be given to him and that he answer it in the next audience,

of which announcement was made in the halls and duly recorded. It was

not until June 14th that the next step was taken, in ordering a copy of

both accusation and testimony to be given to him and that by the third

day he put in his answer, with the assent of his advocate, an advocate

being provided for him in the person of the Licenciado José María Rosas.

Then another witness was found in the priest García de Carrasquedo, a

prisoner on trial, to whom allusion has been made above. His evidence

was taken June 21st and, on the 27th, was submitted to calificadores

who, on August 12th, presented a long and learnedly argumentative

report, in which they characterized the several propositions with the

customary choice selection of objurgatory epithets, as _falsa_, _impia_,

_temeraria_, _blasfema_, _malsonante_, _sapiens hæresim_, _llena de

escandalo_, _erronea_, _sapiens errorem Lutheranorum_, _Judaica y

formalmente hæretica_, _injuriosa al espiritú de la S. M. Iglesia_, and

they concluded that, if he who uttered them did so with full knowledge

of their import, he was a formal heretic. This was practically the last

act of the long drawn-out comedy, although some additional testimony

concerning Hidalgo was taken and recorded, February 10 and 20, 1812, in

the trial of the habitual liar, Fray Manuel Estrada. Events had moved

faster than the Inquisition. After the disastrous day of the Bridge of

Calderon, Hidalgo in his flight had been captured, March 21, 1811, at

Bajan, and carried two hundred leagues farther north to Chihuahua, where

he was executed, July 31st, before the calificadores had finished their

formulation of his heresies. No notice of this was given to the

Inquisition, which was treated with a singular discourtesy, savoring of

contempt. The explanation of this probably is that, if it had been

apprised of the capture, it could rightly have claimed the prisoner as a

heretic, primarily subject to its supreme and exclusive jurisdiction;

there might have been danger in escorting him back through the recently

disturbed provinces; the processes of the Inquisition were notoriously

slow and, after it had tried the culprit and he had abjured and been

penanced in an auto de fe, he would still have to be condemned in a

military court. It was in every way wiser to try him and despatch him in

far-off Chihuahua, and the local military and ecclesiastical authorities

coöperated to this result, leaving the Inquisition to find out what it

could, and not even forwarding a supplication which Hidalgo addressed to

it, on June 10th.

The tribunal waited patiently for eleven months after the catastrophe

and then, on June 25, 1812, it wrote, with much solemnity, to its two

commissioners in Chihuahua, reminding them that the edict of October 13,

1810, rendered it their duty to keep it advised of the capture of

Hidalgo and of all subsequent occurrences. They should have gone to him

in prison and exhorted him to make a declaration on all points contained

in the edict and whatever else weighed upon his conscience. All signs of

repentance should have been observed and reported, and at least his

confession to his judges, in so far as the Inquisition was concerned,

should have been sent to it. The alcaide, the ecclesiastics and the

military officers must now be examined as to his state of mind during

his imprisonment, so that the tribunal may be informed as to his

repentance or impenitence and thus be enabled to render justice. The two

commissioners are to work in harmony, with power of subdelegation, and

they are made responsible, before God and the king, for the due

discharge of their duties.

The Holy Office evidently took itself seriously and considered that

judgement as to Hidalgo’s heresies still lay in its hands. There must

have been a flush of indignation and wounded pride when, on January 2,

1813, the inquisitors received from Sánchez Alvarez, one of the

commissioners, an answer dated October 27, 1812, reporting that he had

applied to Nemesio Salcedo, the commandant-general, who had ordered him

to suspend all action and that he, Salcedo, would explain the absolute

necessity for this. The tribunal had to wait until February 27th before

it received Salcedo’s explanation, dated October 22d, showing how its

supreme jurisdiction had been overslaughed with as little ceremony as

that of a pie-powder court. With profuse expressions of respect, Salcedo

stated that the peace and prosperity of the provinces required that the

matter should not be agitated. Hidalgo was not a heretic and would not

have been permitted to receive the sacraments and ecclesiastical burial,

had he not been duly absolved and reconciled to the Church. A royal

order, he said, of May 12, 1810, had conveyed papal inquisitorial

faculties to the bishops, and the Bishop of Durango had subdelegated

Doctor Francisco Fernández Valetin, the doctoral canon of his church,

thus constituting him a papal inquisitor.[539] To him, as such, were

communicated the answers of Hidalgo on his trial, who ratified them in

his presence; he also verified the manifesto of Hidalgo, which was

published, and he absolved him. In addition he saw the supplication of

Hidalgo to the Inquisition, which would have been forwarded sooner but

for the danger of its being intercepted and which was now enclosed,

together with the other necessary papers. These were extracts from

Hidalgo’s examination, his manifesto to the insurgents and the

supplication in question.

It was somewhat brutal to have kept the tribunal so long in the dark on

a matter touching its highest privilege and to have detained for sixteen

months, on a frivolous pretext, a supplication addressed directly to it,

but its position was becoming precarious and it dared not complain.

Napoleon’s suppression of the Inquisition of Spain, in 1808, did not

count for much, but the Córtes of Cádiz had enacted a liberal

Constitution in 1812 and simultaneously the preliminary skirmishing for

the abrogation of the Inquisition preoccupied all minds. It was enacted

February 22, 1813, and, though the news had not as yet reached Mexico,

the result could scarce have been doubted when the tribunal took action

on March 13th. It evidently placed no faith in the story of a papal

inquisitor, suddenly created in the wilds of Chihuahua, for it wholly

ignored his action. The fiscal reported to the tribunal that, in spite

of Hidalgo’s supplication for pardon and endeavors to satisfy the

charges against him, there were not merits enough to absolve his memory

and fame nor, at the same time, to condemn him, as it appeared that he

had made a general confession and had been reconciled, whereupon the

tribunal ordered the case to be suspended and the papers to be filed in

their proper place--an expression of dissatisfaction and an admission of

powerlessness. On March 29th it acknowledged Salcedo’s letter and drily

thanked him.

Hidalgo’s supplication to the Inquisition, written in his prison on June

10, 1811, is a long and dignified declaration of submission, calmly and

clearly reasoned and manifesting full command of his theological

learning. But for his confinement, he said, he would hasten to throw

himself at the feet of the tribunal, not only to seek pardon for his

insubordination, but to vindicate himself from the charge of heresy and

apostasy, which was insufferable to him. He answered the various

accusations of the edict, denying that he had led an immoral life and

exculpating himself with much dexterity from the heresies imputed to

him, but if, he added, the Inquisition deemed his utterances heretical,

although he had not hitherto so considered them, he now retracted,

abjured and detested them. He concluded by begging to be relieved from

the disgrace of heresy and apostasy; the tribunal could repose entire

faith in his statements for, if he had committed those crimes, the

circumstances in which he now found himself would impel him to confess

them freely, in order to gain the pardon and absolution that would open

to him the gates of heaven and would close them, if withheld, in

consequence of his denial.

The frame of mind revealed in this document, which is unquestionably

genuine, serves to refute the imputation of forgery so generally

ascribed to Hidalgo’s manifesto of May 18th, addressed “A Todo el Mundo”

and published in order to quiet the population. Its effusiveness and

extravagance of repentance, and the earnestness of its exhortations to

his followers to submit, have not unnaturally created suspicion, from

their violent contrast to the deep convictions and reckless energy with

which he precipitated and sustained the insurrection, but it can be

accepted as authentic without impugning his good faith. He was impulsive

and enthusiastic and was liable to the revulsions incident to his

temperament. His cause had been disowned by God; he had been captured as

a fugitive within a few months after he had been at the head of eighty

thousand men. The grave was yawning for him, as the portal to the

hereafter, in which there was, in his belief, no escape from eternal

torment for one who died as a rebel to the Church. He was a fervent

Catholic, whose excommunication cut him off from the sacraments

essential to salvation, unless he could prove himself worthy of them by

earnest repentance and by the amendment which could only be manifested

through zeal in undoing that which had brought upon him the anathema.

That under such pressure he should seek to avert the endless doom by

heart-felt contrition was natural, however strange it may seem to those

brought up in a different faith, who can sympathize with his aspirations

for liberty but cannot realize the emotions enkindled by his religious

convictions.

* * * * *

The decree of the Córtes of Cádiz, February 22, 1813, suppressing the

Inquisition was published in Mexico June 8th. Under it the property of

the tribunal was applicable to the treasury for the reduction of the

public debt and was forthwith sequestrated; there were no prisoners, the

few political ones having been transferred to various convents some days

in advance. We have an authentic account of the transaction, made

December 20, 1814, after the Restoration, by the alcaide of the secret

prison. He says that the decree had been eagerly expected; the tribunal

and its ministers were regarded with contempt and its privileges were

set at defiance. Immediately after the publication, Viceroy Calleja

announced to the senior inquisitor the cessation of its functions; the

next day the official commissioned for the purpose came to take

possession and commenced an inventory. The building was thrown open to

gaping crowds, who gave free vent to their detestation of the

institution. On the 11th, the money in the chest was removed; the

records concerning the faith were delivered to the Archbishop Bergosa y

Jordan, while the papers connected with property were taken by the

Intendente of the Government, who confided them to the writer and

allotted to him offices in which to keep them. In the Inquisition

building was established the lottery, and the adjacent houses of the

inquisitors served to lodge its officials, while the main building was

used as a barracks and the prisons were turned into shops for tailors,

shoemakers and other workers for the army. The total amount sequestrated

was 1,775,656 pesos, 5-1/2 reales, consisting of--

Money in the coffers 66,566 pesos, 2-1/2 reales.

Capital invested 1,394,628 “ 1-1/2 “

Due on income of censos 181,482 “ 1.7 gr.

Fifteen rented houses 125,000 “

Furniture, etc., sold at auction, July 19 8,000 “

--------- -----

1,775,676 “ 5-1/2 reales.

The alcaide proceeds to give us details as to the organization and

finances of the tribunal. Besides the inquisitors and fiscal there were

seven secretaries, a messenger, a treasurer, a contador, a purveyor of

the prison, an alcaide and his assistant, a notary of the

sequestrations, two officials of the _secreto_, an advocate of the fisc

and an advocate of prisoners--a largely superfluous force for the

trivial work to be performed. The pay-rolls amounted to 33,000 pesos per

annum, the subvention to the Suprema was 10,000, and the expenditure for

maintaining prisoners, repairs, church functions, etc., brought the

annual outlay to 55,000 or 60,000, while the income was 85,000, to which

was added 32,000 from the canonries, amounting in all to 117,000--about

double the expenses, showing how profitable had proved the purification

of the faith.[540]

On August 31st the archbishop reported to the Government that the decree

of suppression had been read in the cathedral on the three Sundays

following its receipt. The sanbenitos were at once removed from the

places where they were hung; the Prior of the Hospital of San José asked

for them to clothe the insane, but the viceroy took them for the troops.

The Archbishop requested to have the prohibited books, which were stored

in four rooms of his palace, and they were given to him. He was an old

inquisitor and lost no time in assuming the jurisdiction over heresy

restored to the episcopate by the decree of suppression. As early as

June 10th, he issued a pastoral ordering denunciation to him of all

persons suspect of heresy and, on September 27th, he published another

calling for the surrender of all prohibited books by those who did not

hold licences.[541]

The decree of suppression provided for the continued salaries of the

officials and after this the two senior inquisitors disappear--Bernardo

de Prado y Obejero and Isidoro Sainz de Alfaro y Beaumont--probably

returning to Spain, where refugees from the American tribunals were

taken care of. The junior, Manuel de Flores, remained and was ready to

resume his functions whenever the “suspension,” as he called it, was

removed. His foresight was speedily rewarded, for one of the first acts

of Fernando VII on his restoration was the decree of May 4, 1814,

abrogating the Constitution of Cádiz, declaring invalid all laws enacted

under it and even menacing with the death-penalty all who should keep

copies of them. This of itself virtually revived the Inquisition, but

legislation was required to reorganize it and this was effected by a

decree of July 21.[542] Inquisitor Flores had not waited for this, as we

find that he had already for some time been gathering evidence against

Manuel Abad y Queipo, Bishop-elect of Mechoacan, which he transmitted,

August 31st, to the Suprema for its action.[543]

It was not until December 23d that Viceroy Calleja notified him to

re-establish the tribunal, in execution of the royal decree of July

21st; this he followed on January 4, 1815, with a proclamation embodying

the decree and announcing that the tribunal had been restored to its

jurisdiction and that its property had been returned to it. The

archbishop also issued a pastoral requiring all denunciations to be made

to it and Flores, on January 21st, published an Edict of Faith ordering

the denunciation, within six days, of all heresies, prohibited books and

all words of disrespect towards the Holy Office that might subsequently

be uttered.[544] The tribunal however, was in a sadly dilapidated

condition. The alcaide in a letter of December 30, 1814, reports that

the restoration of property consisted in the written securities and the

real estate, but only 773 pesos of the money had been returned. Notice

had been given that the fruits of the canonries and interest on the

censos were to be paid as formerly to the tribunal. The purchaser of the

furniture, which had been sold at auction in July, was nominally a

merchant but in reality the Count of la Cortina, from whom they were

endeavoring to get it back at the price which it had brought, but much

had been resold; the building had to be refitted for their use and

altogether they were in great distress.[545] To add to their troubles,

the tribunal was so thoroughly discredited that its jurisdiction was

invaded on all sides in a manner indicating the contempt in which it was

held. Viceroy Calleja issued a proclamation condemning to the flames the

Constitution adopted by the insurgents October 22, 1814, at Apatzingan,

together with various of their sermons, addresses, etc., and ordering

them to be denounced to him under pain of death. Then, on May 24, 1815,

he sent a copy of this to the tribunal, inviting it to take action and

use all rigor for their suppression. This provoked the liveliest

resentment of Flores who complained bitterly to the Suprema, June 29th,

of the intrusion on his jurisdiction and of the discourtesy manifested

in not previously submitting to him the offending papers. He also

enlarged on the harshness with which the decree of suppression had been

enforced in 1813 and of the imperfect restitution of property which

Calleja had publicly asserted to have been made. He had also endeavored

to compel the officials to render military service, but this had been

successfully resisted. In spite of all this indignation, however, the

insurgent documents were duly censured by the calificadores and, on July

9th, Flores issued an edict condemning them and specifying their errors.

The chapter of the cathedral (_sede vacante_) had also on May 26th

published an edict requiring the surrender of these documents to it

under pain of excommunication and threatening all priests and

beneficiaries who should not exert themselves against the rebels. This

was a palpable intrusion on inquisitorial jurisdiction which was deeply

resented, and there was also a quarrel with the royal Audiencia which

the tribunal accused of invading its jurisdiction and disregarding its

_fueros_ in the matter of a pasquinade of which the Audiencia had taken

cognizance.[546]

Under these circumstances it is easy to understand how eagerly Flores

seized the opportunity of asserting himself afforded by the capture,

November 15, 1815, of the insurgent chief José María Morelos, who

shares with Hidalgo the foremost place in the Mexican Valhalla.[547]

Born in 1764 of humble parents, he was an agricultural laborer up to the

age of 25, when he returned to his native Mechoacan and applied himself

to the study of grammar, philosophy and morals. Entering the Church, he

took full orders and, after serving temporarily the cure of Choromuco,

he obtained that of Caraguaro, which was under the rectorship of

Hidalgo. It must have been a slender benefice for, in his examination,

he explained his not having taken the indulgence of the Santa Cruzada by

the plea that before the insurrection he was too poor to pay for it and

afterwards the insurgents regarded it as invalid and as merely a device

to raise money for the war against them. His morals were those of his

class; he admitted to having three children, born of different mothers

during his priesthood, but he added that his habits, though not

edifying, had not been scandalous, and the tribunal seemed to think so,

for little attention was paid to this during his trial and, in the

_calificacion_ which preceded his sentence, it is not even alluded to.

He joined Hidalgo, October 28, 1810, and must have quickly distinguished

himself, for that chief gave him a commission to raise the Pacific coast

provinces and, after the rout of the Bridge of Calderon, the burden of

maintaining the unequal war fell mainly on Morelos, who was raised

successively to the grades of lieutenant-general and captain-general,

with the title of Most Serene Highness.

Unlike Hidalgo, who was hurried off to Chihuahua, Morelos when captured

was brought to the city of Mexico for trial and execution, arriving

there on November 21st. He was carried to the Inquisition, not as its

prisoner, but for safe-keeping “on deposit” and Flores, to preserve the

secrecy of the Holy Office, made it a condition that the guard

accompanying him should not go up stairs or penetrate beyond the first

court-yard. It was not until 1.30 A.M. of the 22d that he was lodged in

the secret prison, in a cell so dark that he could not read the

breviary, which was given to him on his request. The 22d was occupied

with an effort to get permission to try him--a competencia carried on in

a spirit very different from the masterful audacity of old. Viceroy

Calleja desired that Morelos should be degraded from the priesthood,

within three days, by the episcopal jurisdiction, in order that his

execution should be prompt, and testimony for that purpose was already

being taken by the secular and spiritual courts acting in unison. Flores

therefore had no time to lose in putting forward the claim of the

tribunal, and the fiscal drew up an elaborate paper showing that there

were points in the case which came within its jurisdiction. On the 23d a

_consulta de fe_ was assembled, consisting of the episcopal Ordinary of

Mechoacan, and the consultores of the Inquisition, which represented to

the viceroy that, although Morelos was subject to both the secular and

spiritual courts, it was persuaded that for other crimes he was

justiciable by the Inquisition and that his trial by that tribunal would

redound to the honor and glory of God as well as to the service of the

State and the king and be efficacious in undeceiving the rebels.

Moreover, it promised that the trial should be concluded within four

days. Somewhat unwillingly, Calleja granted the request and no time was

lost in commencing the most expeditious trial in the annals of the Holy

Office--a grim enough comedy to gratify the vanity of the actors, for it

could have no influence on the fate of the prisoner, save perhaps in

removing the excommunication under which he inferentially lay. Flores,

in boasting of this activity, adds that they were much embarrassed by

Morelos being frequently taken from them for examination in the other

courts, which indicates that the authorities regarded the Inquisition as

merely a side-show.

Hurried as were the proceedings, there was due observance of all the

formalities required by the cumbrous methods of the Holy Office. That

same day, November 23d, the fiscal presented his _clamosa_, basing it on

Morelos having signed the constitutional decree of November 22, 1814,

as well as various proclamations condemned as heretical by the

Inquisition;[548] also on his celebrating mass while under

excommunication, and his reply to the Bishop of Puebla, when reproached

for so doing, that it would be easier to get a dispensation after the

war than to survive the guillotine; also on an edict of Bishop Abad y

Queipo of Mechoacan, July 22, 1814, declaring him to be an

excommunicated heretic. There was still time for a morning audience and

the prisoner was brought before the tribunal, where he was subjected to

the customary examination as to his genealogy and whole career, and the

first monition was given to save his soul by confessing the truth. In

the afternoon he had his second audience and monition. On the morning of

the 24th came the third audience and monition, during which he admitted

that, at Teypan, he had captured a package of the edicts against Hidalgo

and had utilized them to make cartridges. The pompous formulas, urging

him to discharge his conscience so that the Inquisition might show him

its customary mercy, must have seemed a ghastly jest to a man who knew

that his captors would shortly have him shot, and they contrast

grotesquely with the feverish anxiety of the tribunal to have a share in

the performance.

That same afternoon the fiscal presented the accusation and, considering

the haste in which it was prepared, its long accumulation of rhetoric is

creditable to the industry of the draughtsman. He describes Morelos as

abandoning the Church for the filthy and abominable heresies of Hobbes,

Helvetius, Voltaire, Luther and other pestilent writers, rendering him a

formal heretic, an apostate from the holy faith, an atheist,

materialist, deist, libertine, seditious, guilty of divine and human

high treason, an implacable enemy of Christianity and the state, a vile

seducer, hypocrite, traitor to king and country, cunning, lascivious,

pertinacious and rebellious to the Holy Office. He shows how rebellion

is heresy and all rebellious acts are directly or indirectly heretical.

To Morelos, in the bottom of his heart, Christ and Belial are equal; he

is even suspect of toleration and, as usual, the accusation concludes by

asking for confiscation and relaxation. The remainder of the afternoon

and the morning audience of the 25th were occupied with the defendant’s

answers to the twenty-four articles of the accusation. From what he said

it appears that insurgents claimed to be opposing the French domination

in Spain, and that Ferdinand’s restoration in 1814 was largely

disbelieved or was assumed to be only another phase of Napoleon’s

supremacy, showing that Ferdinand could not be a sincere Catholic.

That same morning the publication of evidence was made, consisting

wholly of documents, such as the Constitution of October 22, 1814,

sundry proclamations signed by Morelos and his printed letter to the

Bishop of Puebla, together with the letter of the Bishop of Mechoacan

declaring him to be an excommunicated heretic. He was ordered to answer

with the advice of his counsel and the three advocates of prisoners were

named to him, of whom he selected Don José María Gutiérrez de Rosas. He

was sent to his cell to be brought back directly for an interview with

his counsel, who was sworn in as customary. There was no time to make

copies of the papers, so the unusual course was adopted of entrusting

the originals to Rosas, with instructions to return them and present the

defence within three hours. In the afternoon he did so and the result

showed him to be a ready writer, but he was more occupied in justifying

himself for undertaking the defence than in making a plea for Morelos.

He savagely denounced the insurrection and the Córtes of Cádiz, whose

principles it represented, and he concluded abruptly with a few lines,

alleging the repentance of the defendant, from which he hoped for

absolution. The inquisitor thereupon ordered the fiscal to be notified

and the case to be concluded.

The next morning, November 26th, Flores assembled his calificadores and

exhibited to them the proceedings and the condemnations of the

insurgent Constitution and proclamations. Fray Domingo Barreda opined

that the accused savored of heresy, but the rest were unanimous that he

was a formal heretic, who denied his guilt and was not only suspect of

atheism but an atheist outright. In the afternoon was held the _consulta

de fe_ to decide upon the sentence. Without a dissentient voice it

agreed that a public auto should be held at 8 o’clock the next morning

in the audience chamber, in the presence of a hundred prominent persons

to be designated by Flores. That Morelos should there be declared guilty

of malicious and pertinacious imperfect confession, a formal heretic who

denied his guilt, a disturber and persecutor of the hierarchy and a

profaner of the sacraments; that he was guilty of high treason, divine

and human, pontifical and royal, and that he should be present at the

mass in the guise of a penitent, in short cassock without collar or

girdle and holding a green candle, which, as a heretic and fautor of

heretics, he should offer to the priest. As a cruel persecutor of the

Holy Office, his property should be confiscated to the king. Although

deserving of degradation and relaxation, for the crimes subject to the

Inquisition, yet, as he was ready to abjure he was, in the unlikely case

of the viceroy sparing his life, condemned to perpetual banishment from

America and from all royal residences and to imprisonment for life in

the African presidios, with deprivation of all preferment and perpetual

irregularity. His three children were declared subject to infamy and the

legal disabilities of descendants of heretics. He was to abjure

formally, and be absolved from the excommunications reserved to the Holy

Office; he was to make a general confession and through life to recite

the seven penitential psalms on Fridays and a part of the rosary on

Saturdays. Moreover a tablet was to be hung in the cathedral, inscribed

with his name and offences.[549]

The next morning, November 27th, as Flores reports, the auto was duly

celebrated in the most imposing scene ever witnessed in the audience

chamber, which was crowded with five hundred of the most important

personages of the capital. The mass was followed by the impressive

ceremony of degradation from the priesthood, performed by the Bishop of

Oaxaca. Morelos was delivered to the royal judge and returned to the

secret prison whence, at 1.30 of the following night, he was transferred

to the citadel. Flores might proudly claim to have vindicated the

jurisdiction of the Holy Office, at some sacrifice of its dignity, in

the shortest trial of a formal heretic to be found in its records. The

object of the indecent haste required by Calleja is scarce apparent, for

Morelos was not executed until December 22d.

The tribunal continued to perform its functions. In 1817, the

prosecution of Don José Xavier de Tribarren, for reading prohibited

books, revealed that Don Cayetano Romero of Guetaria in Guipúzcoa was

equally guilty, and the Suprema in Madrid forthwith ordered the tribunal

of Logroño to take action against him.[550] The latest notable victim

was Fray Servando Teresa de Mier Noriega y Guerra. After holding him for

some time in prison, the tribunal, in anticipation of its extinction,

sent him to the viceroy as an important offender against the State, with

a paper describing him as hating, from the bottom of his heart, the

king, the Córtes and all legitimate government, and even as lacking

respect for the Holy See and the councils of the Church, his dominant

passion being revolutionary independence, which he had vigorously

promoted in both North and South America, by his writings full of

passion and venom.[551]

This useless prolongation of existence was soon to end. One of the first

measures of the revolution of 1820, which restored the Constitution of

1812, was the royal decree of March 9th, suppressing the Inquisition.

Before this reached Mexico officially, the Viceroy Count of Venadita

had seen it in the _Gaceta de Madrid_ and had arranged for the

extinction of the tribunal. The officials ceased their functions on May

31st; as before, they had transferred their political prisoners to the

public prison and those for matters of faith to various convents, the

archives were delivered to the custody of the archbishop and the

officials hastened to find other homes. Then, on June 14th, the viceroy

sent orders for compliance with the decree and, on the 16th, the

Inquisitor Antonio de Pereda reported that the tribunal had ceased in

all its functions and remained in a condition of absolute extinction.

The papers of pending trials were distributed among the appropriate

diocesans and the Intendente took possession of the property.[552] The

officials straggled back to Spain, where they were provided for in

common with those of the Peninsula. In the accounts of 1833 there still

appear as in receipt of salaries the senior inquisitor, Antonio de

Pereda, the secretaries Venancio de Pereda y Cassolla and José María

Briergo, and the _nuncio y portero_, Tomás del Perojo.[553]

Thus forlorn and discredited passed away the tribunal which had in its

prime cast terror over all the provinces between the two oceans, but the

impression which it had produced did not disappear with it. In 1821 Don

Celestino de la Torre reprinted a savage attack issued in Spain, under

the title of “Memorial de la Santa Inquisicion,” which he says, in a

prefatory note, is for the disillusionment of the _serviles_ who sigh

for the restoration of the Holy Office. It is still more significant

that, in the agitation caused, in 1833, by the effort of the Government

to reduce the Church to acquiescence in the new order of things, there

appeared a little anonymous tract entitled “Mientras no haya Inquisicion

se acaba la Religion”--“Without the Inquisition, Religion is

destroyed”--arguing that heresy can never be suppressed without the use

of force; excommunication, censures and argument are of no avail and the

faith of Christ can only be preserved by arming the bishops with all

the powers and methods of the Inquisition and enforcing their penal

sentences by the State. The bishops, in fact, were quite ready to assume

its functions as far as they could for, as late as 1850, on the

appearance of a translation of Féréal’s _Mystères de l’Inquisition_,

with notes by Don Manuel de Cuendias, a diocesan _junta de censura_ was

held which, without hearing the accused, passed a sentence of

excommunication on the editor and on all who should read the book, all

of which was publicly proclaimed by edict. This was based on a consulta

presented to the junta by Doctor Sollano, who lamented the abolition of

the Inquisition and proved satisfactorily that heresy merits the

death-penalty.[554]

THE PHILIPPINES.

When Spain, in 1566, undertook the conquest of the Philippines, they

were not erected into a separate government but were placed under the

vice-royalty of New Spain or Mexico, with a governor or captain-general

in command. When, in 1581, the bishopric of Manila was founded, it was

suffragan to the archbishopric of Mexico and was not erected into a

metropolitan see until 1595. The islands therefore were included in the

district of the Mexican Inquisition, but they were too sparsely occupied

by Europeans for the tribunal to think it necessary to establish an

organization there. When, however, the first bishop, the Dominican

Domingo de Salazar, reached his see in 1572, his zeal led him at once to

establish an episcopal Inquisition with a fiscal and other officials,

and the regular inquisitorial procedure; he soon found culprits and held

a formal auto de fe, exercising his assumed authority with excessive

severity. Don Francisco de Zuñiga, a youth of 20, in a discussion, had

thoughtlessly declared fornication to be no sin; then on reflection he

denounced himself, but notwithstanding this he was obliged to appear in

an auto with a gag, and was banished for ten years, with a threat of two

hundred lashes if he returned. Canon Francisco de Pareja, suspected of

being one of the Alumbrados of Llerena, when arrested for solicitation,

hanged himself in prison. Some of Salazar’s penitents on reaching Mexico

complained to the tribunal and thus aroused its attention to this

invasion of its jurisdiction, when it lost no time in vindicating its

rights. March 1, 1583, it sent a commission as commissioner to the

Augustinian Fray Francisco Manrique, a man of prominence in his Order,

which was the most influential in the islands, and at the same time it

notified Salazar that it had done so in consequence of his having

assumed to act as inquisitor.[555]

Bishop Salazar, who was on the point of celebrating an auto de fe, was

by no means disposed to abandon the authority which he had assumed. He

refused to recognize the commission of Manrique and threatened with

excommunication all who should do so. The Licenciado Juan Convergel

Maldonado, who supported Manrique, was thrown into prison so harsh that

he became insane, when Salazar sent him to Mexico, and Benito de

Mendiola, who had served as Maldonado’s messenger, was likewise

imprisoned. The traditional rivalry between the seculars and regulars

and between the different Orders brought to the bishop ample support

from the clergy, the Franciscans and the Jesuits--a high authority among

the latter, Padre Alonso Sánchez, even declared that those who

recognized the commissioner committed mortal sin. For six months Fray

Manrique kept up the struggle and then abandoned it, writing to the

tribunal, April 1, 1584, that, to avoid scandal he would do nothing more

until it should have provided a competent remedy. The tribunal took

prompt and effective steps. It wrote to Manila revoking all the acts of

the bishop and to the Suprema, January 17, 1585, reciting the

circumstances and pointing out the grave consequences that would follow

when Salazar’s success should lead other bishops to follow his example.

Through the Suprema it also addressed a letter to Philip II, who

responded, May 26th, with a cédula to the bishop, telling him that he

had invaded the jurisdiction of the Inquisition and ordering him to

abstain from interfering in any way in affairs pertaining to it or with

the duties of its commissioners. This was decisive but it was uncalled

for. Salazar had already seen his error, had recognized Manrique and had

handed over to him the papers in all the cases--seven in number--then

pending before him. Thus the jurisdiction of the Mexican tribunal was

permanently established over the islands, although subsequently there

were one or two attempts made to organize an independent Inquisition

there.[556]

In this the tribunal regarded rather its own ambition to extend its

jurisdiction than the interests of the faith, for the whole career of

the Philippine commissionership manifests the impossibility of

conducting such a business at the distance of a hundred and forty

degrees of longitude, when perhaps a year or two might pass without a

vessel reaching Acapulco from Manila. The duties and powers of a

commissioner were strictly limited and defined. As a rule he could do

nothing except in execution of orders from the inquisitors; without such

orders he could not make arrests, unless there was immediate danger of

the escape of the accused; he could only gather information, report it

and await instructions, and it was the same with regard to

sequestration; if involved in a competencia he could issue inhibitions

on the rival judges, but he could not put into execution the censures

and penalties threatened in the formulas unless authorized by the

tribunal.[557] In the detailed instructions sent to Manrique along with

his commission there is little concession made to the difficulties of

distance and communication by enlarging his powers. Although he is not

allowed to sequestrate property, he is to inventory it and see that it

is left in charge of a proper person, but this must be an arrangement

between the accused and the depository in which the Inquisition assumes

no responsibility. He is expressly told that he can make no arrests

without orders, but an exception is made in the case of bigamy, on

account of its frequency, when, if he obtains positive evidence against

a culprit, he can arrest him and send him to Mexico, confining him in

the royal gaol at the public expense, while awaiting a vessel. On the

other hand, he is not to interfere with the secular or spiritual courts

when they prosecute for bigamy and, if they offer to surrender an

offender, he is to tell them to send him to Mexico, but not at the

expense of the Inquisition.[558] Subsequently, in 1611, another

exception was made, in the crime of solicitation in the confessional.

The tribunal wrote to the Suprema that, in consequence of the number of

denunciations, and in view of the need of the culprits’ presence in the

Philippines, whither they had been sent at the royal expense, it had

ordered that only two who seemed most guilty should be shipped to Mexico

for trial and sentence. It further suggested that in future the

commissioner should have power, in conjunction with a judge or other

qualified person, to try the cases and send merely the papers to Mexico

where the sentence should be rendered. To this the Suprema assented,

adding that, in view of the distance and delay, the prisoner should

meanwhile be discharged on bail--which indicates that in these cases the

commissioner could arrest.[559] This does not seem to have been strictly

carried out for, in 1613, we chance to hear of three culprits of this

kind, sent from Manila to Mexico, with the papers, for sentence. One of

these, Francisco Sánchez de Santa María, was accused by twenty-three

native women, and another, Don Luis de Salinas, had been shipwrecked on

the coast of Japan and the papers had been lost; he succeeded in getting

back to Manila, where the commissioner tried him again and despatched

him to Mexico.[560]

Another exception to the prohibition of arrest was made in the case of

soldiers who deserted to the Dutch or to Moros and embraced their faith.

What to do with these cases presented a problem concerning which the

Mexican tribunal consulted the Suprema, as burning them in effigy might

prevent their coming back. The Suprema thereupon submitted the matter to

Philip III, representing that the soldiers were exposed to such

privations that they were forced to fly and find refuge wherever they

could, and meanwhile it advised the tribunal to await the action of the

royal councils. To this the tribunal replied at much length, May 20,

1620, stating that no action had as yet been taken in such cases, but

that the commissioner was ordered to proceed against the culprits and,

on convicting them, to send them to Mexico for sentence. The whole

discussion, however, was purely academical; there is no trace of such

culprits being forwarded to the tribunal and this, possibly, for the

very good reason that the military authorities punished the offence with

death, when they could lay hands on the delinquents.[561] There was

another class of cases in which the commissioners seem to have exercised

the power of arrest. In 1666 we find the tribunal complaining to the

Suprema that soldiers, to escape the rigor of military law, sought

prosecution by the Inquisition in order to be arrested and sent to

Mexico and to this end would blaspheme or utter heretical propositions.

Many of them died on the passage and the expense of this bore heavily on

the tribunal. For this the Suprema had no remedy to suggest except the

plan adopted with soliciting confessors.[562] With these exceptions and

the _visitas de navios_, or searching vessels for prohibited books, the

duties of the commissioner were restricted to receiving denunciations,

taking testimony, reporting to Mexico and executing such orders as he

might receive from there. Still, they were personages of importance;

although frailes living in their convent cells, they organized an

imperfect kind of court; they had their assessors, notaries, treasurers,

consultors and calificadores, their alguazil mayor and familiars and

deputized their powers to sub-commissioners in the various parts of the

islands.

Of real inquisitorial work for the purity of the faith we hear little.

During the sixteenth century the only evidences of activity are three

cases of Judaizers--Jorje and Domingo Rodríguez of Manila, reconciled in

the Mexican auto of March 28, 1593, and Diego Hernández, regidor of

Vitoria, accused by his cook of ordering her to cut chickens’ throats

instead of strangling them; his property was sequestrated and evidence

against him was sought in Oporto from whence he came, but he died during

these prolonged preliminaries.[563] The seventeenth century is similarly

barren, affording few instances except the occasional bigamists and

soliciting confessors, military culprits and sometimes a few Dutch

prisoners of war. In the Mexican auto of 1648 there appeared Alejo de

Castro, an octogenarian sent from Manila on suspicion of Mahometanism,

sentenced to perpetual exile from the Philippines and to servitude for

life in a convent for instruction in the faith.[564] A more noteworthy

culprit was Padre Francisco Manuel Fernández, S. J., a devotee of Luisa

de los Reyes, a Tagal beata who had ecstasies. He declared that she had

died many times and that God had resuscitated her so that she should

suffer for the souls in purgatory; he compared her for sanctity to St.

Teresa, St. Catherine and St. Inez and insisted that when he kissed her,

embraced her and handled her indecently, he had no sensual feeling. It

was a clear case of Illuminism against which the Inquisition waged

unsparing war, nor was Fernández the only culprit, for another Jesuit,

Padre Javier Riquelme was also compromised. Luisa was prosecuted in 1665

and testimony was taken against the Jesuits, but the Mexican tribunal

reported, July 17, 1770, to the Suprema that the case had been suspended

owing to the activity of the Jesuits in the islands, who always made the

cause of their members their own. It complained bitterly of the way in

which they impeded the Inquisition and frustrated its labors, when any

Jesuit was concerned, whether for solicitation or other offence. They

were not to be believed, for there was the case of the French Father

Pierre Peleprat, whose detention was ordered, when they asserted that he

was dead, but subsequently it was reported that this was not so but that

he had been sent to France.[565]

The eighteenth century offers a similarly eventless record. So great was

the inertness that the Edict of Faith, which was the chief source of

denunciations and which should be published yearly in all parish

churches, became virtually obsolete. From the time of Commissioner

Paternina, who published it in 1669, forty-nine years elapsed before it

was again published, in 1718, by Commissioner Juan de Arechederra; and

Fray Juan de la Concepcion, writing in 1790, tells us that it had never

been published since then.[566] It was a somewhat remarkable and

uncalled-for burst of energy on the part of Commissioner Bernardo de

Ustáriz, in 1752, when a score of Moro sailors of an English ship

performed some pagan rites with songs and incense and he applied to the

archbishop and then to the governor for aid to punish the scandal. Both

declined, when he got General Antonio Romero, who was a familiar, to

undertake an investigation. Then force was needed to arrest the culprits

and a prison to confine them, and Romero sought the Marquis of Ovando,

the governor for this, but Ovando replied that the matter was under his

exclusive jurisdiction, an assertion which he repeated to Ustáriz,

adding that he intended to punish the guilty. Ustáriz complained of this

to the tribunal, which declared, February 19, 1754, that the governor

had failed in his duty; that his assertion of cognizance of such cases

should be expunged from any instrument in which it appeared, and that

the commissioner and notary should notify him of this in person. The

Suprema, however, took a cooler view of the matter, pointing out that,

by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, English subjects could not be

prosecuted for practising their religion in Spanish territory, but at

the same time it approved of the action of the tribunal and promised to

ask the king to make due provision for the future.[567] Seeing that

baptism was necessary to give jurisdiction to the Inquisition and that

natives, even when converted, were not subject to it, this sudden access

of zeal on the part of Ustáriz would appear somewhat supererogatory.

Ustáriz also showed his energy, in 1750, by arresting Pierre Fallet, a

Swiss of Neuchâtel and a convert from Calvinism. In 1742 Commissioner

Arechederra had taken from him two indecent prints; in 1748 Commissioner

Juan Alvárez had deprived him of another and denounced him to the

Mexican tribunal as suspect of heresy. The tribunal, on March 14, 1748,

ordered his arrest with sequestration, at the same time dismissing

Alvárez for his indiscretions and replacing him with Ustáriz. The

sequestration showed that Fallet’s property consisted of some

uncollectable credits and many debts but, among his books on history,

voyages and mathematics, in English, French, Flemish, Spanish, Latin and

Greek, were found two prohibited ones--Rapin’s History of England and a

“Historia publica y secreta de la corte de Madrid.” He was duly sent to

Mexico, where he entered the secret prison, January 17, 1752, with

broken health. An accusation of seventy-six articles was accumulated

against him, but his sentence on August 8th consisted merely of

abjuration for light suspicion, three months’ reclusion in the Jesuit

College for instruction and some spiritual penances. This laborious

trifling, so ruinous to the unfortunate subject, was crowned by the

Suprema, which pondered over the case until March 7, 1772, when it

ordered its suspension. Fallet, meanwhile, had been allowed to return to

the Philippines, where his conduct was reported as exemplary.[568]

Censorship of a similarly futile kind was exercised in the denunciation

of objectionable books or passages, which had to be forwarded to Mexico

for action. Of this a single example will suffice. At the end of the

sixteenth century, the Dominican Fray Francisco de San José was one of

the most zealous and successful missionaries. He left a number of works

in Tagal, some of which were printed, while others reposed in MS. Among

the latter was a volume of sermons that had considerable repute, and in

this the Augustinian Fray Juan Eusebio Polo, in 1772, discovered a

passage conveying the Dominican view entertained at the period, as to

the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin. Not daring to denounce it to

the Dominican commissioner, he did so directly to the Mexican tribunal,

adding that he could not send the MS., because it was borrowed, but he

furnished certificates of two of his Augustinian brethren as to the

accuracy of his translation. This was forwarded to the Suprema which, on

January 27, 1774, ordered a copy of the book to be searched for in

Mexico and Manila, the translation to be examined by experts, the matter

to be voted on and then referred back to Madrid. Apparently this ended

the case.[569]

If the natives were exempt from inquisitorial jurisdiction, they were

subject to that of the missionary fathers and it may be questioned

whether in this they were to be envied. About 1756 an obstinate revolt

in the Island of Bonol throws some light on the relations between the

converts and their spiritual guides. A district belonging to the

Jesuits was placed under the control of Padre Morales who, observing

that one of his subjects did not attend mass or frequent the sacraments,

ordered him to be arrested. The man was known to be a desperate

character and it was not until Morales laid explicit commands on the

alguazil mayor of the village that the attempt was made, which resulted

in the killing of the alguazil and the flight of the culprit. Francisco

Dagohoy, brother of the slain, brought the corpse to Morales for

Christian burial, which the padre refused, unless the regular fees were

paid, intimating moreover that the alguazil had died under

excommunication as a duellist. Naturally exasperated, Dagohoy, who was a

leader among his people, assembled them, set forth their wrongs

eloquently and had little difficulty in persuading them to follow him to

the mountains, to the number of some three thousand. Entrenching

themselves, they kept up a predatory warfare, in which Morales was

killed and also an Augustinian Fray Lamberti. The rigor with which the

taxes were exacted by the Spaniards drove many to join them and the

rebellion was still flourishing in 1792, in spite of repeated overtures

and offers of pardon--indeed, it may be doubted whether it was ever

completely pacified under Spanish domination.[570]

* * * * *

While this Philippine branch of the Inquisition accomplished so little

for the faith, it was eminently successful in the function of

contributing to the disorder and confusion which so disastrously

affected Spanish colonial administration. As everywhere else, the

immunity of the officials was a fruitful source of trouble. In 1601,

Benito de Mendiola, a familiar, was prosecuted in the secular court for

the murder of Roque Espina de Cáceres, secretary of the governor, but

the commissioner interposed and a long competencia followed, at the end

of which, after a delay of ten years, the papers in the case were

ordered to be surrendered to him by a decree of the Suprema of November

28, 1611. In consideration of the distance and delay, Mendiola was

liberated on bail; the widow of his victim desisted from the prosecution

and finally, after further postponement caused by the difficulties of

communication, the Mexican tribunal sentenced him to four months’

banishment, two months’ suspension from his office as notary and a fine

of fifty pesos--a punishment sufficient to show his guilt and his escape

from justice.[571]

The same question came up, in 1635, under Governor Sebastian Hurtado de

Corcuera, whose stormy term of office was a continuous succession of

broils with the several ecclesiastical jurisdictions. The Archbishop

Hernando Guerrero was engaged in a mortal struggle, first with the

governor and then with the Jesuits, in which his experience singularly

resembled that of Bishop Palafox of Puebla. He was twice excommunicated,

his temporalities were seized and he was relegated for a time to

Corregidor Island. Compelled to a humiliating submission, he took the

precaution of making a preliminary protest before the notary Diego de

Rueda, whereupon the governor seized Rueda and threw him into the castle

of Santiago. It chanced that he was a familiar; the commissioner, Fray

Francisco de Herrera, claimed him and excommunicated the _juez

conservador_ of the Jesuits, who had excommunicated the archbishop. The

juez yielded to the superior jurisdiction of the Inquisition and ordered

Rueda released, but the Governor stood firm and when Herrera sent two

frailes of his order with a demand for the prisoner, Corcuera seized

them and sent them to Cavite with orders to confine them in their

convent.[572] This was probably but a small part of Herrera’s contests

with the civil power for, in 1636, Corcuera applied to the Mexican

tribunal asking that frailes be no longer appointed as commissioners, on

account of the disturbances which they excited; if clerics of prudence

were selected, peace would be preserved and the scandals caused by the

Dominicans would be averted. In 1638 the Council of Indies renewed the

request to Philip IV, asking that prebendaries of the churches should be

chosen; Philip sent corresponding instructions to the Suprema but, on

its remonstrating, he referred the matter back to the Council and

nothing was done.[573]

Corcuera’s successor, Diego Fajardo, had an opportunity of learning the

extent to which the audacity of a commissioner could reach, and the

utter disregard of all considerations of public policy. About 1650, an

order came to the commissioner to seize, with the utmost secrecy, the

governor of one of the provinces, who was also commandant of a fortified

post. The commissioner quietly summoned his alguazil mayor and a

sufficient number of familiars, sailed for the province, surprised the

governor in his bed, carried him off and imprisoned him in a convent

until there should be a vessel sailing for Acapulco. Fajardo was an

irritable and passionate soldier, whose governorship was a continuous

broil with the warring jurisdictions of the colony, and who could

appreciate the risk of depriving a fortified place of its commander, at

a time of perpetual warfare with the Dutch and the natives. His wrath

was expected to be extreme at the contempt thus shown for his office and

for the safety of the colony, but his reverential fear of the

Inquisition overcame all other considerations and, when informed of the

matter, he gently rebuked the commissioner for not having afforded him

the opportunity of earning the graces and indulgences granted for

participation in so pious a work, as he would have eagerly served as an

alguazil in making the arrest.[574]

Yet perhaps the most troublesome of the commissioners with whom the

Inquisition afflicted the islands was the Augustinian Fray José de

Paternina Samaniego. He was grossly ignorant and had led a disorderly

life in both Spain and Mexico. His fellow Augustinian, Fray Cristóbal de

Leon, told him that he was unworthy to occupy so high an office, for he

was an apostate whom the General of the Order had condemned to the

galleys when visiting the convents of Old Castile, whereupon he accused

Cristóbal to the provincial as a Jew and a usurer, causing his

imprisonment with such harshness that it cost him his life. Yet this was

the man whom the inquisitor-general sent to the Philippines, in 1663, as

commissioner. His unfitness soon manifested itself, and his prelates

wrote to the Mexican tribunal recommending his replacement; other

remonstrances were sent to the Suprema, which ordered the collection of

material against him, and nothing further was done.[575]

On board the ship which carried Paternina to Manila there was another

passenger, Don Diego Salcedo, a Fleming who, as _maese de campo_, had

rendered distinguished service in the Flemish wars, and who was coming

to the Philippines as governor. The two men conceived a mutual dislike

which was heightened when Salcedo dismissed from command of the fleet

Don Andrés de Medina, who was a close friend of the commissioner, and

refused employment to his nephew, González Samaniego. Still bitterer

grew his hatred when Salcedo succeeded him in the favors of a married

woman, whose paramour he had been, and he openly declared that he would

be revenged.

Salcedo was arbitrary and covetous; he must have made full use of the

opportunities afforded by his position, for at his death his fortune was

reckoned at 700,000 pesos--much of which he had the prudence to remit to

Mexico. He was not popular; he was speedily involved in the dissensions

which seemed inevitable, with Archbishop Poblete, and a faction was

formed against him at the head of which stood the commissioner. A

conspiracy for his ruin was organized and in February, 1666, there came

to the Mexican tribunal letters from Paternina, from the archiepiscopal

notary and from the Castellan of Manila accusing him of indifference to

the service of God and the king and of his communication with Dutch

heretics. Then the archbishop, in a letter of June 20, 1666, to the

inquisitor-general, represented that Salcedo surrounded himself with

Flemings and Dutchmen, one of whom was a Calvinist; that he never

attended mass on feast-days or heard sermons; it was not known that he

confessed or took communion except at Easter; that he created scandal by

his relations with a married woman and that his cupidity was insatiable.

This brought from the queen-regent a letter of November 11, 1666, to

Salcedo, reprimanding him for his disregard of church observances, but

nothing more. Paternina sent fresh accusations to the tribunal, and the

archbishop and the Bishop of Cebu wrote to the Viceroy of Mexico; then

the tribunal ordered its commissioner at Acapulco to examine secretly

the passengers and crews of vessels arriving from the Philippines and

all the accumulation was sent to the Suprema which, on November 22,

1667, ordered the case to be suspended; Paternina must act with caution

and, if he obtained further information, he was to forward it.

The failure of his plans thus far showed Paternina that he must assume

the responsibility. Archbishop Poblete died December 8, 1667, and it was

not until September, 1668, that the commissioner was ready to take

vigorous action, assured of the support of two judges of the Audiencia

who hoped to succeed to power, of high officials with whom Salcedo had

quarrelled, and of individuals to whom promises were made of offices,

_encomiendas_ and other advantages, while there was the enticing

prospect of plunder in the sequestration of the governor’s fortune. It

was not difficult to obtain from his enemies evidence such as it

was--evidence which the Mexican tribunal subsequently pronounced not

only to be factitious on its face, but to amount at most only to a

presumption _plusquam leve_. This was submitted, September 28th, to

nine frailes as calificadores, some of whom pronounced the accused to be

vehemently suspect of the errors of Luther and Calvin. Then three

consultors were called together--the Dean José Millan de Poblete, nephew

of the archbishop, the archiepiscopal provisor, Francisco Pizarro de

Orellano, and the Licenciado Manuel Suárez de Olivera, from whom Salcedo

had taken 12,000 pesos and who was soon afterwards prosecuted for

Judaism. These worthies on October 6th decided that the commissioner

could proceed to arrest, seeing that the three prescribed conditions

were more than fulfilled. Of these conditions the most important, in the

present case, was the danger of immediate escape of the accused, for

which, as an afterthought, there was subsequently collected testimony so

transparently futile that the Mexican tribunal described the danger of

flight as a mere baseless pretext.

The forms having thus been observed, Paternina, on October 8th, issued

the warrant of arrest addressed to the Admiral Vizcarra y Leiva as

alguazil mayor--Vizcarra having been one of the principal witnesses. It

ordered him to seize Salcedo wherever he could be found, to sequestrate

his property and deliver it to Fray Mateo Ballon, guardian of the

Franciscan convent. Salcedo was aware of the machinations against him,

but imagined himself in full security and took no precautions. The

warrant was delivered to the admiral at 9 P.M. on October 9th and

between 12 and 1 A.M. he entered the palace with a band of Franciscan

frailes armed with pikes, swords and bucklers. They seized Salcedo in

bed, fettered him and, without allowing him to dress, carried him as he

was in a hammock to the Franciscan convent and threw him into a narrow

cell. After a few days he was removed to the house of the Capitan Diego

de Palencia, his declared enemy, and then to the Augustinian convent of

San Pablo, where Paternina kept him _incomunicado_ and chained to the

wall. The day of the arrest the judges ordered the bells of the

cathedral to be rung as a sign of rejoicing that they had assumed the

government. In fact, one of the judges, Juan Manuel de la Peña Bonifaz,

an accomplice in the conspiracy, assumed the nominal government and

there ensued a period of terror for all who were not of their faction.

Paternina became the virtual ruler and he inspired general fear by

banishing ten or twelve of the principal citizens, by forbidding any one

to speak of the affair under heavy penalties and excommunication, and by

bringing charges against a number of persons of being hostile to the

Inquisition. The rich sequestration became an object of plunder. A

nephew of Bonifaz profited largely from it, nor was Paternina neglectful

of the chance, for we happen to hear of his entrusting 20,000 pesos to

the Capitan Pedro Quintero, to be used for his benefit, and also of his

extorting bribes from shipmasters for delivering to them goods embargoed

with those of the governor. In short, as the Mexican tribunal reported

to the Suprema, they committed a thousand iniquities.

How long Salcedo lay in his chains does not appear, but it must have

been more than eighteen months, for he was probably shipped to Mexico

during the summer of 1670. He died at sea November 24 of that year,

making a most Christian end, for he confessed three times. A further

proof of his orthodoxy may be found in the fact that he appointed as his

executor the Mexican Inquisitor Ortega Montañes--a position which the

Suprema forbade him to accept--and the estate was handed over, when the

sequestration was lifted, October 31, 1671, to Don Gerónimo Pardo,

Auditor of the Audiencia, who held powers from Salcedo’s sister and

three brothers.

The vessel by which Salcedo was shipped did not reach Acapulco until

January 7, 1671, being the first that had come for two years. It brought

the earliest direct intelligence of the events at Manila and the report

of Paternina, but the news had already arrived there by way of Batavia,

Holland and Madrid. In Madrid it had naturally aroused the Council of

Indies which presented to the queen-regent a consulta embracing three

propositions: I. If the commissioner made the arrest without orders from

the tribunal, he should be severely punished for exposing the colony to

risks so great. II. If the arrest was by order of the tribunal, it

should have notified the Viceroy of Mexico in order that he might make

provision for simultaneously filling the vacancy. III. That precise

instructions for the future should be given for the arrest of persons of

that rank, in conformity with the royal cédulas and concordias providing

for such cases. To this the Suprema, still completely in the dark as to

the circumstances of the case, replied somewhat superciliously that, if

the commissioner had exceeded his duty, he would be punished

appropriately; that the arrest was not ordered by the tribunal but, if

it had been, no notice was due to the viceroy in matters of faith; the

cédula of April 2, 1664, provided for the government of the Philippines

in cases of vacancy, which is all that human foresight can anticipate.

No new instructions were necessary, as such cases were already provided

for in the existing regulations; sentences on persons of the rank of Don

Diego Salcedo were not executed without consulting the Suprema, except

when irremediable injury might be anticipated from delay, and it was an

accepted rule that, in important cases of faith, all such personages

were subjected to the Inquisition. To this the Council of Indies

rejoined by insisting that it should not be left to the discretion of a

commissioner to determine whether the danger of delay justified

arresting a governor and imperilling the safety of the colony; the

tribunal should give notice to the viceroy, without violating the

secrecy of the Inquisition, and it concluded by asking that definite

instructions be given to the inquisitor-general and Suprema that in

matters of such importance such action should be taken as would avoid

the danger of a recurrence of similar proceedings. Even the Council of

Indies did not venture to hint that the governor of an important colony,

if suspected of heresy, could not be suddenly arrested, and it only

objected to this being done without preliminary precautions.

In June, 1670, the news of Salcedo’s arrest filtered through Madrid to

Mexico but it was not until January 7, 1671, that the official report

from Paternina reached Acapulco. The tribunal, in forwarding, January

18th, an abstract of this to the Suprema, made haste to exculpate itself

from all responsibility, pronouncing the whole affair to be the greatest

abuse ever committed by an official, especially by one of the

Inquisition, a trampling on justice, with grievous discredit to the

prudence and equitable procedure of the Holy Office, arising from hatred

of Salcedo and carried out by a conspiracy between Paternina and the

judges who desired to seize the government. This rendered necessary

exemplary punishment, so that all might understand that the tribunal did

not undertake to punish crimes that did not pertain to it, nor serve as

an instrument for the gratification of passion, and this demonstration

should be made in Manila, in order that the honor and fame of Salcedo

might be restored, although he had lost life and fortune. The tribunal

therefore, while awaiting instructions, proposed to suspend Paternina

and give his office to another, with orders to shut him up in a convent

and also to raise the sequestration. This it did and appointed as his

successor Fray Felipe Pardo, though when the Suprema, June 4, 1671,

confirmed the suspension, with incredible blindness, it replaced him

with the Dean José Millan de Poblete, who had been his active

accomplice. Pardo however probably retained the office, as the dean had

been promoted to the bishopric of Canaries, and one of the results of

the affair was to transfer the commissionership from the Augustinians to

the Dominicans.

Paternina escaped the punishment which he merited for he died, January

18, 1674, like his victim, on the voyage to Acapulco. The Suprema had

ordered his imprisonment and trial, but the sentence was not to be

executed without its confirmation. Despite its assurance to the Council

of Indies that nothing more was necessary to regulate arrests of

governors, it issued, under pressure from the queen-regent, June 30,

1671, a carta acordada prescribing special rules for such occasions.

Meanwhile in Manila there had been a natural revulsion. The new

governor, Manuel de Leon y Saravia, took full advantage of the

opportunity to emancipate the secular power from the predominance of the

ecclesiastical. He withdrew the sequestrated property out of the hands

of the treasurer of the Inquisition; he released Juan de Berestain who

had been imprisoned as an accomplice of Salcedo; he prosecuted and

banished the Franciscan provincial and the guardian of the Franciscan

convent, and the good frailes complained that they were persecuted as by

an enemy; and we are assured that he reduced the power of the Holy

Office until its officials were so despised that if they had to arrest

the vilest individual no one would help them.[576]

There is nothing more connected with the Philippine commissionership

that is worth relating, except to explain the disappearance of its

records. When the British captured Manila, October 5, 1762, these were

not removed from the city. No attention was paid to them at first but,

on March 12, 1763, an English Catholic and Don César Fallet, who had

been penanced by the Inquisition, informed the commissioner, Fray Pedro

Luis de Serra, that he was about to be arrested and the archives to be

seized, whereupon he burnt them all and when the English came they found

nothing. He was taken before the authorities where he told what he had

done; the tribunal approved of his action and sent him renewed

instructions.[577]

* * * * *

Although not directly connected with our subject, there is interest in

observing the zeal with which the purity of the faith was conserved in

the Far East. The commissioner, Juan de Arechederra, in a letter of July

6, 1724, from Manila to Francisco de Garzeron, inquisitor and inspector

of Mexico, encloses a sentence rendered in Canton by Fra Giovanni

Bonaventura de Roma, as delegate judge and commissioner of Giovanni de

Cazal, Bishop of Macao, on Antoine Guigue, a French missionary convicted

of Jansenism. Guigue, it appears, had obeyed orders in publishing the

appeal of his archbishop, Cardinal Noailles, to a future council against

the bull _Unigenitus_, he had maintained that councils are superior to

popes, that popes sometimes erred and other Jansenist heresies, besides

receiving and circulating Jansenist books. Moreover it was asserted that

he had been guilty of solicitation when on missions in the interior. He

had not obeyed the citations and had allowed the trial to go by default,

wherefore his sentence was publicly read, March 1, 1724, in the church

Siaò Nân Muen of Canton. He was suspended from all priestly functions,

he was ordered to leave the province and betake himself to a convent in

which he was to remain, performing certain spiritual exercises, until he

had satisfied the pope, and all this under penalty of perpetual

imprisonment for disobedience.[578] The Emperor of China at the time was

ordering all Christian missionaries to leave his dominions, but the

common danger was insufficient to allay the strife arising from Pasquier

Quesnel’s speculations on sufficing attrition.