CHAPTER VII.

PERU.

When, on January 9, 1570, Servan de Cerezuela arrived at Lima to open a

tribunal of the Inquisition, the condition of Spanish South America was

such as to call for energetic action if the colony was to respond to the

hopes of those who had so earnestly urged the Christianization of the

New World. The establishment there of the Holy Office had been asked for

by many who viewed with dismay the prevailing demoralization, and we

shall see whether its influence proved to be for good or for evil. Peru

had been conquered by adventurers inflamed with the thirst of gold, who

in the eager search for wealth had thrown off the restraints of

civilized life. The Church exercised little or no moral power for, as

the existing Viceroy, Francisco de Toledo, reported, he found on his

arrival that the clerics and frailes, bishops and prelates, were lords

of the spiritual and acknowledged no superior in the temporal. The king

was exposed to constant outlay in granting free passage by every fleet

to great numbers of clerics and frailes who came under the pretext of

converting and teaching the Indians, but, in reality, many devoted

themselves to accumulating wealth, plucking the Indians in the endeavor

to return to Spain with fortunes. These priests kept prisons, alguaziles

and chains, seizing and punishing all who offended them and there was no

one to call them to account. The bishops pretended to have royal

licences to return to Spain, laden with the silver which they had not

already gathered and despatched in advance, and it was the same with the

frailes.[579] This deplorable statement is confirmed and strengthened

by Toledo’s successor in the vice-royalty, the Count del Villar, in

1588. The secular clergy, he says, from the bishops to the lower grades,

have come to Peru, not to save the souls of the Indians but to gain

money in any manner and return to Spain, while those who are ordained in

the country are mostly soldiers discharged for ill-conduct or men of bad

character. The regular Orders are no better, except to some extent, the

Franciscans and more especially the Jesuits. The royal officials use

their positions to make money and oppress the people. Few immigrants

seem to come with the intention of honest labor, but are mostly vagrants

living on the hospitality of those who will receive them. The

descendants of the _conquistadores_ claim positions in virtue of the

services of their ancestors and, as they increase in number with each

generation, it is impossible to satisfy them or the impostors who

pretend to be descendants. With all this the Christianization of the

Indians makes little or no progress. Altogether he assumes that the

immigration, both lay and clerical, is thoroughly vicious, while the

creoles, or native whites, are no better.[580] It is a community living

in idle self-indulgence on the Indians and the Government.

As regards matters of faith, in the absence of the Inquisition, the

jurisdiction over heresy, inherent in the episcopal office, had

reasserted itself and was exercised by the bishops. As early as May 15,

1539, the Dominican Provincial, Gaspar de Carvajal, is found acting as

inquisitor for the Bishop Fray Vicente de Valverde and, on October 23 of

the same year, the secular magistrates honored a demand from the bishop

for the process against Captain Mercadillo, in order that, as

inquisitor, he should take cognizance of certain ebullitions of

blasphemy. This inquisitorial power was exercised to its highest

expression, for, in 1548, the first Archbishop, Gerónimo de Loaisa, held

an auto de fe in Lima, wherein Jan Millar, a Fleming, was burnt for

Protestantism. In 1560 the episcopal Provisor of Cuzco held an auto in

which were relaxed the Morisco Alvaro González and the mulatto Luis

Solano as dogmatizing Mahometans; in 1564 he celebrated another in which

Vasco Suárez, Antonio Hernández and Alonso de Cieza were penanced, while

Lope de la Peña was reconciled for Islam. In 1565 the Dean of la Plata

reconciled Juan Bautista for Protestantism and condemned him to

confiscation and perpetual prison and sanbenito.[581] Evidently the

episcopal Inquisition was active; in 1567 the synod of Lima adopted

regulations to govern its functions and when, in 1583, the provincial

council, under St. Toribio, confirmed the acts of that synod, it was

obliged, doubtless on representation by the tribunal, to except those

regulations as matters which had passed beyond its control.[582] The

bishops, however, did not surrender their jurisdiction without

impulsion, for, as we have seen (Mexico, p. 199), the Suprema was

obliged to order them, in 1570, to transfer all cases to the tribunal

and it was found necessary to repeat this in 1586.

When the transfer was made there were four cases pending in Lima and

ninety-seven in Cuzco, concerning which the fiscal reported that the

Ordinaries had prosecuted many that were not matters of faith and were

habitually settled for a trivial payment in oil. Inquisitor Cerezuela

set a good example by suspending three and ordering the rest to be filed

for reference in case of relapse.[583] One of the cases thus inherited

by the tribunal may be briefly sketched as affording a vivid picture of

the methods in vogue and the use made of the Inquisition, whether

episcopal or Spanish.

Francisco de Aguirre was one of the prominent conquistadores. He had

come well equipped to Peru in 1533, he had borne an active share in the

conquest of Chile and then in that of the extensive interior province

known as Tucuman, of which he became governor. Of this he was deprived,

but about 1566 he was reappointed on the occasion of an Indian revolt,

in which the Spaniards were murdered and only a handful of soldiers held

out in the town of Santiago del Estero. With his customary energy

Aguirre collected a force, defeated the Indians in a battle, in which he

lost one of his sons, and re-established the Spanish dominion. Then he

headed an expedition in search of a port on the Atlantic to afford

easier access to the territory, but when near his destination his troops

mutinied and carried him back as a prisoner to Santiago del Estero. To

justify this the mutineers claimed to have acted under orders of the

Inquisition of the Bishop of la Plata, with whom Aguirre had quarrelled

on the subject of tithes. There were witnesses in plenty to hasty and

irreverent speeches by the veteran soldier; for two or three years he

was kept in prison, at a cost to him, as he declared, of thirty thousand

pesos, and on October 15, 1568, by judges acting under commission of

Bishop Navarrete “inquisidor ordinario y general” he was sentenced. His

imprisonment was accepted as a punishment; he was fined in fifteen

hundred pesos and costs and was required to appear as a penitent in the

church of Santiago del Estero and make formal abjuration of his

objectionable speeches. This he performed, but on the pretext of

informality he was obliged to undergo the humiliation a second time,

April 1, 1569, in la Plata. Of this a notarial act was sent to the

Council of Indies to show that he was unfitted to be Governor of

Tucuman, but it was too late, for in August of that year he received the

royal confirmation of his appointment with orders to proceed at once to

his seat of government. On the march a cleric with an order from the

bishop sought to stop him, but he disobeyed and paralyzed the

unfortunate messenger by sternly asking him “If I should kill a cleric,

what would be the penalty?”

So far he had had to deal with the episcopal Inquisition in the hands of

an opposing faction; even severer experiences were in store for him from

the Holy Office, used as an instrument by the Viceroy Toledo who desired

to get rid of him. One of the earliest acts of the Lima tribunal was to

entertain a denunciation of him, in which his intemperate utterances

were again brought forward, together with the further accusation that he

had banished from Tucuman all who had been concerned in his prosecution

and that he had said that he had been forced to confess to what he had

not done. March 14, 1570, Cerezuela ordered his arrest with

sequestration of property; Toledo undertook to execute the mandate and

in reporting to the king stated that Aguirre’s government was such that

most of the inhabitants were leaving the province. To arrest such a man

was not an easy matter, but it was effected and he was brought three

hundred leagues to Lima. Delays were unavoidable in obtaining and

ratifying testimony at such a distance, through a hostile Indian country

which, as the tribunal stated, was entered only once a year. Aguirre

offered to waive the formality of ratifying the testimony in order to

expedite the process, but the fiscal insisted on regularity and the

trial dragged wearily on, as new evidence came in, mostly as to his

arbitrary government and other matters with which the tribunal properly

had no concern. Aguirre fell dangerously ill and was transferred, July

19, 1572, to the house of a familiar, where he was kept strictly

_incomunicado_ and from which he was brought back, April 24, 1574, to

listen to the publication of evidence. It was not until late in 1575 or

early in 1576 that sentence was rendered condemning him to hear mass as

a penitent on a feast-day when no services were allowed in any other

church; he abjured _de vehementi_, was cast in all costs, was recluded

for four months in a convent and was banished perpetually from Tucuman.

The trivial character of the charges is seen in the special stress laid

on his having used charms to cure wounds and toothache, which he was

forbidden to do in future--innocent charms, as he explained, employed

only because no physician was at hand and surely pardonable in the wild

warfare in which he had worn out his life. He retired to the city of

Serena which he had founded, old, sick and penniless. He had spent

thirty-six years and some three hundred thousand pesos in the king’s

service; three of his sons, his brother and three nephews had died in

the same service, and he was too poor and oppressed with debts to make

his way to court and ask reward for his labors. To complete the

destruction of his influence his two remaining sons were prosecuted on

frivolous charges, but the cases seem to have been suspended after the

desired result had been attained. His son-in-law, Francisco de Matienzo,

who had endeavored to prevent his arrest, was prosecuted and fined in

three hundred pesos. There were also seven other prosecutions against

his followers, resulting in the imposition of fines.[584] Had all

viceroys, like Francisco de Toledo, known how to control the Inquisition

it might have been made a useful political instrument but, as we shall

see, succeeding inquisitors preferred to follow their own ends and it

became a perpetually disturbing influence.

The bishops did not willingly acquiesce in the surrender of a

jurisdiction which could be so profitably employed. That Archbishop

Loaiza showed a recalcitrating temper is manifested by a letter of the

Suprema directing that he should not style himself “inquisidor

ordinario” in his pastorals and edicts. Another letter permits him to

inspect the commissions of the inquisitors and their instructions if he

desires, but it must be in the audience-chamber as they are not to be

removed from there, except the printed instructions, of which a copy may

be given to him on condition of his allowing no one to see it. There was

evident friction despite the injunctions of the Suprema that a good

understanding should be maintained.[585] This was increased when, in

1574, a royal cédula addressed to the bishops ordered them to exercise

special vigilance and make secret inquiry about disguised Lutheran

preachers who were said to be on their way to Peru. The prelates assumed

this to be a grant of renewed inquisitorial power and undertook to

exercise it, giving rise to no little trouble. Sebastian de Lartaun,

Bishop of Cuzco, not only published edicts trespassing on inquisitorial

jurisdiction but boasted that, if the inquisitors came into his diocese,

he could punish them, and he arrested and imprisoned in chains their

commissioner Pedro de Quiroga, a canon of his cathedral, publicly and

under circumstances creating great scandal. The tribunal retaliated by

summoning to Lima the bishop’s provisor Albornoz and throwing him in the

secret prison; furthermore it imprisoned the priest Luis de Arma, who

had assisted in chaining Quiroga, as well as the episcopal fiscal Alonso

Duran and a cleric named Bejerano for the same offence, to which the

bishop responded by seizing Quiroga’s temporalities and forbidding him

to enter the church. The tribunal, in 1581, reported the situation to

the Suprema, which replied that nothing was to be conceded to the

Ordinaries save what was allowed by the laws and the royal cédulas;

from the Bishop of Cuzco’s edict the matter pertaining to the

Inquisition was to be struck out and he was to be duly warned. A second

notice was to be given to the Bishop of Panamá of the cédulas forbidding

his interference in matters of faith and, if he continued to disobey,

the Suprema was to be advised. The same was to be done with other

bishops similarly offending, and special attention was directed to the

acts of the Bishops of Popayan and Tucuman. If we may believe the

reports made by the tribunal to the Suprema the episcopate was filled

with most unworthy wearers of the mitre and the Archbishop of New

Granada was the only one who had fully obeyed the orders to hand over

all inquisitorial cases. The officials of the Inquisition, it said, were

hated equally by the bishops and by the royal judges, who lost no

opportunity of oppressing and humiliating them.[586]

Thus early commenced the antagonism between the Inquisition and the

episcopate which continued during its whole career to be a disturbing

element in the Spanish possessions. In 1584 we find Inquisitor Ulloa

complaining to the Suprema of the action of the recent provincial

council of Lima in secretly writing to the king about the evil character

of the commissioners selected. This, he asserts, arose from his refusal

of the request of the Bishops of Cuzco, la Plata and Tucuman to make

them commissioners in their respective dioceses. The bishops, he adds,

were opposed to the introduction of the Inquisition, because it limited

their jurisdiction, and they and the royal courts were constantly

causing trouble in spite of the extreme modesty and deference shown by

his officials.[587]

* * * * *

Such was the soil in which the Inquisition was to be planted when Philip

II resolved to confer upon the New World the blessing of the

institution. Its inception bore a marked resemblance to that of Mexico.

January 28, 1569, Inquisitor-general Espinosa wrote to the Licentiate

Servan de Cerezuela, in Oropesa, that the king proposed to establish a

tribunal in Peru and that he was selected as an inquisitor, with a

salary of three thousand pesos, each of four hundred maravedís, a part

of which would be drawn from the fruits of a prebend in Lima. He was

ordered to start without delay for Seville, whence he would sail with a

colleague, a fiscal and a notary, in the fleet carrying the Viceroy

Francisco de Toledo, who would deliver to him his commission and

instructions. Similar orders were sent to the other inquisitor, Dr.

Andrés de Bustamente, and five hundred ducats were given to each to

defray their expenses. Commands were issued to the bishops to surrender

all cases pertaining to the tribunal; to the courts not to interfere

with the confiscations; to the viceroy to render it all favor and

support and to provide a proper building for its occupancy and prisons;

to all officials to take the oath of obedience and to lend whatever aid

might be required.[588]

The fleet sailed March 19, 1569; Dominica was reached April 28th,

Cartagena May 8th and Nombre de Dios, June 1st. There their funds ran

out and no one would lend them a real without interest until Judge

Barros of Panamá furnished them two thousand pesos out of moneys

deposited in his court. While thus delayed they heard several cases and

rendered sentences. Bustamente with the notary Arrieta left Nombre de

Dios on June 23d, but he was so affected by the escape of two of his

slaves, as we are told, that he fell sick and died on June 30th.

Cerezuela and the fiscal Alcedo remained to attend to a case which

developed itself on the day fixed for their departure. Six witnesses

testified that a Portuguese named Salvador Méndez Hernández had been

burnt in effigy in Seville; they arrested him and wrote to Seville for

the process, but as they had no arrangements for detaining him, he was

released under oath, which he naturally forfeited. Cerezuela reached

Panamá on July 18th, when he summoned the viceroy and the judges of the

Audiencia to take the oath of obedience to the Inquisition. On the 22d

there was a solemn ceremony, with a procession to the church of San

Francisco, where his commission was read, he issued a mandate and the

viceroy and officials and the people all took the oath. Sail was made

from Panamá, August 15th, and Lima was reached November 28th. A house

was selected and the viceroy was called upon to give it to them; another

adjoining was rented for the officials and, on January 29, 1570, there

was a solemn function in the cathedral, such as we have seen in Mexico,

when the tribunal was officially acknowledged, its authority asserted

and the Edict of Faith was published, calling upon every one to denounce

all offenders of whom he was cognizant, directly or indirectly.[589]

Although Cerezuela was accused to the Suprema, by his notary Arrieta, as

wholly ignorant of inquisitorial practice, of allowing himself to be

easily influenced, and of neglecting to appoint familiars, he speedily

manifested an energy inspiring all classes with fear of a tribunal which

was superior to all distinctions of station, and whose jurisdiction was

limited only by its own definitions. Scarce had the edict been published

when arrests began of bigamists, blasphemers and persons whose

utterances were not cautiously restrained--Alcedo, the fiscal, reports

three in one day. Two canons of the cathedral and their advocate were

prosecuted for some false swearing before the ecclesiastical court,

which the theologians managed to find heretical, and, in spite of the

intervention of the archbishop, Cerezuela tried them and amerced them in

eight hundred pesos for the benefit of the tribunal. Then he prosecuted

two royal officials, for raising difficulties in supplying his demands

for the maintenance of poor prisoners, and fined them in eighty

ducats.[590] Presumably he desired to produce a profound impression upon

the public and for this the solemnity of a public auto de fe was

essential. This rendered inadvisable the customary prolonged delays of

inquisitorial action and already, on November 15, 1573, it was held in

the principal plaza, with the usual oaths administered to all present

and the preaching of a sermon. The different bodies of dignitaries of

course quarreled as to the places assigned to them, but Cerezuela

settled their conflicting pretensions and the awful ceremony was

performed effectively. The penitents were not numerous. The Corsican,

Joan Bautista, had been penanced for Protestantism by the archbishop and

again had been sentenced to perpetual prison by the Bishop of los

Charcas; now as an impenitent, he was condemned to two hundred lashes

through the streets and to lifelong galley-service. The Frenchman, Jean

de Lion, for the same heresy abjured _de vehementi_, was confined for

ten years to the city of Lima, and contributed a thousand pesos towards

the cost of erecting the staging at the auto. Ynes de los Angeles

received a hundred lashes for bigamy, and Andrés de Campos the same for

violating the secrecy of the Inquisition. The crowning attraction of the

spectacle, however, was another Frenchman, Mathieu Salado, who was

generally reputed to be insane. He had been denounced for “Lutheranism”

in May, 1570, but after arrest and examination had been discharged as

irresponsible. New evidence was received however and, in November, 1571,

he was again put on trial. He held that Erasmus and Luther were saints

enlightened by God; he denounced the popes, the clergy and the whole

establishment; he denied purgatory and indulgences, images and the mass.

He was decided to be of sound mind and, as he was pertinacious, he was

sentenced to relaxation after a preliminary torture _in caput alienum_,

all of which was duly executed, but whether he was burnt alive or after

strangulation we are not informed.[591]

* * * * *

The tribunal which had thus asserted its power was necessarily organized

on the Castilian pattern, with normally two inquisitors, a fiscal (or,

as he was termed in later times, an inquisitor-fiscal), a notary or

secretary, a receiver of confiscations or treasurer, an ornamental

alguazil mayor and another for work, an alcaide or gaoler with

assistants, a nuncio, a portero or apparitor, an advocate of prisoners,

a barber, a physician and a surgeon. These were the salaried officials

and in addition there were commissioners at distant points, familiars,

consultores and calificadores. There seems to have been an effort from

the first to restrict the lists of unsalaried officials, whose overgrown

numbers in Spain were the source of constant trouble, owing to their

exemption from the secular courts and being justiciable only by the

tribunal. Thus the consultores were limited to six and the familiars to

twelve in the city of Lima, four in each cathedral city and one in each

town inhabited by Spaniards, and their _fuero_ was defined, as in

Mexico, to be that of the Castilian concordia of 1553, which limited, to

a considerable extent, their exemption in criminal cases.[592]

Distance and delay in communication necessarily rendered the tribunal

more independent in action than was permitted in Spain at this time, but

the Suprema endeavored to maintain supervision and subordination as far

as it could. It was unavoidable that the tribunal should be allowed to

appoint to the minor and unsalaried positions, but its appointments were

reported to the Suprema, which thereupon issued the commissions and

sometimes, at least, made appointments itself. In the original

instructions of 1570 power was granted to create commissioners and

familiars; in 1576 this was extended to notaries and other officials,

while in 1589 it appears to be restricted to cases of necessity in the

city of Lima.[593] Yet when the Suprema chose to exercise the appointing

power it had no hesitation, as when, in 1615, it ordered Don Gil de

Amoraga to be received as commissioner of Panamá and Don Fernando

Francisco de Ribadeneira as commissioner of Tucuman, if the place was

vacant, and if not, as soon as it should become so. As time went on,

cases of this kind became more frequent. As regards commissions, a

letter of May 26, 1620, orders that the physician, the barber and the

surgeon are to furnish their proofs of _limpieza_, or purity of blood,

when their names can be forwarded and the inquisitor-general will issue

their commissions. When, in 1584, the tribunal granted to a familiar of

Panamá the title of alguazil, with a _vara alta de justicia_, or the

privilege of carrying a tall wand as the symbol of his office, the

audiencia of Panamá complained to the king and the Suprema called upon

the tribunal for an explanation, pending which the _vara_ was not to be

carried.[594]

The provisions for cases which in Spain were referred to or appealed to

the Suprema and inquisitor-general have already been detailed in the

chapter on Mexico and need not be repeated here. It will be recalled

that they conferred on the colonial tribunals almost complete

independence, so that they escaped the encroachments which at home

eventually rendered the provincial Inquisitions scarce more than bureaus

for the collection of evidence and for the execution of the decrees of

the Council. The Suprema, it is true, occasionally made its power felt

by sending out a _visitador_ or inspector, with faculties more or less

extensive and by removing or transferring an inquisitor against whom

complaints were too vigorous to be disregarded, but the only regular

supervision that could be exercised lay in the requirement of full

semi-annual reports of the business of the tribunal and the condition of

pending cases. It may be questioned, however, whether this could have

been performed with regularity during the earlier periods for, as late

as 1680, the tribunal was notified that an arrangement had been made

with the king by the consulado of Seville whereby despatches could be

sent twice a year.[595]

The Edict of Faith was ordered to be published regularly in all parish

and conventual churches, a command which was doubtless obeyed with

reasonable regularity, but there was a curious ignorance displayed

of the vastness of South America and its lack of means of

intercommunication, when the inquisitors were required to perform an

annual visitation of their district. Of course this instruction received

no attention; indeed the only attempt recorded is that of Inquisitor

Ulloa, who found it convenient, in 1594, to be absent from Lima and

employed his time, until his death in 1597, in wandering over the land

and harassing the people.[596]

As in Mexico, Indians were excepted from inquisitorial jurisdiction and,

in matters of faith, were subject to the bishops. This was not relished.

Fray Juan de Vivero wrote to Philip that the Inquisition should punish

them, though not as severely as Spaniards. The notary Arrieta advised

Cerezuela to disregard the instructions and to prosecute them, just as

he had seen in Seville unbaptized slaves punished for perverting their

Christian comrades. Cerezuela reported that baptized Indians publicly

persuaded their fellows that what the missionaries told them was false,

but the Suprema was firm and ordered him not to interfere even with

dogmatizers who told their people not to believe the missionaries.[597]

Cerezuela’s zeal was also rebuked when he represented that foreigners

who came to Peru usually sought at once to penetrate into the interior,

wherefore he proposed that the commissioners at Cartagena and Panamá

should turn them back and not permit them to enter, but the Suprema

replied that their entrance was not to be impeded nor were they to be

prosecuted unless they committed offences coming within the jurisdiction

of the Holy Office, or were detected in bringing prohibited books. At

the same time it ordered a careful inquest as to all strangers scattered

through the land and, when this should be verified with due secrecy, the

commissioners were to be instructed to admit to reconciliation those

found transgressing and, if they refused conversion, they were to be

prosecuted with the full severity of the canons.[598] If the tribunal

thus was prevented from regulating ingress, it assumed full control over

egress, for in June, 1584, it issued a proclamation that no one should

leave the kingdom without its licence, under pain of excommunication and

fines, and shipmasters were ordered to take no passengers without it--an

assumption of power which won the approbation of the Suprema, with the

suggestive warning that the licences must be issued without charge. This

arbitrary exercise of authority was even extended to prohibiting any

vessel from leaving port without a licence, and the abuse became so

intolerable that, as we have seen (Mexico, p. 252), its removal formed

part of the Concordia of 1610. The tribunal chafed under this and, when

it was busy in arresting nearly all the Portuguese merchants in 1636, it

complained to the Suprema that its hands had been tied; to prevent the

escape of those who might be guilty it had applied to the Viceroy

Chinchon who, as a governmental act, ordered that for a year no one

should be given passage without a licence from the Inquisition; he would

willingly have done more, but he had to pay some regard to the

Concordia. The Suprema was impressively asked to see that this matter

should be corrected, as otherwise the faith and the fisc would suffer.

It was probably on this occasion that occurred a detention of the fleet

when ready to sail, to which I have met with an allusion, because

licences had not been procured for the passengers.[599]

* * * * *

The chief obstacle to the thorough organization of the Inquisition was

the immense extent of the territory subjected to a single tribunal.

Until the kingdom of New Granada was cut off, in 1610, by the

establishment of a tribunal at Cartagena, this comprised the West India

Islands and the whole of South America, save the undefined limits of

Portuguese Brazil.[600] The three centres of Lima, Santiago de Chile and

Buenos Ayres were far apart in distance and still farther in the

character of the intervening territory, much of as yet scarce explored,

the Indians but partially subdued and the Spanish settlements few and

far between. Chile, indeed, could be reached by sea, in a voyage usually

of two or three weeks, but the difficulties of communication with the

interior provinces and those of the River Plate were embarrassing. When

the tribunal consulted the Suprema about them it could only reply that

cases arising in Paraguay and la Plata must be dealt with as best they

could; the accused at a distance should be ordered to present themselves

to the tribunal and not be arrested unless there were manifest heresy or

evidence justifying sequestration[601]--a suggestion dictated rather by

thrift than mercy.

The device which was effective in Spain, of commissioners in all centres

of population and familiars scattered everywhere, was only a partial

remedy for the difficulty. The power of the commissioner, as we have

seen, was jealously limited; he could execute orders, take testimony and

report, but he was forbidden to arrest unless there was imminent danger

that a culprit might fly; in no case could he conduct a trial; his

functions were purely executive and in no sense judicial. A vast

proportion of the cases tried by the Inquisition were for offences

comparatively trivial--blasphemy, careless or irreverent remarks, or the

more or less harmful superstitions classed as sorcery--and the

transmission of denunciations for such matters, over hundreds of leagues

of forest and mountain, and awaiting a reply with instructions, was

manifestly too cumbrous a process to be practical; the half-breed crone,

the vagrant soldier or the wandering pedlar, who were the usual culprits

in such cases, would be dead or vanished before an order of arrest could

be received.

Peru was no more exempt than Mexico from the troubles caused by these

outlying officials who felt themselves virtually independent and became

intolerable pests in their districts. The object of acquiring the

position was to obtain exemption from justice. They were answerable only

to the tribunal, hundreds of leagues away; if laymen, the secular

courts, and if ecclesiastics, the spiritual judges, could not touch

them. They were above all local law; they could indulge with impunity

all evil passions, they could tyrannize at will over their neighbors,

and even in civil matters they could set justice at defiance. It was

idle for the Suprema to urge great care in their selection and strict

investigation into their conduct when visitations were made, with

rigorous punishment for their excesses. The material to select from was

not abundant and was mostly evil; visitations never took place as

planned, and punishment was rare. The repeated orders not to appoint

frailes except in case of necessity and, when it was obligatory, to

prefer Dominicans, is not to be regarded as a reflection on the regular

Orders, but as arising from the desire to maintain discipline in the

Orders, because, when a fraile obtained a position in the Inquisition,

he threw off subjection to his prelate, and the injunction not to

support them in disobedience was rarely observed.[602]

A memorial presented, in 1592, to the inquisitor-general, in the name of

the clergy of Peru, complains of the appointment as commissioners of

vicious, dishonest and turbulent persons, and confirms it by statements

in detail concerning those of Cuzco, Potosí, Popayan, Camana, Arequipa,

Guaymanga and Payta, while the familiars were no better. Successive

inquisitors, from Cerezuela to Juan de Mañozca, admitted the fact but

justified themselves by the argument that they had to take what they

could get; the material to select from was too scarce to admit of

selection, with the result that the officials abused their power in

innumerable ways.[603] The only serious effort made to repress these

evils was when Juan Ruiz de Prado was sent, in 1587, to Lima as

_visitador_, clothed with full power to correct the abuses which had

excited general complaint. He reported that much of his time was

occupied in prosecuting commissioners and their notaries, who had

committed the gravest excesses; the tribunal, while cognizant of their

evil ways, had only taken action in so far as to deprive two of them of

their commissions, giving as an excuse that if it punished them it could

find no others to take their places. Among those whom Prado disciplined

was the priest Martin Barco de Centinera, commissioner of Cochachamba,

well known as the author of _La Argentina_. The charges against him were

grave but Prado did not wish to bring him three hundred leagues to

answer them, so they were sent to him with orders to return them with

his defence. It was proved that he treated the people of his district

like Jews and Moors, that he revenged himself on all who offended him,

and that he usurped the royal jurisdiction. At public banquets he drank

to intoxication, he talked openly of his successful amours, he kept a

married woman as a mistress and was generally scandalous in conversation

and mode of life. Prado fined him in two hundred and fifty pesos and

incapacitated him from holding office in the Inquisition.[604]

A single spasmodic effort such as that of Prado could effect no

permanent result and, if it was difficult for the people, oppressed by

these petty local despots, to make their wrongs known, it was equally

difficult for the Lima tribunal to exercise its authority over such vast

distances. The cruelty and injustice to which this exposed the accused

were also extreme. On a simple denunciation, possibly for a trivial

offence, and without proper preliminary investigation, he might be sent,

perhaps in chains, from Buenos Ayres to Lima, exhausting in expenses

whatever fortune he possessed. A practical illustration is furnished by

the case of Francisco de Benavente, denounced in 1582, to the

Commissioner of Tucuman because, when some one remarked that the Church

was permanent, he had replied that it was not well said. The

commissioner commenced to take testimony which so alarmed Benavente that

he travelled six hundred leagues to present himself to the tribunal in

Lima, which suspended the case and he travelled home again.[605] To a

great extent this explains the inordinate procrastination in many of the

trials, while the victim languished in his cell, for the evidence might

have to be sent back for ratification, or fresh testimony might be

sought and when, after years had been consumed in these preliminaries,

he put in his defence, the interrogatories for his witnesses would be

despatched over the same distance and their return would be awaited.

These causes of delay were aggravated by the habitual negligence and

indifference of all the officials concerned, so that a large portion of

a man’s life was often consumed in prison for an offence which

ultimately might only merit a reprimand, or for which he might be

acquitted.

Some relief was afforded when, in 1611, the tribunal of Cartagena was

founded for the northern coastal territory and the islands. This was

probably intended as the commencement of a systematic subdivision of the

vast district for, a few years later, in anticipation of the erection of

the bishopric of Buenos Ayres in 1620, the Suprema presented to Philip

III an elaborate consulta strongly urging the establishment there of a

tribunal. It pointed out that the arrests made in Lima showed the

country to be full of Portuguese Judaizers, who had every facility of

entrance and departure at Buenos Ayres. From there to Lima there were

seven hundred leagues; the roads were good, the country populous and the

Portuguese drove a thriving trade, enriching themselves and perverting

the Indian converts. A commissioner would not answer, for he had to send

seven hundred leagues to Lima, with as many in return, before he could

act, while a tribunal could take note of every passenger landing or

departing, and not only defend the faith but avert the political dangers

threatened by the correspondence of these foreigners with the enemy.

Besides, it was a great hardship when a man, for a slight offence such

as blasphemy, had to be taken under guard for seven hundred leagues, at

great cost, to be sentenced perhaps to abjure _de levi_ and to hear a

mass. If the projected cathedral were founded a prebend could be taken

to diminish the expense and a single inquisitor would suffice, as in

Majorca.[606]

Given the necessity for the Inquisition, the arguments were

unanswerable, but they elicited no response for the crown was

impoverished and shrank from having to support another tribunal. About

1620 another effort was made by the procurator of the Atlantic

provinces, in a memorial repeating the same arguments and suggesting

that a district be formed of Rio de la Plata, Paraguay and Tucuman up to

the boundaries of los Charcas, thus extending some three hundred leagues

and leaving four hundred for the Lima tribunal.[607] This was referred

to the Suprema which presented a consulta urging favorable action

February 1, 1621, but the illness and speedy death of Philip III

intervened and on March 31, 1623, it applied again to Philip IV,

supporting its arguments with letters from the tribunal of Lima and the

commissioner at Buenos Ayres, but to no effect. The next move came from

the king, who, on April 12, 1630, communicated to the Suprema a paper

describing how the Dutch lost no opportunity of introducing heretical

books and perverting the natives of those regions. He thought it would

be well to found an Inquisition in Buenos Ayres and, if the expenses

were too great, there might be an inquisitor and a fiscal, while the

other offices could be filled by wealthy men who would gladly serve

gratuitously. Or, if this were too costly, a Dominican fraile could fill

the post of inquisitor as in Naples and other parts of Italy, and he

ordered the Suprema to arrange the matter accordingly. We shall see that

in Peru, as in Mexico, the tribunal and Suprema evaded all efforts to

relieve the royal treasury of the burden and can scarce wonder that

Philip, with all his fanaticism, was economically disposed, but this did

not suit the ideas of the Suprema. It replied in a consulta of April

17th, insisting that an inquisitor, fiscal, notary, alcaide and portero,

with salaries and expenses aggregating at least six thousand ducats a

year, were indispensable. The other officials, whose time would not be

exclusively occupied, might be selected from among opulent persons, and

that by aiding to suppress the contraband trade of the Dutch the royal

revenues could be correspondingly increased. The prospect of this outlay

refrigerated Philip’s zeal, and he returned the consulta with the

endorsement that the disadvantages prevented the execution of the

project; the Lima tribunal must appoint a commissioner of special

ability and the governor would be ordered to assist him.[608]

This rebuff silenced the Suprema for the time but, on September 19,

1630, it returned to the charge. The Lima tribunal, in a letter of June

28, 1629, had related how a soldier in the port of Buenos Ayres, on the

look-out for a vessel, had picked up on the shore a sealed package

addressed “A las justicias del Perú” and on opening found it full of

attacks on the papal and monarchical authority. This showed, it said,

the audacity with which the heretics were disseminating their doctrines

in those regions. They were also circulating tracts which had been

seized, one of which was enclosed to prove to the king the necessity of

ordering efficacious support to the Inquisition by the royal officials,

and how desirable ii would be to establish a tribunal at Buenos

Ayres.[609] This appeal likewise fell on deaf ears and, on November 26,

1636, the Suprema forwarded to Lima the king’s reply with corresponding

instructions.[610]

The suggestion was renewed, March 1, 1636, by the fiscal of the

Audiencia of la Plata, but this time the proposed seat of the tribunal

was in Tucuman. This led the king, November 2, 1638, to ask for

information from the audiencia, the viceroy and other authorities. To

this the President of Charcas replied, warmly approving of the project,

but for a wholly different reason, saying that during his years of

service he had observed the great oppression of the people by the

commissioners, maltreating them on trivial pretexts, ordering them to

appear at Lima with excessive cost and irreparable disgrace and

molesting them in many ways, for which they dared not seek redress, for

it lay at such a distance and the remedy was to them so horrible. The

audiencia answered, March 10, 1640, recommending Córdoba de Tucuman as

the most desirable seat. Two inquisitors and a fiscal, with salaries of

two thousand pesos and a secretary with one thousand would suffice and

would be largely defrayed by the fines and confiscations. Viceroy

Chinchon delayed responding until September 29, 1641, when he said that

it would be advantageous but costly; the salaries would have to be

large, for living was dear, and the confiscations would be insufficient;

in the last auto, although the culprits were many and of much reputed

wealth, the property had almost wholly disappeared. Chinchon’s

successor, the Marquis of Mancera, had already written, June 8, 1641,

that Chinchon had handed the matter over to him; he had referred it to

the President of Chuquisaca, whose report he enclosed, and he dwelt upon

the evil of the Portuguese who entered Paraguay by San Pablo and spread

over the land.[611]

By this time the Portuguese and Catalan revolts gave Philip ample

occupation, and the absolute exhaustion of the treasury forbade all

thoughts of incurring avoidable expenses. When these pressing

necessities diminished, the suggestion was renewed in 1662; the erection

of an audiencia in the growing city of Buenos Ayres led the Lima

tribunal to urge the establishment of an Inquisition there or in Córdoba

de Tucuman. Communication with Spain was easy from there and two

inquisitors would suffice, or one and a fiscal. The Suprema warmly

advocated the measure, but favored Córdoba, which was only eight days’

journey, or even only five, from Buenos Ayres. The failure of this

effort seems to have discouraged further official attempts and we hear

nothing more of the matter for nearly a century. In 1754 the Jesuit

Pedro de Arroyo wrote to the procurador of his province in Spain,

calling attention to the necessities of an additional tribunal. That of

Lima was so far off--a thousand leagues, he said--that it was of no use

to them. In the twenty years spent in those provinces, he had never

heard of an arrest by the Inquisition except one in Buenos Ayres, and

then the prisoner escaped before reaching Lima; there was, however, a

case of a cleric of Paraguay who spontaneously obeyed a summons to Lima.

A commissioner had told him that, in ten or eleven years, he had had ten

or eleven cases, which he had investigated and reported to Lima, but had

never had a reply, except in the first case and this was not until two

years had elapsed, by which time the culprit had disappeared. A second

tribunal was now more necessary than ever, as the Portuguese were

inundating the land. In the jurisdiction of Buenos Ayres they were said

to number six thousand, and there was the same proportion in other

districts; in that of Córdoba, the audiencia banished them some years

ago, but they merely moved their residence and their places were taken

by other Portuguese. About the same time Pedro de Logu, a calificador in

Buenos Ayres, called attention to the mischief to religion arising from

the scum collected there and subjected to no supervision; the powers of

the commissioner were limited, he had no profit from his work and the

introduction of prohibited books was frequent. These unofficial

representations seem to have elicited no attention, but more

authoritative was the memorial, in 1765, of Pedro Miguel, Archbishop of

la Plata, whose residence there for twenty years had shown to him the

necessity of a tribunal in Buenos Ayres. To this the fiscal of the

Council of Indies replied, December 13, 1766, with an indifference which

forms the measure of inquisitorial decadence. The rarity, he says, of

cases of faith, attributable to the care exercised in preventing the

immigration of descendants of infected persons, rendered it unnecessary

to burden the fisc with the expenses of another tribunal; besides, the

difficulty of reaching Lima restored to the bishops their inherent

jurisdiction in such matters and they could sufficiently protect the

faith.[612] It may be hoped, for the good archbishop’s peace of mind,

that he did not avail himself of this unofficial authorization to set up

an episcopal Inquisition.

* * * * *

It may be gathered from these ineffectual efforts to multiply tribunals

that the financial question was as important in South America as we have

seen it in Mexico. The experiences of the two Inquisitions were similar.

When Cerezuela and his colleague went to Lima, they bore instructions to

the royal officials to disburse to the receiver of confiscations ten

thousand pesos a year for the salaries of the two inquisitors, the

fiscal and the notary.[613] This made no provision for other inevitable

expenses. The theory on which the Holy Office was based was that it

should be self-sustaining--supported by the fines and confiscations

which it inflicted--and that when these were in excess the surplus

should enure to the royal fisc. In Lima, more clearly than in Mexico,

Philip defined repeatedly that this royal subvention should continue

only as long as there was deficiency from other sources of income. In

the quarrels which speedily arose between the tribunal and the viceroy,

Toledo kept it in some sort of subjection by making the inquisitors

apply to him personally for their salaries. This was highly distasteful,

and they seem to have endeavored to escape from it by excommunicating

the royal officials who declined to honor their demands, for cédulas of

July 17 and 27, 1572, addressed to the viceroy and inquisitors,

prohibited them from drawing on the royal treasury and enforcing payment

with censures; they were to hand in their accounts which were to be

promptly paid, until the fines and penances and confiscations should

suffice. If this meant that they should render accounts of these other

sources of income, it received no attention. In Lima as in Mexico no

effort on the part of the government could obtain an insight into the

finances of the tribunal and the royal subvention was indefinitely

prolonged.[614]

Still this did not provide for the salaries of the minor officials and

the other unavoidable expenses. For awhile doubtless the tribunal felt

the pinch of poverty. We find the Suprema suggesting that, if the

prisons are insufficient, they can be made good out of the fines and

penances; the alguacil is to be dismissed and, if another is appointed,

he must serve without salary; possibly the viceroy may be induced to

grant pensions on some of the vacant _repartimientos_ of Indians. The

tribunal astutely raised the question of the _ayuda de costa_, or

supplementary payment to meet the expenses of the visitations, which it

had no intention of making, and it was told to consult the viceroy and

report, after which the Suprema would consult the king. In this it

doubtless failed, but we chance to hear of an ayuda de costa paid as a

reward for the auto de fe of 1578. Philip was by no means disposed to be

liberal. In 1593 a question arose as to the salary of a fiscal _ad

interim_ and he rather grudgingly, by a cédula of February 7, 1594,

ordered that one-half might be paid, until the confiscations should

suffice.[615]

Meanwhile the activity of the tribunal was rapidly enabling it to emerge

from its penury. Its correspondence with the Suprema between 1570 and

1594 shows that confiscations were continually decreed and were

apparently profitable. Frequent references occur to the estate of a Dr.

Quiñones, who owned a mine which was to be rented until sentence was

pronounced and then was to be sold; he also had a library which seems to

have been of value and was to be disposed of either in bulk or at

retail. Up to 1583 the total receipts from confiscations amounted to

thirty-eight thousand pesos, or an average of nearly three thousand per

annum.[616] Fines were also lucrative. Between 1571 and 1573 there were

twenty-seven cases sentenced in the audience-chamber, yielding in all

twenty-six hundred pesos of which a thousand were levied on Rodrigo de

Arcas, parish priest of Ribera, for solicitation in the confessional.

Between 1581 and 1585 fifty-seven cases, similarly sentenced in private,

furnished eighty-three hundred pesos. In 1583 there came a piece of good

fortune in a legacy of Pedro de la Peña, Bishop of Quito, who left to

the tribunal twenty thousand pesos to build a chapel for his interment.

The house and prison thus far occupied were unfitted for the growing

activity of the tribunal; with the legacy and the proceeds of sale of

the existing building, a much finer structure was erected, including a

prison with twelve cells. With increasing business came increasing

income and, while the pretext of poverty continued to be put forward to

the king, the tribunal soon began to accumulate capital and place it at

interest. In 1596, Inquisitor Ordoñez, while blaming the receiver Juan

de Saracho, admitted that he had succeeded in amassing twenty thousand

pesos, part of which sum was invested in censos or ground-rents. To this

Ordoñez, by a happy stroke, added seven thousand more from the estate of

Pedro González de Montalban, whose property had been sequestrated. He

was very sick and obtained his liberation by making a will in favor of

the tribunal.[617] The Portuguese Judaizers now began to occupy a

constantly increasing share of the tribunal’s attention, opening up a

most prosperous field of operations. The time had come when the

temporary subvention should be withdrawn, but the tribunal continued

quietly to demand and receive it.

It was impossible to keep wholly secret the absorption of large estates

and the investments of accumulating capital. The attention of Philip III

was called to the matter and, in a letter of June 4, 1614, to the

viceroy, he recited the conditions on which the grant had been made; he

had learned that the salaries continued to be paid by the treasury, in

spite of the receipt from these sources of amounts sufficient to defray

them in whole or in part, and he therefore ordered that, when the

salaries were paid, the viceroy should inform himself of the receipts

from other sources and deduct them from the charge on the treasury,

making full reports to the king. This was evaded by the receiver giving

a certificate such as he saw fit, of what moneys he had on hand, which

naturally was found to be a worthless safe-guard, and the viceroy was

ordered to require from the receiver a statement of all receipts every

year. It was found impossible to procure this and Philip, in a letter to

the Viceroy Squillace, April 26, 1618, after recalling all the previous

attempts, ordered him to appoint from the treasury two experienced

accountants to audit the receiver’s accounts and report the result to

the king. The accountants were duly appointed, but the receiver refused

absolutely to exhibit his accounts--he had sent them to the

inquisitor-general as he was required to do by his instructions. This

exhausted the royal patience and one of the first acts of Philip IV was

a letter to the viceroy, June 11, 1621, ordering the suspension of

payments until the inquisitors should furnish authentic evidence that

the confiscations had not sufficed to meet them. This went on for two

years, the inquisitors preferring to forego the subvention rather than

to expose the flourishing condition of their finances. They brought

incessant pressure to bear, however, and finally induced Viceroy

Guadalsacar, under a resolution of the treasury officials, to resume

payments on the presentation of certain certificates of the contador,

the scrivener of sequestrations and the receiver. On learning this the

Council of Indies made a thorough investigation of the whole matter and

reported that, in view of the exhaustion of the royal treasury, and that

since the foundation of the tribunal, up to 1625, it had consumed six

hundred and sixty-two thousand ducats without having returned anything

from the fines and confiscations, it was wholly wrong that the money

should have been used by the officials in buying lands and censos which

they were now enjoying. To put an end to this the king, April 20, 1629,

issued a cédula ordering that the conditions expressed in 1621 should

be inviolably observed, no matter what might be the exigency, under

pain not only of the royal displeasure but that all such disbursements

should be charged to the viceroy and be deducted from his salary. To

insure observance this cédula was to be entered on the books of the

treasury and all auditors were to be governed by it.[618]

These were brave words but it is probable that the Inquisition found

means to render them nugatory, while an apparent compromise was sought

at the expense of a third party--the Church. We have seen (Mexico, p.

216) how a prebend in each cathedral was suppressed at the first vacancy

and the fruits were paid to the tribunal. The process was necessarily

slow, commencing with the brief of Urban VIII, March 10, 1627, and

delayed by waiting for the successive vacancies and also by resistance,

in some cases, of the cathedral chapters.[619] It was virtually

completed in 1635, when Philip wrote to the treasury officials,

September 26th, that the senior Inquisitor, Juan de Mañozca, had advised

him that the suppression of the prebends for the payment of salaries had

been effected. The orders with regard to this are to be executed and, as

he supposes that the arrearages of salaries have been paid, he writes to

Mañozca that in future the prebends are to be applied to the salaries as

the treasury is in urgent need of relief--which shows that up to that

time the king had continued to pay them and even to make good the

arrearages, in spite of the decisive provisions of 1629.[620] The

prebends thus obtained were eight in number, in the cathedrals of Lima,

Quito, Trugillo, Arequipa, Cuzco, Paz, Chuquisaca and Santiago de Chile.

They produced, as we have seen, eleven thousand pesos a year, thus more

than replacing the subvention. Further documents fail us here but, from

the experience of Mexico and Cartagena, it is fairly to be assumed that,

in spite of the prebends and of the large confiscations now coming in,

the tribunal managed to continue drawing the subvention and, in 1677,

there was still discussion of the subject.[621]

The time, in fact, had come when the finances of the tribunal were to be

placed on an enduring foundation. We shall see hereafter the details of

the _complicidad grande_, when nearly all the leading merchants in Lima,

of Portuguese extraction, were arrested on charges of Judaism and their

property was sequestrated. Arrests had commenced in 1634 and the tragedy

culminated in the great auto of January 23, 1639. What was the amount

acquired by the tribunal can never be known, but popular report

estimated it as a million of pesos, and we have seen that Viceroy

Chinchon reported that it virtually disappeared without any one knowing

where it went. Philip IV, whose necessities were daily becoming

greater, was led by the report of the enormous sequestrations to seek an

explanation of the Suprema, which replied to him, December 19, 1636,

that the sequestrations had been large but they shrank to almost nothing

from the claims of creditors, some of which came from Spain.[622]

Disappointed in this he wrote, March 30, 1637, congratulating the

inquisitors on their zeal and suggesting that it appeared to him just

that out of them the fisc should be reimbursed for its outlays on their

salaries, and that enough should be set aside to provide for the future

in case the prebends did not suffice. The inquisitors replied, with

outward demonstrations of respect, that they would report to the Suprema

to which the funds belonged; that as yet there had only been

sequestrations, while innumerable claims on the property had been

presented, and that many prisoners had been found innocent and their

estates had been restored to them--to five of these, Pedro de Soria,

Andrés Muñoz, Francisco Sotelo, Antonio de los Santos and Jorje Danila

there had thus been returned a hundred and seventy-four thousand pesos.

Philip made an attempt to investigate the matter by appointing, in 1643,

with the assent of the Suprema, Dr. Martin Real as visitador to examine

into the finances of the tribunals of Lima and Cartagena, but, as we

shall see, he was baffled in Cartagena and, after stormy experiences,

returned to Spain without reaching Lima.[623] Repulsed thus at every

point, Philip resorted to somewhat arbitrary measures. In 1644 we find

the Suprema complaining of the seizure at Seville of two or three large

sequestrations sent there from Lima for settlement with creditors, and

again of twenty thousand ducats’ worth of wool taken by him, of which

Alfonso Cardosso & Co. were demanding the surrender as owners.[624]

What share of the spoils the Suprema obtained it would be impossible to

say. We happen to hear, in 1640, of twelve thousand pesos brought to it

from Lima by Juan de Arostegui, which is doubtless only a portion of the

amount doled out to it by the tribunal.[625] The latter, in fact, in

its reports habitually belittled the results obtained or anticipated; it

treated the Suprema as the Suprema treated the king. In reporting the

arrests, in 1636, it was careful to point out that, although the

prisoners were reputed to be wealthy and lived with ostentation, it was

a deception, for in reality they were trading on borrowed money and had

little of their own. This was a repetition of what it had said in 1631,

when persecution of the Portuguese had already been going on for some

years--the sequestrations made much show but with slender results; the

real estate of the accused was held in order to gain the reputation of

wealth, while in reality it was so encumbered as to be valueless, and

the personal property was so concealed as to be undiscoverable.[626]

There were other productive sources of income besides the confiscations.

One of these which was especially profitable was the “quebrantamientos

de escrituras de juego.” Gambling was almost universal and disgusted

gamesters would frequently swear off under a penalty, attested by a

notarial act; the pledge would inevitably be broken and the forfeit was

usually contributed to the pious uses of the Inquisition. A statement of

the deposits in the _arca de tres llaves_, or money-chest of the

tribunal, from May 4, 1630, to August 31, 1634, shows 1449 pesos from

fines, 4909 from donations and 35,829 from the _quebrantamientos_, or in

all 42,187, representing an annual income of nearly nine thousand pesos

from these sources alone.[627] When to this we add the confiscations,

the prebends and the constantly increasing returns from accumulating

investments, it will be seen that the tribunal was rapidly growing in

wealth and how factitious were the pleas on which it maintained its grip

on the royal subvention.

When, in 1631, the office of alguazil was made saleable considerable

sums were collected from this source. In 1641 the position of alguazil

mayor of Santiago de Chile--a purely ornamental office, unsalaried but

with contingent privileges--was bid up to 6500 pesos.[628] As these

commissions, however, were issued by the inquisitor-general it is

probable that they were duly accounted for. Indeed, we have seen (p.

224) that the Suprema endeavored in this way to explain the remittances

which it could not conceal.

Increasing wealth naturally led to multiplication of offices and

generally careless expenditure. In 1674 the receiver or treasurer

lamented that he had striven in vain to reduce the affairs of the

tribunal to order. The revenues had fallen to 35,951 pesos and the

expenses exceeded them. Still, he held that, in spite of the

considerable remittances to the Suprema and the overgrown payroll, the

income could be made to suffice if it were not for the expenditures of

the inquisitors on their houses and their frequent elevation to

bishoprics, after which they persisted in drawing their salaries.[629]

The investments of the tribunal were principally in censos--rent-charges

on real estate. When these fell into arrears the property was put up and

sold at auction, apparently still subject to the rent, the arrearages

being collected from the purchase-money, and the numerous references to

these transactions show that they were by no means infrequent. Still,

the Inquisition assumed that it was an indulgent creditor. When, about

1705, several successive bad harvests had rendered the farmers unable to

pay their rents, they petitioned the viceroy for a reduction of the

principal. In transmitting this request to the king, the viceroy asked

the opinion of the various tribunals, to which the Inquisition replied

that the principal should remain intact as the deficient harvests were

temporary and the land retained its value: that it was different in

Chile, where the censos on urban property were reduced in principal

after the earthquake which ruined the buildings. The tribunal therefore

recommended a postponement of arrears and reduction of interest until

the bad season should pass; this was what it had done with its debtors;

it had not thrown them in prison or put up the farms at auction, even

though the arrears were large, proceeding with benignity and equity and

treating each case on its merits.[630]

Under a succession of venal and unprincipled inquisitors, the finances

of the tribunal became involved in confusion and the magnitude of the

amounts at stake shows how successful it had been in accumulation. In

1733 the two inquisitors were Gaspar Ibañez de Peralta and Christóbal

Sánchez Calderon. The former was old and failing and the latter was

engaged, under the name of his chaplain, in mercantile operations with

the funds of the tribunal with such success that, in 1739, he remitted

eighty thousand pesos to Spain and had purchased a valuable property

near Lima. He also spent five thousand in decorating his house, and when

the security of the temporary receiver Juan Estéban Peña expired he

opposed its renewal, resulting in heavy loss when Peña became bankrupt.

The new receiver, Manuel de Ilarduy speedily fell into default for more

than two hundred and thirty thousand pesos and there were other

deficiencies. In 1735 Diego de Unda was sent from Spain as fiscal with

special orders to investigate the finances. In 1736 he reported that he

found everything right except that when Calderon insisted that Ilarduy

should render his accounts and deposit all funds in the chest and on the

receiver’s refusal, had embargoed his property, Ibañez verbally

suspended the embargo, so that when, on the next day, the embargo was

renewed, it was found that large amounts of silver and merchandise had

been removed and there only remained a little silver dish and some

vessels in his oratory. Still Ilarduy was forced to pay fifty thousand

pesos and furnish securities amounting to a hundred and ten thousand

more.

It seemed impossible to secure honest officials. Unda had brought with

him as secretary of the tribunal Ignacio de Irazábal, who was made

auditor. He was detected in passing false accounts for Ilarduy and was

dismissed, as likewise was another secretary, Gerónimo de la Torre. The

struggle between Calderon and Ilarduy became mortal, and the amounts at

stake must have been large for the latter sent emissaries to Spain with

a hundred thousand pesos with which to bribe the Suprema to dismiss the

inquisitor. He succeeded in having a visitador sent with full powers to

investigate and punish, with results that we shall see hereafter. It is

only necessary here to say that Calderon’s and Unda’s property was

sequestrated, to be released in 1747 by orders of the Suprema. A new

factor had appeared on the scene when, in 1737, Mateo de Amusquíbar came

as fiscal, to be not long afterwards promoted to the inquisitorship. He

formed an alliance with Ilarduy; they were both Biscayans and the

Biscayan faction became supreme. Unda died, May 27, 1748, and Calderon

was living in retirement on his plantation. The vacancy was filled, in

1751 by Diego Rodríguez Delgado who came with special orders to

investigate the finances. He promptly reported that it was impossible to

examine the accounts of the receiver, which were in a state too confused

to admit of verification. He had learned that the cost of maintaining

the prisoners did not amount to more than a thousand pesos per annum,

while it was charged at four thousand. There were seventy thousand due

on the rents of farms and fruits of prebends and, by the reduction of

exorbitant salaries this amount when collected could readily be

increased to a hundred thousand, more than enough to rebuild the

inquisition and its chapel, which had lain in ruins since the earthquake

of 1746. Under the preceding receiver, the confiscation of Pedro Uban,

condemned in 1736, had amounted to more than sixty thousand pesos, but

no trace could be found of the existence or the expenditure of this sum.

No reform however was possible in view of the alliance between

Amusquíbar and Ilarduy. No reform, in fact, followed, although after all

the actors had passed away, Calderon’s property was seized to make good

the deficit of Antonio Morante, an administrador whom he had appointed

and kept in office without requiring security and, in 1773, a suit was

in progress with the executor of his estate for over thirty thousand

pesos, the outcome of which the records fail to inform us. Altogether,

through these quarrels we obtain an inside view of venality and

corruption which probably were not confined to this period. In 1751 we

learn that Amusquíbar, on entering office in 1744, had remitted nineteen

thousand pesos to the Suprema, since when nothing had been sent. The

income had fallen to thirty thousand and there was little more than

forty thousand in the chest.[631]

The inevitable results of dishonesty and disorder were heightened by

external causes and, in 1777, we find the resources of the tribunal

materially reduced. After the earthquake of 1746 the rate of interest on

the censos had been lowered from five per cent. to three. There were few

profitable confiscations to make good the deficit, the fruits of the

prebends were falling off and their collection was becoming difficult.

In 1777 that of Quito owed about ten thousand pesos, that of Trujillo

eleven thousand, that of Arequipa, owing to the decline in prices was

greatly diminished in value. Salaries were in arrears to the extent of

twenty thousand pesos and the efforts of the receiver to make

collections were fruitless. The houses of the inquisitors were

unfinished and Inquisitor Lopez Grillo was obliged to rent one, at the

distance of a block from the tribunal. In 1784 the earthquake in Cuzco

caused a further decline in the canonries of la Paz, Arequipa and Cuzco;

an urgent request was made for the suppression of the office of the

third inquisitor, and authority was asked to sell property in order to

pay salaries.[632] All this betokens real distress and yet, although the

administration of affairs can scarce be thought to have improved in the

following years, when, in 1813, the decree of suppression was received

in Lima and the property of the tribunal was inventoried for the benefit

of the royal treasury, there were found in its chests ready money to the

amount of 68,834 pesos, 3-1/4 reales, besides 2400 pesos of jewels

confiscated on Inquisitor Unda and 2500, the valuation of the furniture

of the chapel. From the statement of the auditor it appeared that the

capital of the censos and value of the plantations belonging to the

tribunal amounted to 1,508,518 pesos. A portion of this, however, was

not its property but was held in trust for special purposes. Of the

money on hand, 47,433 pesos were funds of the tribunal, while 13,325

pesos, 2 reales appertained to the Colegio de Santa Cruz, founded by

Mateo Pastor de Velasco and Bernardino Olave for female foundlings, and

placed under the charge of the Inquisition, also 8076 pesos, 1-1/4

reales was the balance on hand of a foundation known as of Zelayeta and

Nuñez de Santiago. The capital of the Colegio de Santa Cruz amounted to

394,502 pesos, 6-1/2 reales; that of the other foundation is not stated

but, assuming them together to be 500,000 pesos, it would leave about a

million for the accumulations of the tribunal.[633]

* * * * *

The men who were at the head of the tribunal, whatever may have been

their reputation at home, were not, as a rule, able to resist the

demoralizing influences around them, intensified by the irresponsible

autocratic power conferred by their position. The only effective control

possible to the Suprema lay in the appointment of a visitador or

inspector, clothed with superior authority, and this was an expedient

rarely resorted to, especially as the inspector was exposed to the same

temptations and was apt to yield to them. The Suprema was not kept in

ignorance of the derelictions of its appointees, for the inquisitors

rarely worked in harmony. Deadly quarrels arose between them and they

abused each other without stint in their communications to headquarters,

while their subordinates were equally free in exposing the malfeasance

of their superiors. The publication of much of this secret

correspondence and of complaints of aggrieved parties by Señor Medina

thus gives us an exceptional opportunity to gain an insight into the

interior life of a tribunal and into its use of the enormous power which

it enjoyed.

We have seen that the second inquisitor, Bustamente, died at Panamá, and

that Cerezuela was alone in opening the tribunal. The fiscal, Alcedo,

and the notary, Arrieta, were quarrelling mortally with each other, and

both were writing to the Suprema, criticizing Cerezuela’s inexperience

and lack of self-assertion, and asking that the new inquisitor to be

sent should be a man of greater force. Their wishes were gratified when

Antonio Gutiérrez de Ulloa arrived, March 31, 1571. It was not long

before his arbitrary and scandalous conduct aroused indignation, but

those who dared to complain were made to suffer. Secret information,

however, was conveyed to the Suprema and the viceroy, the Count del

Villar, was unreserved in his communications to the king, representing

that Ulloa kept spies in the viceregal palace, who carried off papers

and documents and that he had indirectly farmed the quicksilver mines

of Guancavelica, making large sums to the detriment of the royal

interests. A cleric named Gaspar Zapata de Mendoza, as representative of

the clergy of Peru, after several vain attempts, managed to escape to

Brazil; he was captured by the French and carried to Dieppe, whence he

made his way to Spain, but it was not until 1592 that he was able to

present in Toledo a memorial to Inquisitor-general Quiroga in which the

conduct of Ulloa was set forth in detail. His promiscuous amours with

maids and married women were notorious; he publicly kept as a concubine

Catalina Morejon, a married woman, who used her influence to dictate

appointments and modify sentences until, after repeated efforts, Villar

succeeded in banishing her. On one occasion a husband found him in bed

with his wife; Ulloa threatened him as inquisitor and he slunk away;

another husband was less timid, he killed the wife and chased the

adulterer through the streets. He was in the habit of walking the

streets at night dressed as a cavalier, brawling and fighting, and on

one Holy Thursday he supped with a number of strumpets. He and the

Dominican Provincial, Fray Francisco de Valderrama, each had as mistress

a relative of the other; when the three years of the provincialate

ended, Valderrama aspired to be prior of the Lima convent, but the new

Provincial, Agustin Montes, refused to appoint him because he was a

bastard, whereupon Ulloa went to the convent, thrust a dagger to the

provincial’s breast and swore he would kill him, when Montes yielded. He

was involved in perpetual contests with the judges and royal officials,

whom he treated without ceremony or justice, interfering with their

functions, of which a number of cases were given which, if not

exaggerated, show that the land was at the mercy of the inquisitorial

officials, who murdered, robbed and took women at their pleasure, and

any who complained were fined or kept chained in prison. The limitations

of the fuero enjoyed by the ministers of the Holy Office were

disregarded and no one could obtain justice against them.[634]

Before this black catalogue of crime reached the Suprema, the complaints

had shown that some interference was necessary, and it had sent as

visitador Juan Ruiz de Prado, who reached Lima February 11, 1587. He had

full authority to prosecute any members of the tribunal and to send them

with the evidence to Spain for judgement, but those who anticipated

relief were disappointed. As Villar writes, he took up his residence

with Ulloa, and his officials were lodged with those of the tribunal,

who made much of them. He made no secret that he came to take care of

Ulloa’s honor, so that all complainants were frightened off. Villar had

his special grievances which show how impossible was efficient

government, when a power existed within the state superior to the state

itself. News was received that two ships had sailed from England for the

Pacific; two Englishmen, John Drake, cousin of the famous Sir Francis,

and Richard Farrel, who had been wrecked in the River Plate, had been

sent to the Inquisition, as was the fashion with heretic prisoners; the

viceroy desired to examine them to learn, if possible, something about

the threatened corsairs and he asked the inquisitors to send the men to

him or, if that was not possible, to allow one of his officers to

examine them, or again, if that was impossible, to examine them

themselves and communicate to him what they could learn; Ulloa was

willing but Prado refused, saying that he would communicate with the

Suprema who could inform the king, thus postponing for a year the

information wanted at the moment. Then there came an alarm about some

English ships on the coast, and Villar ordered all who were liable to

military service to be in readiness to defend Callao. Ulloa and Prado

assumed that their officials and familiars would fulfil their duty by

guarding the buildings of the Inquisition, and gave instructions not to

obey the viceroy’s orders, who vainly pointed out to them that, in

defending the city, their men would be defending the Inquisition. At the

auto of 1587 they virtually took possession of the city, treated the

viceroy as a private person subject to their orders, and grossly

humiliated him, to all of which he submitted for the sake of peace.

They meddled in everything, and with their unlimited power of

excommunication and fines, no one dared to resist them. They summoned

his secretaries before them and forced them to reveal everything, even

of the most confidential character, and to produce official papers, of

which they retained copies. They appointed royal officials as familiars,

thus releasing them from all responsibility to the viceroy, to the

courts and to their superiors. Villar declared himself helpless to

remedy all this unless the king would interfere.[635]

The memorial of Mendoza tells the same story of the alliance between the

visitador and the inquisitor, and mentions a case of a priest named

Hernan Gutiérrez de Ulloa, who had lent a considerable sum to Inquisitor

Ulloa and being unable to obtain repayment had procured a papal brief

against him. Prado took the brief from him, fined him heavily, suspended

him for a year from his benefice and sentenced him to four years’

reclusion, the result being that he died under the persecution.[636]

The evil friendship between these men did not last long and, in January,

1588, Prado commenced the real duties of his office. He overhauled all

the proceedings of the tribunal since its foundation, examining 1265

documents, his notes on which covered 1650 pages and fully substantiated

his conclusions as to its irregular methods, its cruel delays, and its

inflicting public penances for matters not of faith and beyond its

jurisdiction. He reported that he had drawn up 216 charges against

Ulloa, many of them applicable also to Cerezuela. There were six about

his relations with women, involving much publicity and scandal, and

there would have been more had he cared to investigate further in this

direction. He said that Ulloa had accumulated considerable sums which he

sent to Spain; he was virtually the farmer of the quicksilver mines of

Guancavelica, for when bids were invited he frightened off all bidders

except his brother and an accomplice, who obtained the contract for

twenty or thirty thousand pesos less than others were ready to offer. He

kept around him a band of disreputable creatures, who ministered to his

vices and were above the law. No one could collect debts of them, for

when suit was brought he would order it discontinued and he was obeyed.

When he was sole inquisitor he used to go hunting for a fortnight at a

time, leaving the accused in prison and delaying their cases. Sometimes

he took with him a certain mestizo who had a quarrel with another

mestizo and was prosecuted in the royal court. Ulloa demanded the case,

claiming that the defendant was his servant; the court demurred as the

man was not _de familia_ but only an occasional employee, whereupon he

excommunicated the judge and all the alcaldes; they surrendered the case

which was settled before him for eight pesos.[637]

When Prado presented the 216 charges, Ulloa quietly allowed a year to

elapse before undertaking to answer them. Prado seems to have been in no

hurry. Four years had been spent in the visit and the Suprema had

repeatedly ordered his return, which he answered by alleging Ulloa’s

repeated absences, sometimes for months together, during which he could

not leave the tribunal; then he gave sickness as an excuse, or that he

had not a real with which to pay for the voyage. Finally he sent the

papers by the secretary, Martínez de Marcolaeta, who started from Callao

May 6, 1592, and reached Spain the same year. After this Ulloa no longer

kept terms with him and ordered him to leave the tribunal, which he

refused to do. Ulloa then denounced him to the Suprema, pointing out

that he could have sailed at any departure of the fleets but that he

desired to remain because he was in partnership with an Augustinian

fraile, Francisco de Figueroa, whom he appointed commissioner at

Trujillo and then at Potosí, where they made twenty-five thousand pesos.

Ulloa publicly spoke of him in terms too opprobrious for any lackey to

endure, and the fiscal, Arpide, joined in accusing him of unlawful

gains, in granting licences to leave the country, and of protecting

unworthy persons by appointing them as familiars. The Suprema attributed

the quarrel to the close friendship which Prado had formed for a Dr.

Salinas, a man of notoriously bad character, whom he had made advocate

of prisoners and then of the fisc, in which capacity he had his suits

brought before the tribunal, to the wronging of third parties.[638]

Finally the orders of the Suprema became so pressing that Prado was

obliged to leave Lima, April 14, 1594, Ulloa managing so that he

received no salary for his return. From Havana he sent a report of his

visit, which was approved, not without some rebuke. Of the 216 charges

against Ulloa, 118 were accepted and, by sentence of December 15, 1594,

he was suspended for five years, fined and ordered to present himself

before the inquisitor-general for reprimand--a sentence suggestive of

the customary indulgence shown to official malfeasance. Prado also

proposed thirty-one articles of reform, the most important of which was

the deprivation of the fuero, in criminal cases, of familiars and

servants of commissioners; subordinates of the tribunal were to have

regular salaries so as to remove the temptation of accepting bribes, and

there were many other suggestions for improving the operation of the

tribunal, diminishing injustice and relieving the people from abusive

extortions. The Suprema approved of all this and directed Prado to

return to Lima and put the reform into execution, but, when these orders

reached Havana, Prado had sailed for Spain; he did not get back to Lima

until 1596, by which time Ulloa had escaped his sentence by dying and

there is little trace of any reform by Prado, who died January 18,

1599.[639]

Meanwhile the vacant inquisitorship had been filled by the arrival,

February 4, 1594, of the Licentiate Antonio Ordóñez y Flóres. Ulloa at

once announced his intention of visiting the district, which he carried

out in spite of his colleague’s protest to delay until he should have

familiarized himself with the business of the tribunal. Ulloa traversed

the land spreading terror wherever he went by the indulgence of his

passions. A memorial to the inquisitor-general, from a gentleman named

Diego Vanegas, son of a judge of the Contratacion of Seville, affords an

illustration of the reckless abuses possible under such institutions.

When Ulloa, on his way to Charcas, stopped at Cuzco and lodged in the

house of Francisco de Loaysa, a servant of the latter came where Vanegas

and some friends were talking in the public square, and began boasting

of the powers of the inquisitor which were the greatest on earth; there

was, he said, the Licentiate Parra who had some words with a servant of

Ulloa, in consequence of which he was arrested; Ulloa called him a dog

of a Jew, an _ensambenitado_, with other insults and threw him in

prison. Vanegas remarked that they did not wish to hear anything more

about it, and for this he was seized and carried before Ulloa who called

him a scoundrel, an Indian, a dog and other opprobrious epithets. Then

summoning his servants, about twenty persons rushed in whom he told to

kill the rascal. One of them gave him a severe cut on the head while the

rest pummelled him. Doña Mariana, wife of the host, entered and

interceded for him; Ulloa declared that he was going to give him five

hundred lashes, but on her entreaty he diminished it to three hundred,

then to two hundred and finally consented to send him to the corregidor

with orders to banish him. Ulloa left Cuzco the next day but, hearing on

the road that Vanegas had said that he would go to Spain to complain, he

sent back orders to seize him. Vanegas was taken from his bed where he

was recovering from his wounds, was thrown in prison in chains and the

next day was carried to Siguana where Ulloa swore him on the cross, made

him sign a paper without reading it and carried him to Potosí, where he

lay chained in prison for four months. Thence he was sent two hundred

leagues to Santa Cruz de la Sierra, as a soldier condemned to serve for

three years on the frontier or in the galleys. Then he was returned in

chains through Potosí to Misque, being wounded in an attempt to escape.

Carried fifty leagues farther, still in chains, he effected his escape

and, after many perils in four hundred leagues of travel, he reached

Lima, where he reported to the viceroy and with his permission and that

of Ordóñez he was allowed to sail for Spain to present his

complaint.[640]

Ulloa continued his so-called visitation in this fashion until orders

came in October, 1596, to Cepeda, President of the Audiencia of la

Plata, to notify him that his commission would terminate in four months.

He appealed to the viceroy who told him that he must obey it, and Cepeda

ordered him to leave Potosí. He refused, alleging his health, but the

corregidor, Alonso Osorio, communicated to him a further order of the

Audiencia, requiring him to do so in ten days. He still pleaded

sickness, but Osorio arrested him and all his servants and, after three

days, ejected him from the city. He reached Lima, July 7, 1597, and died

six days later at the age of 63. He attributed his disgrace to the

report of a visitador of the Audiencia of Lima that he and his brother,

whom he had made alguazil of the tribunal, had embezzled some three

hundred thousand pesos.[641] If there were even partial truth in the

statement the plea of the poverty of the tribunal can be understood.

Meanwhile Ordóñez had commenced his official career by letting it be

known that all who had claims to collect within the district of the

Inquisition could assign them to him, and they would divide the

proceeds. This was an open invitation to the commission of fraud,

resulting, as the secretary reported, in converting the Holy Office into

a business office. He also took money from the chest--at one time as

much as ten thousand pesos--which he confided to a merchant to trade for

him in Mexico. Before the year was out, the receiver and the secretary

were making bitter complaints of him to the Suprema--he was young,

inexperienced, violent tempered and abusive. Those who came voluntarily

to the tribunal to discharge their consciences were so ill-treated that

they declared they would rather go to hell. He would order the secretary

to alter the evidence and, if a witness remonstrated, he would be

abused and threatened. On his part he wrote equally unfavorable accounts

of his subordinates; he knew that they assailed him but he ascribed this

to the friends of Ulloa and Prado.[642]

Whether the Suprema believed these accusations or not, Ordóñez was not

disturbed and continued to be sole inquisitor, with the exception of the

brief second term of Prado from 1596 to 1599, until the arrival of

Francisco Verdugo, a new inquisitor, towards the close of 1601. He was a

man of different type, who had been advocate in the tribunal of Seville

and fiscal in that of Murcia. While a strenuous persecutor of heresy, he

was not inclined to abuse his office and he shortly reported to the

Suprema that they had suspended a hundred _informaciones_--cases in

preparation--which were without sufficient proof or were matters that

did not concern the Holy Office. Ordóñez continued in office until 1612,

when he became Archbishop of the Nuevo Reino de Granada, a promotion

that was not to his taste, as he complained that the revenues of the see

were insufficient for his decent support. Doubtless it afforded fewer

opportunities than the inquisitorship.[643]

His successor, Andrés Juan Gaitan reached Lima, October 12, 1611; he had

been fiscal of the tribunals of Cuenca and Seville and was therefore

experienced in the work. About the same time Panamá, New Granada and the

Antilles were detached from the tribunal of Lima on the founding of that

of Cartagena.[644] In October, 1623, Verdugo left Lima to occupy the see

of Guamanga, to which he had been promoted. For several years he and

Gaitan had been on such bad terms that they would not speak to each

other, and Gaitan had moreover quarrelled with the Viceroy Guadalcázar,

who had resumed a certain repartimiento of Indians that he had granted

to the inquisitor. His enforcement, moreover, of the royal orders about

the payment of salaries was bitterly resented by the officials and

intensified the embroilment. The vacancy left by Verdugo was soon filled

by Juan de Mañozca who, after founding the tribunal of Cartagena, was

sent as visitador of the Audiencia of Quito and, in place of going

there directly, came to Lima and occupied the position of inquisitor _ad

interim_ much to Gaitan’s disgust. He reported to the Suprema that the

condition of the tribunal was deplorable; unless some action was taken

there would be no Inquisition, but only a gang of men obeying a will the

most obdurate and most terrible that he had ever met, under which the

tribunal was diverted from its proper functions to serve Gaitan’s

interest or caprices, for good or for ill. There was nothing with which

he did not interfere, and that with such violence that he offended all

good men, and even his own faction followed him rather through force

than willingly. The fiscal was a coward; it was a pity to pay their

salaries for they did nothing but impair the authority of the Holy

Office.[645]

In October, 1625, Juan Gutiérrez Flóres arrived to take Verdugo’s place.

In consequence of Mañozca’s representations he was ordered to make a

secret report, which was equally unfavorable. Gaitan, he said,

controlled the tribunal absolutely and supported all the claims of the

officials without regard to justice. This was thoroughly understood by

the people, and we can readily imagine the oppression and terrorism

which afflicted the community. Flóres died, September 22, 1631; and the

tribunal was reinforced by the appointment of Juan de Mañozca and

Antonio de Castro y del Castillo. Gaitan continued to serve for some

years, though infirm with age and sickness, accused to the last of

abusing his position for gain.[646] There soon followed the Portuguese

_complicidad grande_, of which more hereafter, and this, with the

complications of the resultant confiscations, for years afforded the

tribunal abundant occupation more or less legitimate. With its

consequent enrichment there came torpidity and for many years it did

little work and its annals are bare. In June, 1688, there came as

inquisitor Francisco de Valera, transferred from the tribunal of

Cartagena, in order to restore peace to that city, disturbed, as we

shall see hereafter, by a prolonged conflict between him and the bishop,

Benavides y Piedrola. This transfer [Greek:]had been arranged for 1685,

but he had delayed obedience, awaiting the arrival of a successor and,

on reaching Lima, he was met with a command from the Suprema to return

to Spain, which he evaded on the ground that this would leave but a

single inquisitor. He paid no attention to a royal cédula of April 1,

1691, ordering Viceroy Monclova to send him at once to Spain without

listening to excuses, but this was to be expected, for royal commands

were not obeyed by inquisitors unless they were transmitted by the

Suprema. Finally the latter ordered his jubilation or retirement on

half-pay--the usual punishment of inquisitors whose offences were too

flagrant to be overlooked. This reached Lima in 1703, when the tribunal

submissively answered that it would obey the command with due

exactitude, but that Valera had died on the previous second day of

August.[647]