Valera had imparted some vigor to the tribunal and had held public autos

in 1693 and 1694, but there was not another until 1733. His death had

seriously crippled the tribunal, for his colleague Burrelo had died in

1701, the third inquisitor Suárez was old and disabled by asthma, and

the fiscal, Ponte y Andrade, was so prostrated with gout that, for

twenty-two months prior to November, 1704, he could not venture out of

doors. By this time the civil business of the tribunal was greater than

that of the royal Audiencia and it necessarily fell into confusion,

while matters of faith were neglected. Suárez asked the Suprema for help

and it was rendered after the customary fashion, for the fiscal Ponte

was appointed inquisitor and an old professor of law, who had sought the

priesthood, Gaspar Ibañez, was made fiscal. Quarrels arose immediately,

for Ibañez received his commission by private hand and was sworn in

immediately, while that of Ponte came by the galleons. Suárez, who was a

friend of Ibañez, endeavored to enforce the latter’s seniority, which

carried with it considerable emoluments, and this was resisted by Ponte.

By this time there was no distinction of grade between inquisitor and

fiscal; the latter had the title of inquisitor-fiscal, and the

functions were interchangeable, although no one could perform both--that

is of prosecutor and judge--in any given case. Ponte, in 1707, exhaled

his griefs to the Suprema; his colleagues, he said, acted irregularly;

Ibañez assumed to be both fiscal and inquisitor in the same case; the

situation was desperate and the civil business was at a standstill.[648]

For more than a quarter of a century there was no improvement. Slender

as was the business of the tribunal in matters of faith, it was greatly

in arrears. Ibañez, who had become senior inquisitor, was sometimes

unable to sit for three months at a time. Holidays, beyond those on the

register, were taken until they amounted to half the days in the year.

Gutiérrez de Cevallos, one of the inquisitors, on being made Bishop of

Tucuman, in 1730, reported to the Suprema that he had been unable to

expedite matters; there were prisoners who had been confined for

thirteen years, of which eleven had passed since he had, as fiscal,

presented the formal accusations--and we shall see that six more were to

elapse before these dreary trials came to an end in the

_quemadero_.[649]

Ibañez finally fell into dotage. Sánchez Calderon had become his

colleague and Diego de Unda came as fiscal in 1735, to be rated as

inquisitor when Mateo de Amusquíbar, in 1737, assumed the former

position, to be in turn made inquisitor, in 1744, when he had attained

the age of thirty, which was the minimum for that office. Allusion has

been made above to the quarrels over the mismanagement of the finances

by the receiver Ilarduy, with whom Amusquíbar formed an alliance.

Amusquíbar wrote to the Suprema most damaging reports as to his

colleagues; the irregularities committed in serious trials for heresy

and the monstrous contradictions in civil cases. Unda, he said, acceded

to all that Calderon did, and Calderon followed his own whims in

opposition to the precise orders of the Suprema, while the same

disregard of instructions was shown in appointments and in dismissals

from office. There had, indeed, been gross irregularities in the trial

culminating in the great auto of December 23, 1736, in which a woman

and two effigies had been relaxed. One of the effigies was that of a

Jesuit Padre, Juan Francisco de Ulloa, who had died in 1710 with a

reputation of sanctity; the Jesuits had made great efforts to avert it

and were deeply incensed at the disgrace inflicted on the Society. This

may perhaps aid to explain why, when Calderon and Unda sent their

official relation of the cases, the Suprema had replied that it felt the

greatest sorrow and scandal in seeing how the affairs of religion were

treated, in offence both of religion and justice, and of the honor of

the Holy Office, with the threat that, if in future the laws were not

observed, the inquisitors would be dismissed. Calderon and Unda,

moreover, were greatly discredited by their amours. They kept as

concubines two sisters, Magdalena and Bartola Romo, the daughters of the

alcaide of the prison. Magdalena had three daughters whom Calderon

educated in the monastery of las Catalinas, where they were known as

_las inquisidoras_. Romo was an accomplice of Ilarduy, but when Calderon

and Unda dismissed others who were compromised, they retained him on

account of their relations with his daughters.[650]

These scandals and Calderon’s commercial enterprises were weapons used

by Ilarduy who, as we have seen, sent to Spain emissaries with a hundred

thousand pesos to accomplish Calderon’s downfall. One of these, Felipe

de Altolaguirre, Ilarduy’s son-in-law, before his departure, openly

boasted that he would not return without securing Calderon’s dismissal,

and after he came back he publicly spoke of having bribed the

inquisitor-general and Suprema, while Ilarduy said that it had cost him

forty thousand pesos.[651] What was attained was the appointment of a

visitador, armed with supreme powers. The person selected was Pedro

Antonio de Arenaza, inquisitor of Valencia, who was promised a salary of

fourteen thousand pesos and perquisites. If Calderon is to be believed,

Altolaguirre, the envoy of Ilarduy, told him that there were rich

pickings to be had from the fines to be imposed on the inquisitors; that

he could make large profits from merchandise which he could carry with

him; that he would have the appointment of corregidores in Piura and el

Cercado, yielding him thirty-six thousand pesos; that his travelling

expenses would be paid and that, on his return to Spain, he could not

get a seat in the Suprema unless he took with him a hundred thousand

pesos.[652] His experience in Madrid had evidently familiarized him with

the depth of corruption existing there.

The impression conveyed by this is confirmed by the commercial aspect of

the visitador’s voyage, strangely at variance with its object of

reforming abuses. To escape the risk of English cruisers, Altolaguirre

and Arenaza sailed from Lisbon to Rio, the visitador taking with him a

large assortment of goods and some negro slaves for sale. Rio was

reached in the middle of 1744 and Buenos Ayres in November, whence they

passed to Santiago and arrived in Lima early in March, 1745. On March

15th Arenaza presented his credentials and at once examined the funds in

the chest. Two weeks later, when Unda went to the chapel as usual to

hear mass, Arenaza’s notary told him to go to Amusquíbar’s house. As he

was about to enter, the notary made him get into a carriage standing at

the door, when, accompanied by a secretary, he was carried to the

Franciscan convent in the neighboring village of la Magdalena, with

orders to speak to no one. His property was at once embargoed, his house

locked up and placed under guard.

Calderon was arrested in even more unceremonious fashion. He had been

sick in bed for three days when Yrazabal, the alguazil mayor, who had

been reinstated, penetrated to his apartments. His physician and

chaplain, who were with him, were dismissed and an order was read

suspending him from office, embargoing his property and ordering his

departure for Limatamba. Yrazabal collected all the keys, and at once

commenced an inventory which consumed two days. Calderon remained in bed

under guard, with orders to speak to no one and no one was allowed to

leave the premises. The next day he was sent, in Amusquíbar’s coach, to

Limatamba, where two Dominicans were ready to guard him and, on May 3,

he was carried to Guaura. For a month there was busy search for the

sequestrated property. Calderon declared that it consisted mostly of

deposits confided to him, and he says that he was offered reinstatement

and the withdrawal of the visitation, if he would give security for

fifty thousand pesos and Unda for twenty thousand.[653]

Meanwhile Arenaza was openly retailing his negroes and his goods,

through his secretary Gabiria, in rooms obligingly placed at his

disposal by the Jesuits in their college. Ilarduy collected for him the

proceeds and the traffic was so successful that Arenaza was speedily

able to remit to Spain forty thousand four hundred pesos. The friendly

assistance of the Jesuits was due not only to their rancor against

Calderon, but also to their desire to shield one of their members, whose

arrest had been ordered and evaded by hurrying him away and procuring

the arrest of another party in his place. They were Arenaza’s advisers

and Calderon’s transfer to the secret prison had been determined

when an unlooked-for event changed the aspect of affairs. The

Inquisitor-general, Manrique de Lara, died January 10, 1746, and was

succeeded, July 26th, by Pardo y Cuesta. Calderon received the news by

way of Potosí and claimed that Arenaza’s commission expired with the

grantor. He hastened to Lima where he recused Arenaza as his judge,

threatened to shoot him and asked the Count of Superunda, then viceroy,

to give him no support. Superunda was strongly in favor of Arenaza and

ordered Calderon to leave the city within ten hours, nor does it need

Calderon’s accusation that he was bribed to this by the Jesuits.

Arenaza, in a letter to his brother, asserts that Calderon attempted to

buy him off and, when this failed, threatened him, but he would gain

nothing by this “for I am resolved rather to be fried in a frying-pan in

the public plaza.”[654]

Calderon’s faction in the city had been active in discrediting Arenaza

with pamphlets, lampoons and caricatures. The viceroy stood by him,

holding that his commission emanated from the Suprema and had not

lapsed, but still he sought to effect a settlement. At one time it was

agreed that the inquisitors should resume their offices and the

sequestrations be lifted, on their giving security in fifty thousand

pesos to answer judicially to the charges but, from some cause, the

arrangement fell through. Then came the great earthquake of October 28,

1746, followed by pestilence, which, for a time, suspended all action.

Calderon had his agents at work with the Suprema, which resolved, in

April, 1747, that the inquisitors should be restored and the

sequestration be lifted; that Arenaza’s functions should be limited to

the subordinate officials, and that the viceroy should select some one

to replace him as respected the inquisitors. It was nearly a year before

these orders reached Peru, but, on March 4, 1748, Calderon and Unda

entered the city triumphantly, in coaches escorted by a crowd of negroes

and mulattos, with bands of music and scattering of flowers, while the

bells of the convents of which they were patrons sounded a joyous peal,

the demonstration continuing for two days.

Arenaza was humiliated and, when Superunda received a commission in

blank for a new visitador, the warning was quite sufficient to deter any

competent person from accepting the perilous position. All to whom it

was offered declined, pointing out the fate of Arenaza and the danger of

arousing enmities that would blast their honor and reputation. Superunda

therefore brought Arenaza and the inquisitors together and, after a long

conference, it was agreed that the sequestration should be lifted and

that they would sit with Arenaza in the tribunal, but they failed to

comply with their promise and the business was carried on by Arenaza and

Amusquíbar. Unda died, May 27, 1748, of apoplexy following a visit paid

to a house where he had illicit relations with the daughters. His

funeral was dismal, even Calderon refusing to be present, saying that he

had died as he had lived.

Superunda reported to the inquisitor-general that affairs were beyond

remedy by a continuance of the visitation, and Arenaza was ordered to

return to Spain. This order reached Lima at the close of 1750 and he

sailed from Callao August 11, 1751, complaining bitterly that his salary

of fourteen thousand pesos had been cut down to fifty-nine hundred.

Amusquíbar, however, states that he was paid in addition eighteen

thousand five hundred for his outward expenses and living and eight

thousand for those of his return, which conflicts with the statement of

Viceroy Superunda that he embarked wholly destitute of money. He died on

the passage at Cartagena, but his secretary went on to Spain with the

papers of the visitation.

The decision of the Suprema had suspended Calderon until he should

answer judicially the charges made against him, and he consequently

lived in retirement, while the tribunal was carried on by Amusquíbar and

Rodríguez Delgado, who had been sent out to replace Unda. As usual they

quarrelled and, in 1754, Amusquíbar formally demanded that his colleague

should be removed by promotion to the episcopate, for he was inquisitor

only in name, being utterly inefficient and incapable. Rodríguez, on his

side, described Amusquíbar as arbitrary and impenetrably obstinate; a

case had been ready for final sentence for a year, yet he could not be

brought to agree as to its settlement. The sudden death of Rodríguez,

however, October 31, 1756, restored peace and José de Salazar y

Cevallos, who was appointed in his place, died in November, 1757, before

he could assume possession, so that Amusquíbar remained sole inquisitor.

He paid so little attention to his duties that in five months he was

only three times in the audience-chamber and, on the plea of illness, he

absented himself from Lima and appointed as his representative the

fiscal, Bartolomé Lopez Grillo, an act which excited much adverse

comment.

Meanwhile nothing was heard as to the dealings of the Suprema with the

papers of the visitation. They seem to have been gone over with even

more than customary deliberation and we chance to learn that, in 1762,

Calderon was charged with improper conduct of the cases of Bartolomé

Cortez de Umansoro and Andrés de Muguruza. In 1763 the Suprema adopted

the expedient of sending to the Viceroy Armat y Yuniant blank

commissions by which to appoint two competent ecclesiastics who with

Amusquíbar should form the court to try the charges. The instructions

reached Lima in 1764, by which time both Calderon and Amusquíbar had

passed away and thus, some twenty years after its inception, the

visitation died a natural death, every one concerned in it having passed

to a higher jurisdiction.[655]

A paralysis had fallen on the tribunal and from this time its functions

almost ceased, although its organization was kept complete and its

pay-roll suffered no diminution. One of its last autos was held in 1773,

in which only eight penitents appeared. Possibly this torpidity only

rendered its official positions more attractive, for they came to be a

matter of almost open bargain and sale. In 1789, Cristóbal de Cos, chief

clerk in the secretariat of the Suprema, commenced to traffic in them

through his agent, Fernando Piélago, one of the secretaries of the Lima

tribunal. To save the expense of transportation, the Suprema had for

some time adopted the practice of appointing natives or residents of

Peru, which may have given rise to the sale of offices or may, perhaps,

only have rendered it notorious, for Cos could not have transacted the

business without the connivance and participation of his superiors.

Piélago himself had paid three thousand pesos for his position, and

Manuel de Vado Calderon the same, for the office of secretary of

sequestrations. Narciso de Aragon gave six hundred for a minor position

and three cases are mentioned in which sums were paid for jubilation, or

retirement on half-pay, with the privilege of appointing a successor.

The culmination was reached in the career of Pedro Zalduegui, who

commenced as sweeper and sacristan of the chapel of the tribunal. He was

wholly illiterate, but he was a shrewd trader and he paid the capellan

mayor of the tribunal a thousand pesos to surrender his place to him.

Finally, through Piélago and Cos, he bought the position of inquisitor

for the sum of fourteen thousand ducats; there was little concealment in

the transaction and the scandal was great. The Suprema was obliged to

order an investigation which it confided to the Inquisitors Abarca and

Matienzo. In a letter of November 8, 1794, they confirmed the reports as

to the sale of offices and the incompetence of those who bought them.

Against this Zalduegui, in 1796, defended himself, by asserting that the

trouble arose from his refusal to join with his colleagues in their

mismanagement of the affairs of the tribunal for their private

interests. At length he manifested his gross ignorance in a controversy

with Bartolomé Guerrero on the intricate question of sanctifying grace;

they obliged him to define his position and, on the strength of the

doctrinal error involved, they prosecuted him and suspended him from

office. That the Suprema restored him is fairly suggestive of another

payment and he retained his office till the last.[656]

* * * * *

Inquisitors of the character thus indicated, owning no superior save the

distant inquisitor-general and Suprema, armed with the terrible power of

excommunication which none but themselves could remove, judging all and

judged by none, could not fail to be a disturbing element in the

colonial administration. They were at the head of a body of officials

and familiars, scattered over the land, who enjoyed exemption from all

other jurisdiction, secular and ecclesiastical, and who were sure,

whatever crimes they might commit, to find protection and mercy in the

tribunal. Even their servants and slaves had the benefit of this _fuero_

and formed a peculiarly obnoxious class in the community. The

maintenance and extension of these privileges involved the tribunal in

constant strife with the authorities, lay and spiritual, quarrels which

were carried on with a violence frequently destructive to the public

peace. The governmental officials, however high-placed, who sought to

curb inquisitorial arrogance, could have slender hope of support from

their royal master. As we have seen in the chapter on Mexico, there was

preserved in the Madrid archives the formula of a letter addressed to

viceroys, insisting on their subservience to the Inquisition. This in

1603 was duly sent to the Marquis of Monterey, Viceroy of Peru.[657] How

often this was repeated it would be impossible to say, but in 1655, at

least, it was sent to the Count of Alba by Philip IV, as a warning in

consequence of some squabbles in which he came to be involved with the

tribunal.[658] When the colonial Inquisitions were founded, Philip II,

by a cédula of August 16, 1570, took the inquisitors and all the

officials under the royal protection and decreed that any one, no matter

of what rank, who disturbed or injured them should incur the penalty of

violating the safeguard, and this was repeated by Philip III in

1610.[659]

Francisco de Toledo, the first viceroy who had to deal with the

Inquisition, was a man of decided character who, by holding the

purse-strings, managed to keep within bounds Cerezuela, who was of a

yielding disposition. There was dissension however, for which Alonso de

Arceo, canon of la Plata, decried him as a heretic and a forger, whom

the tribunal dared not accuse, but when Toledo asked it to prosecute

him, it evaded the request.[660] The next viceroy, the Count del Villar,

was weaker, while Ulloa, as we have seen, enforced the prerogatives of

the Holy Office with a masterful hand. The quarrels which arose were

long and intricate and were conducted in a way to abase thoroughly the

vice-regal authority. We have seen that Villar banished Catalina Morejon

to put an end to the scandal of her relations with Inquisitor Ulloa;

this may have been either the cause or a result of the ill-feeling

between them, but motives for dissension could not be lacking, when the

domineering spirit of the tribunal refused obedience to all constituted

authority, and could always frame some excuse for asserting its superior

jurisdiction.

May 30, 1587, the English made a descent on Payta, where they burnt some

churches and convents and desecrated some images. They had been piloted

into the port by Gerónimo de Rivas, an inhabitant of Payta, whom they

had captured at sea and who remained after their departure. The deputy

corregidor naturally arrested him and Villar ordered him to be sent by

land to Lima for examination. In some way the inquisitorial

commissioner, the Mercenarian Fray Pedro Martínez, was interested in him

and to save him claimed and obtained him from the corregidor as a fautor

of heretics, justiciable by the Inquisition. He was forwarded by sea to

Lima and was withheld from the viceroy. In August Fray Martínez came to

Lima to attend a chapter of his Order, which made him comendador of his

ruined convent so that he could rebuild it. Villar, who felt much

aggrieved, forbade the Provincial, Fray Thomas de Valdez, to issue the

commission, but the tribunal interposed and by threats of

excommunication compelled its delivery. Soon after this, at the auto of

November 30, 1587, there arose a quarrel, probably about the

distribution of seats, which resulted in the excommunication of the

viceroy, who was compelled to seek absolution.

Villar sustained an even more humiliating defeat in another encounter

which exhibits the elasticity of inquisitorial jurisdiction. A young man

named Antonio de Arpide y Ulloa (possibly of kin to Inquisitor Ulloa)

came to Lima, with orders to admit him to a “lance” in the lancers of

the guard, which was accordingly done. Ulloa appointed him fiscal of the

tribunal, although, according to the Visitador Prado, he was naturally

ill-conditioned, a youth in all things, careless in his office, and it

was a scandal to see a fiscal wearing the garments of a layman. Villar

thereupon discharged him from the guard, replacing him with Don Luis de

Nevares, for the sufficient reason that the two positions were

incompatible and that no one could enjoy two salaries. Arpide petitioned

the tribunal for relief; as its official he was entitled to its fuero

and the viceroy had no authority over him. The tribunal confirmed this

view; the viceroy had no right to dismiss him, and it ordered, under a

penalty of a thousand pesos, the officers of the guard to strike from

the rolls the name of Nevares and replace that of Arpide, to whom the

salary must be paid. The officers represented that they were under the

viceroy’s orders, when they were told that they had thus incurred

excommunication and the penalty. The affair was put into the shape of a

suit between Arpide and Nevares, in which the tribunal of course gave a

decision in favor of the former and, when the latter appealed the

Suprema, it refused to allow the appeal.

There was another source of trouble in the case of Dr. Salinas, a man of

evil reputation, who was appointed advocate of prisoners. Previous to

this appointment he had uttered disparaging remarks about the viceroy,

and had a quarrel with his secretary Juan Bello. Villar procured the

assent of Ruiz de Prado and arrested Salinas, prosecuted him and

subjected him to severe torture in the course of the trial. Then the

tribunal interfered and Villar surrendered him and all the papers. This

did not satisfy Ulloa and Prado, who forgot their mutual strife and

united to give the viceroy a final blow, as his five years’ term of

service was drawing to an end. Formal proceedings were commenced against

him. September 26, 1589, Arpide as fiscal presented his _clamosa_ or

indictment, representing that Villar had always been disaffected to the

Inquisition, had talked against it, had impeded it and had diminished

its authority as far as he could. In the case of his secretary, Juan

Bello, he had sent a threatening message; at the auto of November 30,

1587, he had invented means to deprive it of the services of its

officials; as soon as Dr. Salinas received an appointment, he had

prosecuted him for trifling words uttered long before; in the case of

Gabriel Martínez de Esquivel, familiar in Huanuco, he had ordered him to

report forthwith in Spain to the Council of Indies and, when asked by

the tribunal for his reasons, he had made an offensive reply; he had

even made investigations against the persons and reputations of the

inquisitors themselves. From all this, which was notorious, it followed

that he had incurred the pains and censures provided by the bull _Si de

protegendis_ of Pius V (April 1, 1569), against all who offend or

despise the officials of the Inquisition, wherefore the tribunal was

asked to declare him to have incurred these censures, notwithstanding

any absolution _ad cautelam_ which he might have obtained, so that he

might serve as an example to all Christian people of their obligation to

respect and reverence everything connected with the Holy Office.

Without going through the prescribed formalities of submitting the

matter to calificadores and assembling consultores and, without hearing

the accused, the tribunal that same morning decreed that Villar had

incurred the censures of the bull of Pius V, while for the other

penalties prescribed in it he was remitted to the Suprema. To this the

viceroy replied, October 3d, that he had only sought to perform the

duties of his office, but seeing that they had declared him to be under

the excommunication of the bull, as an obedient son of the Church he

begged for absolution and asked that it be speedy, as he was under

orders to sail for Spain. For an answer to this he waited until the

16th, when he sent a judge and alcalde de corte, both consultors of the

Inquisition, to the tribunal to enquire about his petition. There was

read to them a reply, dated on the 14th, to the effect that the

inquisitors had repeatedly intimated to him that he had incurred these

censures and, in fact, it was so self-evident that every one could have

known it, for every one knows that all incur them who impede the

Inquisition directly or indirectly, or who ill-treat, in word or deed,

the inquisitors or officials to the injury of their reputation and

authority, and that good intentions are powerless to avert it. The

viceroy’s acts had been so notorious that it was needless to recite them

and, before absolution could be granted, condign satisfaction must be

rendered for them, especially to Dr. Diego de Salinas, while, as

regarded the injuries to the Holy Office, he was referred to the

Suprema. As it had long been evident that he was under these censures,

without seeking their removal, and as he was about to undertake a long

and perilous voyage, the inquisitors had been moved by loving charity to

bring him to a recognition of the condition of his soul. They were ready

to absolve him as soon as he should do what was requisite and, in

consideration of his station, he should be spared the solemnities

required by law.

After some parleying this portentous document was delivered to Villar on

the 19th and on the 27th he replied at much length. He had never been

told that he was under excommunication, or he would at once have applied

for absolution. He had always favored and enriched the Inquisition; he

had not proceeded against Dr. Salinas till assured by Prado that he

could do so, and he had surrendered him and the papers, January 11,

1589, as soon as he was summoned. Then Prado, after consulting Ulloa,

had given to Fray Pedro de Molina a commission to absolve him _ad

cautelam_, in case he had incurred excommunication for that or anything

else, and he had received the absolution with great satisfaction, but

the certificate had been withdrawn more than a month ago, and since then

he had abstained from hearing mass or taking the sacraments, except on

the feast of San Francisco (October 4th) when he had special licence

from the inquisitors. He did not know how he was to give satisfaction to

Dr. Salinas, as the matter had been remitted to the Suprema which, with

the king, would do as they might see fit. Meanwhile, as a gentleman and

an humble and obedient son of the Church, he again prayed for

absolution.

The victory of the tribunal and the humiliation of the viceroy were

complete. When the inquisitors read his petition, October 27th, they

issued to Antonio de Balcázar, provisor of the archdiocese, a commission

to absolve him, at the same time admonishing him to present himself to

the Suprema as early as possible. They also gave him the papers of the

suit brought against him by Dr. Salinas, in order to enable him to make

his defence before the Suprema. Villar received the absolution with much

humility and satisfaction, as a great favor from the inquisitors, and on

the 28th the provisor was summoned, who solemnly absolved him in the

chapel of the palace.[661]

Yet Villar was so little reassured that, on his voyage home, he wrote

from Havana to implore the protection of the king from the enmity of

Salinas. He rehearsed the services of his ancestors to the monarchy,

while of his children five sons had been killed and one crippled in the

king’s wars with heretics and infidels, two more were then serving and

two were in training for service, while two had died in the priesthood.

His fears were probably groundless for the Suprema, in a letter to

Prado, blamed him for the dissensions in the tribunal which it

attributed to his favor for Salinas, a man of such evil life and

tortuous methods that he alone would throw any republic into discord.

Apparently it did not as yet know that the secret of the influence of

Salinas was the relations of his sister-in-law with Prado, a scandal

which continued until Prado’s recall.[662]

It has seemed worth while to give somewhat in detail the particulars of

this obscure quarrel to illustrate the position adopted by the tribunal

towards the highest authorities, its arrogant assumption of superiority,

and the readiness with which its jurisdiction could be extended in any

desired direction. It can easily be perceived how difficult was the task

of the viceroys to maintain an efficient government, and to keep the

peace with so independent and so unruly a factor in the land. But few of

them escaped collisions, although it does not appear that in any

subsequent case the quarrel went so far as the institution of a formal

prosecution against the personal representative of the king. It is not

surprising therefore that, however pious were the viceroys, they were

almost unanimous in deprecating the acts and the influence of the Holy

Office. The Count del Villar naturally exhaled his woes in long and

lugubrious epistles to the king. His successor, the Count of Cañete, as

early in his term as 1589, complained bitterly of the exemptions through

which all connected with the Holy Office admitted responsibility to no

one. This gave rise to endless trouble, for every one who was summoned

to have his accounts examined, or who refused to pay his dues to the

royal treasury, procured a familiarship or some office and with it

secured exemption. Even Alvaro Ruiz de Navamuel, the government

secretary, had himself made a familiar and auditor, and assumed that he

was not subject to investigation. The royal officials were familiars-one

of them at Arequipa, when called upon for his accounts, refused because

he was a familiar.[663] Government conducted after this fashion seems

like _opéra bouffe_.

In like manner the Viceroy Luis de Velasco, in 1604, represented

strongly to Philip III the intrusion of the tribunal on other

jurisdictions and its overbearing methods, so that the superior royal

officials, on whom rested the peace and quiet of the land, had to

abandon their rights to avoid scandals. As for himself, sometimes he

temporized, sometimes he yielded, and sometimes he pretended not to see,

in order to avoid dissension, for, when the tribunal was opposed, it

made public demonstrations, which degraded the authority of the

vice-regal office and of the Royal Audiencia. So, in 1609, the Viceroy

Marquis of Montesclaros, in representing some scandalous ill-treatment

of the alcaldes of the city, declared that the inquisitors were

arbitrary and assumed that there was no power superior to them to

restrain or even to resist them.[664] It was probably representations

such as these which led to the concordias of 1610 and 1633. In these

some of the more flagrant usurpations of authority were forbidden, but

the underlying principles were unchanged and we have seen how, in

Mexico, the attempted reform was frustrated.

The Viceroy Count of Alba de Aliste was involved in many encounters with

the tribunal, for which, as noted above, in 1655, Philip IV sent him a

copy of the circular letter of 1603 commanding respect and obedience.

This did not prevent him, in 1657, from writing that the reiteration and

multiplication of its excesses of jurisdiction might render it necessary

for him to break with it altogether, as the only way of maintaining the

authority of the Government.[665] With the advent of the Bourbon

dynasty, the consequent infusion of Gallicanism in Spain, and the

resolute assertion of the regalías, the authority of the viceroys was

more fully recognized, and we hear less, in the eighteenth century, of

their struggles to maintain it against the tribunal. Yet the latter did

not cease to assert the superiority of its jurisdiction and to extend it

as far as possible, giving rise to a perpetual succession of embittered

contests with the other judicial organizations, to the detriment of the

public peace and the weakening of the functions of government. Even

after its decadence had fairly set in, as late as 1773, the Viceroy

Manuel Amat y Yunient writes that the Inquisition, so necessary for the

purity of the faith, would be more useful and respected if it would

confine itself to its proper functions, for its cognizance of civil

cases has always led to collisions with the royal courts, which are

particularly prejudicial at this distance from the king and, though

there have been concordias and royal cédulas to prevent them, there are

never lacking occasions to revive the contention to the great disquiet

of the people.[666]

The eighteenth century, in fact, presents an almost continuous series of

quarrels with all the different jurisdictions, the existence of which so

greatly weakened the organization of the Spanish colonial system, and

these quarrels were fought out with a persistent bitterness, sometimes

degenerating into violence, which taxed to the utmost the efforts of the

viceroys as peacemakers. Into the trivial details of these dreary

conflicts it is not worth while to enter at length, but a single case

may be briefly described, to illustrate the ferocity displayed by all

parties and the confusion arising from the complexity of the multiplied

judicial systems which influenced Spanish development so unfortunately.

On November 11, 1723, two brothers, the Licentiates Juan and Martin

Lobaton, presented themselves before the tribunal to claim its

protection. Juan was cura or parish priest of Soras and commissioner of

the Inquisition in Guancabelica; Martin was cura of Viñao and “persona

honesta” or cleric called in to be present when witnesses ratified their

evidence. Both parishes were in the see of Guamanga, then _sede vacante_

and governed by the chapter, which had required Juan to account for the

property of an Indian woman, a parishioner who had died some two years

previous, and it had ordered him not to leave Guamanga, under penalty of

excommunication, whereupon he had promptly fled to Lima. In his case,

the fiscal reported that the matter did not concern the Inquisition and

the papers were returned to the episcopal Ordinary. Martin had assisted

his brother’s flight and for this he was confined to his house by the

episcopal authorities and a coadjutor appointed, to the great scandal

and destruction, we are told, of the parish. In this case the tribunal

assumed jurisdiction; it ordered him, June 2, 1724, to be restored and

his property released, on his giving security, and the chapter was

ordered to prosecute before the Inquisition whatever charges it had to

bring against him.

Martin meanwhile had the town of Guamanga as a prison. On the afternoon

of April 30th, as he was standing in the street, the dean of the

chapter, who was also commissioner of the Inquisition, passed in his

carriage, then got out and scolded him roundly for not taking off his

hat. Martin withdrew, but the dean, still unsatisfied, went to his house

with the alcalde, broke open the door and embargoed all his goods--even

to his clothes and breviary--then summoned the chapter and by 5 o’clock

had him excommunicated and fined twenty pesos, as the papers stated,

for not removing his hat to the dean an hour before, and notices of the

excommunication were duly affixed to the doors of the churches.

When the inquisitorial sentence of June 2d was served upon the chapter

it said that it had nothing against Martin, but when his embargoed

property came to be restored much of it was found to have been stolen by

the depositaries to whom it had been confided. The tribunal held the

chapter responsible and ordered the loss to be made good, under threat

of excommunication. The chapter replied, September 29th, that the case

belonged to the bishop and chapter and its previous surrender of the

papers had been without prejudice. Then Fray Luis de Cabrera, prior of

the Augustinian convent, to whom the sentence had been sent as executor,

excommunicated the chapter. The archdeacon as Commissioner of the

Cruzada, declared the excommunication void, ordered the notices to be

removed, and replaced them with others excommunicating Cabrera as a

disturber of the Bull of the Cruzada. Cabrera responded by

excommunicating the alguazil and notary of the Cruzada and, on October

2d, the archdeacon pronounced these excommunications to be null.

When the tribunal heard of this, by orders of October 18th and 27th it

declared the excommunications on both sides to be null; it put the

matter of the chapter in the hands of Luis de Mendoza, rector of the

Jesuit college, and it ordered Cabrera to push the restitution of

Martin’s property, but not to employ censures without instructions. This

was the situation when the new bishop, Alfonso Roldan, arrived at Lima

and, on its being stated to him, he expressed himself as satisfied. Then

Martin came before the tribunal asserting that one of the depositaries,

Juan Joseph Lasco, who had stolen most of the goods, had pawned some

silverware of his with a merchant named Joseph de Villanueva, and asking

their restoration on his proving property. Consequently on March 14,

1725, orders were sent to Cabrera that, if the silver were proved to be

Martin’s, it should be deposited in safe hands. This was done on April

5th, when Villanueva deposed that Lasco had pawned with him

ninety-three marks of silver plate. He was ordered to deposit it and

promised to do so but, on the 7th, he testified that the day before the

bishop had ordered him not to surrender the silver but to tell Cabrera

to throw up the commission of the Inquisition and any other that he

might hold. This was followed by the archdeacon notifying Martin to go

to his parish in sixteen hours and, on his representing the

impossibility of this, as he had been a prisoner for a year and was

deprived of his property, he was posted as an excommunicate. After

considerable delay he was absolved and was told to stay in the city, but

on falling sick and unable to assist in the church, he was

excommunicated again and recluded in his house.

All this is a one-sided relation, furnished by the tribunal to the

Suprema. It evidently omits much that would show the tribunal in a less

favorable light, as the outcome indicates, for in it there is nothing to

justify the intervention of the viceroy and Audiencia. Yet we learn from

another source that Cabrera had arbitrarily excommunicated and fined the

alcalde of Guamanga who complained to the Audiencia, and on October 30,

1724, the viceroy notified the tribunal that the Audiencia, after

considering the evidence, had resolved that the Inquisition should

restrain its officials. A correspondence ensued, continued until the

summer of 1725, in which the tribunal complained that the viceroy and

Audiencia were assuming to be the superiors of the Inquisition, in

violation of the laws and the royal cédulas. The affair finally took the

shape of a competencia referred for settlement to the Suprema and the

Council of Indies. The Suprema took high ground; it alone could review

the acts of the tribunal or entertain appeals, and no other authority

had power to intervene. This might have answered under Philip IV, but

times had changed. A decree of Philip V, February 1, 1729, ordered it to

correct the excesses of the tribunal by such means as it deemed

requisite, and to this it replied, April 16th, that it had revoked the

acts of the tribunal in the affair of Martin Lobaton, ordering the

surrender of all papers to the Ordinary and judge of Cruzada before

whom he must plead; that it had entirely disapproved the proceedings of

the tribunal and that it had instructed the inquisitors hereafter to

observe the provisions of the law.[667]

The Cruzada jurisdiction which emerges in this case was another of the

subdivisions of judicial authority, which so fatally complicated the

administration of justice in the Spanish dominions and furnished an

abundant source of quarrels. The indulgence known as the Santa Cruzada

supplied a large revenue to the crown and the organization for its sale

was elaborate. At its head was a chief commissioner who held exclusive

jurisdiction, civil and criminal, over his subordinates and, although

this was by law confined to their official acts, yet it was, as we have

just seen, extended to protect them in every way.[668] While the case

just mentioned was in progress, another prolonged quarrel arose,

similarly involving all three jurisdictions. Don Antonio de Marcategui,

the priest of Quiquixana, was also a commissioner of the Inquisition. As

such he was already engaged in a contest with the episcopal provisor of

Cuzco, in which the Suprema decided against him and ordered all his acts

to be revoked. While this was pending he celebrated mass in the

chapter’s chapel of the Virgin, on a feast-day, without first settling

with the Cruzada for the indulgences gained there by the worshippers

under some old concessions. For this Don Juan de Ugarte, commissioner of

the Cruzada in Cuzco, on January 8, 1724, notified him that he was fined

in three hundred pesos, and also excommunicated him without trial.

Marcategui went to Cuzco and laid the matter before Bishop Arregui, who

sided with Ugarte. After some further trouble the corregidor was sent to

arrest him and sequestrate his property; he gathered together some

Indians and Spaniards for resistance but thought better of it and

escaped to Lima when, on appealing to the Inquisition, it declared all

the proceedings to be invalid and ordered the surrender to it of all

the papers. The bishop however sent his papers to the viceroy and Ugarte

his to the Cruzada tribunal of Lima. The inquisitors demanded the former

from the viceroy and asked him to compel the Cruzada to surrender the

latter, but the viceroy refused, alleging that what he held concerned

the royal _patronato_ and that he had no control over the Cruzada, whose

jurisdiction was ecclesiastical, exempt and privileged. To a second

demand, he expressed the wise determination not to get entangled in

ecclesiastical matters and jurisdictions, and he further claimed

cognizance of the case of the corregidor, whom the Inquisition was

prosecuting for sequestrating Marcategui’s property and attempting his

arrest. He stubbornly rejected repeated requests and he finally ordered

the tribunal to suspend its summons to Ugarte to appear before it. The

case was carried to Spain to vex the souls of the Suprema, the Council

of Indies and the Commissioner of the Cruzada. In 1729 the king decided

against the Inquisition and ordered the case to be surrendered to the

Cruzada and the episcopal court, but it still dragged on and, in 1733, a

royal decree ordered the Inquisition to obey the Concordias and the

laws, but even this was not the end, how it was finally settled matters

little; its only interest lies in illustrating the hopelessly

impracticable character of Spanish colonial organization and

administration.[669]

These defeats of the Inquisition were followed soon afterwards by a

still greater invasion of the privileges of the inquisitorial employees.

A citizen of Lima pursued a slave into the house of a salaried official,

whereupon the tribunal forthwith ordered his arrest. The royal Audiencia

intervened, representing to the viceroy, the Marquis of Castel-Fuerte,

that the officials enjoyed only the passive and not the active fuero;

that the pretensions of the Inquisition, if admitted, would destroy the

royal jurisdiction, and that an order should be issued requiring the

aggrieved party to plead in the Audiencia. This opinion the viceroy

sent to the tribunal with a request that it should abstain. It replied

that the official had withdrawn his complaint on account of the

apologies made to him, but that the tribunal could not assent to the

position of the Audiencia without committing the grave fault of

crippling its powers. A considerable correspondence ensued in which the

Audiencia asserted decisively that, in matters not connected with faith,

the officials of the Inquisition did not enjoy the fuero and much less

the active fuero; that there were no laws or customs to contravene the

settled principle that the plaintiff or prosecutor must seek the court

of the defendant. To this the tribunal replied that the Audiencia had no

authority to frame general rules in contravention of laws and customs,

and that the matter must be settled by the Suprema. Castel-Fuerte

rejoined that the competence of the royal court was not to be impugned,

that the Suprema had cognizance only of matters of faith and that to

admit the contrary was to place the whole administration of justice at

the mercy of the tribunal.[670]

These were brave words which a century earlier would have consigned the

utterer to disgrace. They were the denial of the privileges and

exemptions which the Inquisition had enjoyed for nearly two centuries

and a half, and their significance lies in their expression of the

tendencies of the period. In time those tendencies brought about their

inevitable development. In 1744 there was a contest over the will of D.

Felix Antonio de Vargas, in the consulado or commercial court. A

secretary of the tribunal claimed to have an interest in the estate, and

it consequently asserted jurisdiction over the whole affair. This was

resisted by the consulado, and Viceroy Villagarcia ordered a _sala de

competencia_ to decide between the conflicting claims, according to

established rule. The tribunal refused, on the ground that its rights

were too clear to be called in question. While this was pending,

Superunda succeeded to Villagarcia and, after no little trouble, he

induced the visitador Arenaza to agree to a _sala reflexa_, to

determine whether a _sala de competencia_ should be held. Then there

came fresh trouble on the side of the senior judge of the Consulado, but

finally the decision was reached that the officials of the Inquisition

were entitled to the active fuero. When Superunda reported the matter to

Fernando VI there resulted the royal cédula of June 20, 1751, declaring

that the officials should enjoy only the passive fuero, and this in both

civil cases and those criminal ones not excepted by the concordias,

while their servants and the familiars were wholly deprived of it. In

the case in question, the papers were to be surrendered to the

Consulado; in future no sala reflexa was to be held and, when the matter

was so clear as in this one, the viceroy should decide it, as the effort

was manifestly an assault on the regalías.

By this time Arenaza had departed and the inquisitors were Amusquíbar

and Rodríguez. The latter was disposed to accept the royal cédula

without dispute, but Amusquíbar refused to obey it on the ground that it

had not come with the confirmation of the Suprema. A long wrangle

ensued, but at length another cédula of February 29, 1760, was received,

ordering the observance of the previous one, and this time it was

accompanied by a corresponding decree of the Suprema. These were

communicated to the tribunal, March 24, 1761, which, seeing that further

resistance was useless, promptly promised obedience. This was followed

by a demand for the papers of the estate of Vargas, which, after an

interval of seventeen years, was at length placed in train for

adjudication.[671]

This settled the question as to the civil jurisdiction of the tribunal

and simultaneously another case put an end to conflicts over criminal

matters. A negro slave of the alguazil mayor had been arrested for some

offence; the tribunal demanded the prisoner with its customary threats

of fines and excommunications. The affair was pending when the cédula of

1760 was received; the Audiencia thereupon served on the tribunal an

inhibition to issue letters of excommunication and fine against the

alcaldes del crimen and proceeded to try the slave. The cédula was sent

to all the judicial officers of the vice-royalty and they were ordered

to defend the royal jurisdiction in all cases covered by it. To the

arrogant temper of Amusquíbar this limitation of the traditional

jurisdiction of the Inquisition must have been gall and wormwood, but it

was worth much to the peace of the land. In 1796, the Viceroy, Frey

Francisco Gil de Taboado y Lemos, tells us that it had put an end to the

former conflicts between the jurisdictions.[672]

We have seen how neglectful was Amusquíbar of the real duties of his

office, but he found time and energy to keep Barroeta y Angel, the

Archbishop of Lima, in a condition of exasperation for years, and in

this he seems to have had the support not only of the Suprema but of

Fernando VI. What was the origin of the dissension between them does not

appear, but Barroeta lost no opportunity of exercising his authority for

Amusquíbar’s annoyance and always to his own discomfiture. The rupture

must already have been pronounced when, October 4, 1752, Barroeta wrote

calling his attention to the fact that his licence as confessor had not

been renewed, while in spite of this he continued his visits to the

nunneries of the Recollects, which was unfitting his position and was

prohibited; his ceasing these visits would relieve the Archbishop from

further proceedings. This sharp provocation was disarmed by cool

insolence. Amusquíbar delayed a reply until November 14th, when he

simply said that he had postponed acknowledging the note in order to be

temperate, and he now omitted answering it in order not to fail in the

respect due to his own office and the dignity of the archbishop.

Barroeta transmitted the correspondence to the Suprema for redress and

obtained none. Amusquíbar, however, ceased his visits but kept up a

correspondence. So it was, in 1756, when Barroeta called upon Amusquíbar

and Rodríguez for a statement of settlements with creditors and sales of

farms belonging to chaplaincies, in order that he might see that the

souls of the founders were reaping the benefits designed in the

foundations. The inquisitors replied that it was impossible and, on his

asking why, replied that it was on account of the mode of his demand;

the archbishop could send his fiscal and any special question about any

special foundation would be answered. Again he forwarded the letters to

the Suprema but its only action was to file them away. He had equal

ill-luck in all the questions that he raised. In 1751 the Suprema sent

to Amusquíbar its approval and that of the king, as to his conduct in an

encounter with Barroeta over jubilee faculties for absolving for heresy.

Then Barroeta claimed that the inquisitors should submit to him their

licences to celebrate and hear confessions, but the king decided against

him. Barroeta transferred the delegation of his inquisitorial

jurisdiction from his Ordinary to another person; the tribunal disputed

it and the king decided in its favor. He undertook to deprive the

inquisitors of their faculties as confessors, and only provoked fresh

rebukes from Spain. He issued an edict on fasting which the tribunal

prohibited; then he printed it at the end of his Synodal Constitutions

only to have the prohibition confirmed and the decision approved by the

Suprema. There was a question about the notary of the episcopal court

going to the tribunal to report certain acts, in which the Suprema

sustained its action, and the visits of ceremony between them was a

fruitful source of controversy.[673] Barroeta died, December 10, 1757,

his whole episcopate marred with these little squabbles. It is all very

petty, but it illustrates how the relations of the Inquisition with the

spiritual authorities were as unfriendly as with the temporal.

* * * * *

Thus far we have considered the activity of the tribunal in matters

foreign to its original purpose, which, indeed, were the most important

portion of its record. As regards its proper function, that of

maintaining the purity of the faith, its chief business in Peru, as in

Spain, was with a class of cases which could only by forced construction

be considered as heretical. Bigamists furnished a large proportion of

penitents--the adventurer who left a wife in Andalusian Córdoba was apt

to take a new one in Córdova de Tucuman and chance might at any time

bring detection, while, even in Peru itself, distances were so great and

intercommunication so difficult, that the seeker after fortune was

easily tempted in his wanderings to duplicate the sacrament of

matrimony. Blasphemy was another prolific source of prosecution, for the

gambling habit was universal and lost none of its provocative character

in crossing the ocean. Sorcery moreover, including the innumerable

superstitions for creating love or hatred, curing or causing disease,

bringing fortune or averting misfortune, and foretelling the future,

which were technically held to include implicit or explicit pact with

the demon, brought an ample store of culprits before the tribunal. To

the mass of superstitious beliefs carried from home by the Spaniards

were speedily superadded those of the native wise-women and a sprinkling

taught by Guinea negro slaves. We find but few whites among these

offenders, but every other caste is represented--negro, mulatto,

quadroon, mestizo and sambo and sometimes Indian, for in this crime the

jurisdiction of the Inquisition over the Indians seems to have been

admitted. One feature of Indian sorcery which constantly meets us is the

use of the drug coca, owing to the marvellous properties attributed to

it, akin to the _peyote_ which, in Mexico, was employed to produce

fatidical dreams and revelations. Both of these were strictly prohibited

by the respective Inquisitions.[674]

No specific cases of witchcraft occur in the autos de fe, but, in 1629,

a special Edict of Faith directed against the occult arts and sorcery

was published, enumerating all the forbidden practices in minute detail

and forming a curious body of superstitions and folk-lore, much more

extensive than anything of the kind issued in Spain. It brought in, we

are told, numerous denunciations, but the practices were ineradicable

and continued to flourish until the end. The virtual paralysis of the

tribunal in the later years of Amusquíbar caused many complaints, among

which was one from Córdova de Tucuman to the Suprema, representing that,

in the interior provinces, sorcery was universal; there was no case of

sickness that was not attributed to it, but denunciations and testimony

sent to the tribunal received no attention and, as the civil magistrates

were precluded from acting, it flourished unrepressed.[675]

Propositions, which furnished so large a portion of the work of the

Spanish tribunals, afforded a much smaller percentage in Peru. This is

probably attributable to lack of intellectual activity, for some of the

cases tried indicate that the susceptibility of the Inquisition was as

delicate as in Spain, and that there was the same readiness to denounce

any careless speech or ill-sounding remark uttered in vexation or anger.

Thus, in 1592, Felipe de Lujan was tried because, when looking at a

picture of the Last Judgement, he said it was not well painted, for

Christ was not with the Apostles. Juan de Arianza had the indelible

disgrace of appearing in the auto of February 27, 1631, because, when

reading the Scriptures, he exclaimed “Ea! there is nothing but living

and dying,” which sounded ill to those who heard it. A case, which came

near to ending in tragedy, was that of Antonio de Campos who, for

uttering certain heretical propositions and adhering to them

pertinaciously, was condemned to relaxation. Fortunately for him the

expense of a public auto was too great to be incurred for him and the

Suprema was consulted, in 1672. During the delay thus caused it was

found that his real name was Fray Teodoro de Ribera and that his brain

had been turned by a potion given to him by a woman. This afforded a

solution and he was handed over as insane to his Provincial. A case in

1721 is noteworthy as illustrating the dangers which environed all

speculations connected with the Church. A Frenchman, known as Juan de

Ullos, was denounced for saying that neither the pope nor a general

council was the head of the Church. In due course this proposition was

submitted to two calificadores, Padre Luis de Andrade, S. J., and the

Mercenarian Fray Francisco Galiano. It was probably through some vague

reference to Gallicanism that they reported that the qualification was

difficult because the accused was a Frenchman, and for this they were

imprisoned, with sequestration of their property.[676]

As we have already seen in Mexico (p. 241), one of the most frequent

offences, not strictly heretical, with which the Inquisition had to

deal, was that of so-called solicitation--the seduction of women by

priests in the confessional, but as these offenders never appear in the

relations of the autos, they are only to be gathered from more or less

imperfect records. Prior to 1578 there had been various cases, about one

of which, that of Antonio Hernández de Villaroel, the tribunal reported

that it could not diminish the penalty of perpetual deprivation of

confessing women, because this had been ordered by the Suprema in the

case of Rodrigo de Arcos, and this was construed as a general law. If

so, it was not long in force for, about 1580, we find Juan de Alarcon

deprived for only three years. In a collection of cases between 1578 and

1581 there are seven of solicitation and between 1581 and 1585 there are

eight. Thus they are constantly appearing and, in 1595, we are told that

there were twenty-four priests in prison awaiting sentence, one of whom,

Juan de Figueroa, was testified against by forty-three women. In 1597

seven priests were prosecuted from the province of Tucuman alone, where,

among the Indian converts, few confessors seem to have had

scruples.[677]

In view of the heinousness of the offence the treatment of culprits in

Spain was remarkably lenient, but this was surpassed by the tenderness

shown to them in Peru. Another fraile from Tucuman, the Dominican

Francisco Vázquez, was sentenced, in 1599, for this and for twenty-four

scandalous propositions, but for this cumulation of offences he escaped

with deprivation of confessing women and reclusion for a year in a

convent. At the same time the Franciscan Bartolomé de la Cruz, Guardian

of the convent at Santiago de Estero, against whom fifteen women

testified, was deprived of confessing and had some spiritual penances.

Fray Andrés Corral, Guardian of the convent at las Juntas, testified

against by twenty-eight women, had aggravated the offence by committing

rape in the church and for this he was banished from Tucuman and

subjected to a discipline. On the other hand Rodrigo Ortiz Melgarejo,

the only priest in Asuncion, denounced himself to the commissioner in

1594, to the delegate in Asuncion and to the tribunal in 1596, for guilt

with seven women. He was obliged to go to Lima, where he presented

himself in 1600. He was regarded as excessively scrupulous, he had

performed a journey of over a thousand miles and this seems to have been

thought an ample punishment. The fact that there was no evidence against

him shows that the commissioner and his delegate regarded the matter as

too trivial to gather testimony about it.[678]

In some of these cases the customary reading of the sentences before

colleagues of the culprits was omitted because, as the tribunal

explained, there were so many of them of various Orders that the

omission seemed best to spare the honor of the religious bodies; the

character of the Indian female witnesses was doubtful, but experience

showed that they spoke truth, for most of the accused confessed and this

was confirmed by the evil lives and example of all the frailes summoned

from Tucuman. This had led the tribunal to deprive them perpetually of

confessing women, even when the witnesses were Indians and few in

number, especially as all those priests and frailes were very ignorant

and profligate.[679]

Inquisitor Ordóñez, as we have seen, was not especially sensitive or

straight-laced, but he felt compelled, in a letter of April 20, 1599, to

call the attention of the Suprema to the frequency of solicitation,

especially in Tucuman, where, as he said, it appeared that there was

scarce a priest not guilty of it, and the worst feature was that some of

them told the Indian women that the sin was no sin when committed with

them, and it was consummated in the churches. He therefore asked

authority to increase the punishment indicated in the Instructions and

the Suprema accordingly gave permission to add service in the galleys--a

permission, however, of which the tribunal seems never to have availed

itself. So far from there being an improvement, the tribunal was led to

issue, in 1630, a special edict to the effect that, notwithstanding the

clauses in the annual Edict of Faith, the crime continued to prevail;

that confessors ignored that it was strictly reserved to the

Inquisition, and absolved the guilty as well as the penitents, without

requiring the latter to denounce their seducers as prescribed by the

papal decrees; further, that learned persons when consulted furnished

opinions that these cases did not come within inquisitorial

jurisdiction; wherefore all persons were required, within six days after

notice, to denounce these offenders under pain of excommunication _latæ

sententiæ_.[680]

It was all in vain and solicitation continued until the end to furnish a

notable portion of the dwindling business of the tribunal. As late as

1806 the fiscal Sobrino reported to the Suprema that the worst criminals

were to be found in the vice-royalty of Buenos Ayres, which was

hastening to its ruin, especially through irreligious propositions and

solicitation. Possibly wholesome severity might have placed some check

on the persistency of the crime, but the same inexplicable tenderness

continued to be shown to culprits. In 1737, Pedro de Zubieta, canon of

Lima, denounced himself for soliciting Doña Lorenza de Fuentes, a nun in

the convent of la Concepcion--a confession which she confirmed to some

extent. Then Sor Eugenia Evangelista, of the convent del Prado,

denounced him with details of the filthiest and most corrupting talk.

As, however, he was a person of consideration, the tribunal, before

taking action, consulted the Suprema, with the result that, in 1743, he

was merely reprimanded and advised to give up hearing confessions.

Almost equal leniency was shown, in 1793, to the priest Fermin de

Aguirre, whose sentence was read in the presence of twelve priests, when

he abjured _de levi_ and had some spiritual penances.[681]

* * * * *

More nearly akin to the real business of the Inquisition was its dealing

with the class known as _beatas revelanderas_--women professing a holy

life, specially favored by heaven with trances, revelations and visions,

and gifted with spiritual attributes and powers. Popular superstition

rendered this a profitable trade in Spain, where the Holy Office was

perpetually engaged in exposing and punishing their impostures; Peru was

equally afflicted; indeed, the boldness and grossness of their demands

upon the credulity of the people exceeded even that displayed in the

mother country.

Almost the first occupation of the new tribunal was a case of this kind.

About 1568, in Lima, a young _endemoniada_, named María Pizarro, had

visitations from the angel Gabriel, in which many things were revealed

to her, including the Immaculate Conception. She was exorcised by

numerous frailes, who accepted these revelations and carried them out to

their ultimate conclusions. Conspicuous among these were the Padres Luis

López and Gerónimo Ruiz Portillo, two of the three Jesuits selected by

S. Francisco de Borja as the first missionaries of the Society sent to

Peru, where they were received as angels of light. There were also

several Dominicans--Fray Francisco de la Cruz, professor of theology and

a man of such high repute that the Archbishop of Lima had proposed him

as coadjutor--Fray Pedro de Toro, Fray Alonso Gasco, prior of the

convent of Quito, and others of minor importance. Early in 1571 Gasco

denounced himself to the Bishop of Quito and surrendered sundry objects

which had been blessed by the demon, among them a copy-book of blank

paper, two pens and a cloth. The paper had the faculty that whatever was

written on it was true, even in doubtful matters, and the cloth was a

cure for disease. The bishop sent Gasco to the tribunal, where he was

imprisoned, May 8, 1572; the others and María Pizarro were arrested at

different times.

None of them seem to have denied their belief in the revelations. María

fell sick, after making a full confession, in which she accused herself

of having served as a succubus to the demon, and Padre Luis López of

having corrupted her, of which she gave full details. She was several

times thought to be dying, when her confessions were read over to her,

which she altered several times, finally disculpating López and

asserting herself to be a virgin--all of which was disproved. She died,

December 11, 1573, and was secretly interred in the convent of la

Merced.

The most conspicuous figure in the affair was Francisco de la Cruz; he

stoutly maintained his belief that the revelations came from the angel,

and he persistently asserted the doctrines deduced from them. The

calificadores pronounced them to be heretical in the highest degree and

him to be a heretic more dangerous than Luther, for under his teachings

priests would be permitted to marry, laymen to practise polygamy,

confession would be abolished and excommunication be disregarded, duels

be allowed and soldiers permitted to enslave the Indians. Such a man

teaching such principles could cause a revolution and overthrow the

Spanish sovereignty. Moreover, by Doña Leonor de Valenzuela, a married

woman, he had a child named Gravelico who was to be another Job and John

the Baptist; he was now beginning to talk and to say that God was his

father and the Virgin his mother. He was too dangerous an imp to be at

large; the tribunal prudently seized him, secretly shipped him to Panamá

and had him forwarded to Trujillo and placed with Don Juan de Sandoval.

The fraile himself on trial was stubbornly pertinacious; his advocate

and a _patron theológico_ abandoned his defence, whereat he expressed

his satisfaction; his sanity was called in question, but he defended

his opinions with such dexterity that this excuse was abandoned; four

theologians were let loose upon him to strive for his conversion, but

his convictions were unalterable. There was no alternative but to

condemn him to relaxation as a pertinacious and impenitent heretic,

which was duly agreed to, July 14, 1576, after his trial had lasted for

nearly five years. Then, on May 18, 1577, he was tortured without

success to discover his intention in his heresies, and he waited for

nearly a year more until the final act of the tragedy in the auto of

April 1, 1578. As he was said to have repented at the last, he was

probably strangled before burning.

The trial of Fray Pedro de Toro was approaching its conclusion, after

more than three years of incarceration, when, in September, 1575, he was

reported to be dangerously ill. A sentence of reconciliation was adopted

and he was allowed to be sacramentally absolved. Early in January, 1576,

he was nearing his end and on the 13th he was transferred to the house

of a familiar, where he died on the 16th. He was secretly buried in the

church of San Domingo and was reconciled in effigy in the auto of 1578.

Fray Alonso Gasco, although self-denounced, was moderately tortured on

intention. He was sentenced to appear in the auto, to abjure _de

vehementi_, to six years’ reclusion in a monastery, he was deprived of

celebrating for one year and perpetually of active and passive voice,

teaching, preaching and confessing, and was to be sent to Spain to

perform his penance. After the auto he was duly shipped by the fleet,

April 20th, but on the voyage he talked about his case, which was

forbidden by the Inquisition, and the tribunal asked the Suprema to

prosecute him again. His place of reclusion was the convent of Jerez de

la Frontera.

The Mercenarian, Fray Gaspar de la Huerta, was the _profeta oculto_ of

the revelations, and was mixed up in the affair; besides, he had

administered sacraments without being in full orders and had managed

communications in prison between the accomplices. He appeared in the

auto, was degraded from his orders, received two hundred lashes and was

sent to the galleys for life.

Then there was a poor man named Diego Vaca, who could neither read nor

write, but who had some dreams which Cruz and Toro regarded as

revelations. He was put on trial, but acknowledged his errors and the

case was dropped. The Dominican Provincial, Fray Andres Velez, was

brought into the affair because the prisoners had written to him and he

had replied that efforts were making in Spain, with influence and money,

to obtain relief from the tyranny of the inquisitors. Proceedings were

commenced against him but he got wind of them and escaped to Spain early

in 1575. The tribunal asked the Suprema to have him returned but he

succeeded in averting this.

In all this affair some mysterious influence protected the Jesuits, who

escaped prosecution with their accomplices. After the auto, however,

Padre López was imprudent enough to say that Cruz had been insane, in

spite of which the inquisitors had made a heretic of him and that he

would not wish to have Cerezuela’s conscience. The tribunal thereupon

referred to its records which proved him to have been the principal

exorciser of María Pizarro and to have corrupted her. It further

gathered testimony showing him to be an habitual solicitor in confession

and among his papers was found a tract impugning the rightful possession

of Peru by Philip II--a document so treasonable that the viceroy sent a

copy of it to the king, for such action as he might deem fit, seeing

that López was one of the most prominent and influential of the Jesuits.

On his trial, López admitted the evidence as to solicitation and

confessed to other cases, although he argued that they were not

technically _in actu confessionis_. He was spared appearance in an auto.

His sentence was privately read in presence of eight Jesuit confessors

and then again in the Jesuit college in presence of all the Jesuits,

where a discipline was administered lasting the space of two

_Misereres_. It bore that he was to be sent to Spain by the first fleet,

being strictly, during the interval, confined in the college,

_incomunicado_. In Spain he was to be recluded for two years in the

Jesuit house of Triguera, after which for four years he was to be

confined in some designated place and ten leagues around it; he was

deprived perpetually of confessing women and for two years of confessing

men. He was duly forwarded in the next fleet.[682]

Doña Luisa Melgarejo was a bolder practitioner than María Pizarro. She

had been the mistress of Dr. Juan de Soto, who had been compelled to

marry her. For twelve years she carried on a profitable trade in

ecstasies, revelations and other manifestations, and was largely

consulted about marriages, undertaking voyages, obtaining positions and

other similar matters, which brought in corresponding fees. Unbelievers

compared her to the image of a saint and Dr. Soto to the basin under it

for receiving offerings. When she was arrested, November 14, 1623, her

writings, consisting of fifty-seven _cuadernos_, were seized in the

hands of two Jesuits, Padres Contreras and Torres, and were found to be

full of alterations and erasures by them to eliminate numerous heresies.

Apparently the collusion of Jesuits indicated caution, and Inquisitor

Gaitan, May 1, 1624, reported the matter to the Suprema and asked for

instructions, with what result the records fail to inform us.[683] She

did not appear in the auto of December 21, 1625, in which there figured

four similar _embusteras_, who had traded on ecstasies and revelations.

Three of these, María de Santo Domingo of Trujillo, Isabel de Ormaza and

Isabel de Jesus of Lima, had given proof of exuberant imaginations in

speculating upon the inexhaustible appetite for marvels.[684]

In the auto of March 16, 1693, there appeared Angela de Olivitos y

Esquivel as an _embustera hipocrita_. She was a sempstress by trade and

had not lived a moral life, as she had borne a child to one of her

devotees. She was sentenced to reclusion for five years in a designated

place and not to talk or write about revelations.[685] She was probably

an humble imitator of the queen of impostors, Angela Carranza. This

remarkable woman was born in Tucuman about 1638. In 1665 she came to

Lima and commenced to have trances which she took care to be in public

and mostly in the churches. In 1673 she began to write out her

revelations, and learned men became her amanuenses till the product

amounted to fifteen volumes of a thousand pages each, in a small and

close handwriting. Her only qualifications were an exhaustless

imagination and amazing audacity. In her youth her unchastity had been

notorious and she confessed it in her trial; she was self-indulgent in

eating and sleeping, foul and indecent in her talk and had no shame in

exposing her person. Such was the impostor who for fifteen years, by

mere dint of self-assertion, made herself feared and revered not only in

Lima but throughout Peru. As Inquisitor Valera says, in his report of

the case, “She, who was the common sewer of errors, was regarded as a

paradise of perfections. In the mistaken apprehensions of men she was

the saint of the age, the wonder of the world, the mistress of

mysticism, the advocate of the people; so frequent were the accepted

miracles, ecstasies, trances, intelligences and revelations that heaven

was regarded as condensed in her.... Rosaries and beads were taken to

her house not one by one but in whole chests and they passed to Spain

and even to Rome with her renown.... In the common belief of the

kingdom, naught was lacking to her but canonization and the altar.

Fragments of what she had touched were cherished with the belief that

they would soon become relics.... She deceived the human race in this

kingdom--viceroys, archbishops, bishops and prelates.” She threatened

and prophesied death to those who displeased her, and few there were who

could resist the superstitious terror that came over them when she

uttered her evil forecasts. Those who did not believe in her she

maligned, and we are told that it greatly injured their prospects on

account of her repute, not only among the vulgar but among the learned

and wise, who regarded her words as oracles from heaven. The profound

faith which she inspired is illustrated by the incident that when, after

the earthquake of 1687, there was an inundation, and at night the report

was spread that the sea was engulfing the land, there was a panic in

which all who could fled to the mountains. A man in charge of the chest

in which her writings were kept said to his assistant that there was no

danger of the sea rising to the writings of the angel, even if it

covered the whole earth, so the two mounted the chest and stood there

until the terror passed.[686]

It argues a surprisingly low level of intelligence that men of the

highest station in State and Church, of presumable culture in the

learned professions, and of common-sense in the business walks of life,

should have accepted without question the vulgar absurdities, poured

forth in a constant stream, which reduced the awful mysteries of the

spiritual world to the basest condition of common life, and represented

the vituperative, coarse, grasping, self-indulgent woman, whom they saw

leading an animal existence, as the one human being selected by God to

be the repository of his powers over heaven, purgatory and hell, so that

the Holy Ghost had told her that she was the daughter of the Father, the

mother of the Son, the spouse of the Holy Ghost and the _sagrario_ of

the Trinity, and once, in presence of the Trinity, the Son made her take

his seat for he wished her to form the Trinity with the Father and Holy

Ghost. She threatened that she would wake up the pope and cardinals and

knock them on the head to make them define the mystery of the Immaculate

Conception. Once on entering the church of the Incarnation she met the

Virgin, who offered her the breast; on sucking she complained that the

milk was salt, and the Virgin replied that it had become so in waiting

for her. Christ, with the Virgin, angels and saints, once entered her

chamber; he asked for a chair and wanted to know whether he had to sit

on the bench with the rest, after which the bench was greatly prized by

her devotees as a relic. It would be endless to repeat all these

absurdities which met with such devout credence and a single one of her

stories will suffice. In a field of straw she saw Christ walking hand in

hand with a young girl dressed as a beata. Filled with jealousy she set

fire to the straw and left Christ burning, and when the angels

remonstrated she said she was going to purgatory to release souls and

then to hell to do the same. She went to purgatory and released many

souls, but some would not go, among them her father, who said that his

time would not come until she was dead, when she replied that he would

have to wait, for she was still a young girl.[687]

She did a thriving business in many ways. She carried to heaven beads,

rosaries, candles, bells, swords and rosemary, which were blessed on

various saints’ days and possessed special virtues accordingly. They

were brought to her for the purpose by the basketful and, on one

occasion, Christ was vexed and said “This is a huckster business.” When

she was condemned and they were brought in they filled a room in the

Inquisition. Once she lent her shoes to the Virgin, whereupon Christ

gave to her shoes the same virtue as that of the rosaries, which made a

great demand for her old shoes. This kept her in foot-gear, for new

shoes were constantly brought to exchange for her old ones. Her

intervention was continually invoked in cases of sickness and

difficulty, and her prophetic power was sought in marriages, voyages and

enterprises of all kinds. These she sold at a round price and she had a

cashier who kept an itemized account of her receipts--so much for a case

of mumps, so much for fever, so much for the miracle of the ingots--and

some of the entries were of one and two thousand pesos.[688]

After fifteen years of success, there would seem no reason why this

career might not have continued until her death, to be followed with a

demand for her canonization supported by ample store of miracles.

Possibly there may be truth in the story that, on a rainy day in the

calle del Rastro, she disputed the sidewalk with a Franciscan fraile,

who rudely elbowed her into the mud. This caused such indignation that

the offender expiated his clownishness with two months in the convent

prison, when, to satisfy his rancor, he kept close watch on her and

obtained proof that she was a sinner, whereupon he denounced her to the

Inquisition.[689] If so, the denunciation came to one ready to act upon

it in spite of the shock given to public opinion. Inquisitor Valera,

whose resolute aggressiveness had rendered his career in Cartagena one

of perpetual turbulence, had just been transferred to Lima, and

doubtless eagerly seized the occasion to make an impression in his new

post. Angela de Dios, as she called herself, was arrested December 21,

1688. The trial lasted for six years, owing doubtless to the immense

mass of her writings to be examined, and her numerous heresies to be

characterized and condemned, for she had ventured upon dangerous

theological ground and had constructed a grotesque theogony to prove the

Immaculate Conception. In her prolonged incarceration she professed to

be still comforted by visits from Christ and the Virgin; she bore her

confinement cheerfully, was eager for her three meals a day, and was

generally found snoring when her cell was entered.[690]

Her system of defence was shrewd. She denied having given assent or

belief to what was expressed in her writings; she had merely recited

what she had seen and heard in her trances and submitted it to the

learned men who were her confessors. Finally on June 2, 1694, she asked

for an audience in which she said that, enlightened by God through this

holy tribunal, she had been illuminated to detest the doctrines and

propositions in her writings, which she now saw were heretical and

blasphemous and defamatory. There had been, she said, no deception on

her part as to her visions, and she had referred them to those whose

virtue and religion enabled them to counsel her. Under their command she

had reduced them to writing; she had wanted to burn the writings, but

had been forbidden to do so and had never seen them after they left her

hands. Now that the tribunal had condemned them she asked pardon of God

and of his judges and ministers, for she saw that she had been deceived.

Nothing more could be required and her sentence soon followed, which

bore that she was to appear in a public auto, to abjure _de vehementi_,

to be confined in a monastery for four years, to be deprived of pen and

ink, and never to treat of revelations, together with sundry spiritual

exercises and ten years’ exile from Lima and Tucuman, while a public

edict ordered the surrender of all beads, rosaries, nail-parings and

other objects treasured as relics.[691]

A public auto was arranged for December 20, 1694, but, so great was the

popular revulsion of feeling against her, that it was not deemed safe to

let her appear in the procession from the Inquisition to the church of

San Domingo. She was secretly conveyed thither in a closed carriage two

hours before day-break, and after the ceremonies she was not returned to

the tribunal with the other penitents. She was kept until late in the

afternoon and then, by a back door, was placed in the carriage with two

persons of rank. In spite of these precautions some boys divined the

truth and commenced stoning the carriage. Crowds gathered and a guard of

soldiers was brought, but to little purpose, for the stones flew thicker

and thicker; one of the occupants was seriously injured and it was as

though by miracle that the carriage reached the Inquisition without

being wrecked. Similar caution was observed in keeping her there for a

month and conveying her to her place of reclusion. Meanwhile all over

Lima boys were celebrating mock autos, carrying her effigies in

procession and scourging and burning them.[692] It was probably the

number and high station of her devotees that prevented a general

prosecution, for only her three confessors, Ignacio Ixar, priest of San

Marcelo, and the Augustinians, Fray José de Prado and Fray Agustin

Roman, were arrested and tried.[693]

Among her revelations were some concerning an Indian tailor, Nicolás de

Aillon known as Nicolás de Dios, who died November 7, 1677, with the

reputation of a servant of God, and was represented as having been

carried immediately to heaven by Christ, taking with him a crowd of

souls from purgatory. His widow sought to establish his sanctity and the

Jesuit, Bernardo Sartolo, wrote a book, published in Madrid in 1684, in

which he accepted Angela’s story as true and praised without stint the

tailor’s confessor, Fray Pedro de Avila Tamayo, who had been punished

by the Inquisition as a scandalous corrupter of women in the

confessional. When the book reached Lima it excited a lively discussion

and was prohibited by the tribunal. The efforts to canonize Aillon,

however, were not relinquished, for, in 1711, papal letters were

received by the archbishop, ordering him to collect information as to

the life and virtues of the candidate. What was done is not recorded,

but we may assume that the response caused the affair to be

dropped.[694]

The popular detestation excited by Angela Carranza seems to have served

as a deterrent on impostures of the kind, for no other cases are on

record until about 1720, when a quadroon named María Josepha de la

Encarnacion was prosecuted for visions and revelations. She was not

treated as leniently as Angela for, although she was perfectly harmless

and had attempted no speculations on her devotees, and although, during

her trial, she was so ill that she had to be transferred to a hospital,

she was visited with the cruel punishment of two hundred lashes through

the streets of Lima.[695] If subsequent cases occurred, their records

have failed to reach us.

* * * * *

Mystic Illuminism and Quietism, which called for such energetic

repression by the Spanish tribunals, seem to have had little currency in

the more stagnant spiritual life of Peru. There is only one group of

cases in the records, but these cast so much light on inquisitorial

methods that they deserve treatment in some detail.

In November, 1709, there died at Santiago de Chile the Jesuit Padre

Francisco de Ulloa, a man of little education but of high spiritual

gifts, nourished on the mysticism of Tauler. He had devoted himself to

the direction of consciences and had a circle of about thirty devotees,

many of them nuns, who reverenced him as a saint. On his death-bed he

committed his flock to another Jesuit, Padre Manuel de Ovalle, who found

on assuming charge that, although they confessed freely, he could not

penetrate into the spiritual recesses of their souls. Suspecting that

there lay concealed the doctrines forbidden in Molinos, Madame Guyon and

Fénelon, he pretended to be himself in search of the higher spiritual

experiences; he drew up a series of propositions, among which were some

of those condemned, and submitted it to a few of the leading spirits who

accepted it, thus committing themselves to the dangerous doctrines of

the absolute abandonment of the soul to God, the non-resistance to

temptation, the idleness of exterior observances, and the impeccability

of the confirmed adept. After six months spent in this pious treachery,

and having secured written evidence of these heresies as entertained by

José Solis and Pedro Ubau, he denounced them, June 14, 1710, to the

tribunal of Lima, with all others whose names he had ascertained. He

admitted that Solis and Ubau, Doña Petronilla Covarrúbias, José

González, Doña Josefa Maturano and others, who were leaders among them,

were persons of pure life, and that some whose careers had been evil,

after practising the exercises prescribed by Ulloa, became virtuous and

deeply religious, but this had no bearing on their heresy. At Concepcion

there was another proselyte, Fray Felipe Chavarri, whose errors were

shown by a letter which he enclosed. Still another leading spirit was

Juan Francisco Velazco, an expelled Jesuit, who resisted Ovalle’s

advances. Some extravagances on his part attracted public attention and

finally became so marked that he was confined in the public prison.

Anything akin to Molinism was regarded as dangerous in the highest

degree, but the Lima tribunal was so inert that it was not until

December 10, 1712, that the Commissioner Manuel de Barona summoned

Ovalle to confirm his denunciation. On this same December 10th, another

Jesuit, Antonio María Fanelli, wrote to the tribunal enclosing some

writings of Solis and reciting the obstructions placed in the way of his

attempts to have the affair investigated at Santiago, where all were

connected by intermarriages and friendships. The writings of Solis were

submitted to a calificador, Maestro Dionisio Granado, who reported,

December 22d, that they contained the heresies of Molinos, Luther and

Calvin. After this there was a pause until February, 1714, when

Commissioner Barona received further denunciations of Solis from the

Jesuit Claudio Cruzat and the Mercenarian Nicolás Nolasco. These were

soon followed by a deposition of Mariana González showing that Solis’s

teachings were pure Illuminism of the Quietist school. She had been

under Ulloa’s direction for two years before his death, and he taught

the same doctrines. Altogether her testimony was of the most damaging

character, and she added the names of eighteen of Ulloa’s disciples.

Stirred by this Barona procured evidence from others of the group and

sent the whole to the tribunal. On the strength of it the fiscal, August

27th, presented a _clamosa_ against Solis as a follower of Molinos and

demanded his arrest with sequestration. Ibañez, who was sole inquisitor

at the time, on September 1st signed a decree for the prosecution of all

the disciples of Ulloa, but on November 9th, in view of the importance

of the case, he ordered a fresh _calificacion_ and inquiries to be made

as to the standing of Ovalle. Fray Antonio Urraca was sent as a special

commissioner _ad hoc_ to Santiago to verify the evidence and gather

fresh testimony.

Urraca lost no time in proceeding to Santiago where he remained until

1718 employed on the work, and it was not until February 10, 1719, that

he presented himself to the tribunal to report. Solis, Ubau and Velazco

had already been received as prisoners in November, 1718. In sending

them, Commissioner Barona stated that Solis, through poverty, had gone

to the mines, where he had been arrested. Velazco had been crazy for two

years and was found on a ranch with no property but a poor bed. Ubau had

four thousand pesos in his possession; his arrest had caused great

excitement, for he was accountant for nuns and frailes, for the cabildo

of the city and for merchants, universally respected for uprightness and

punctual in his religious duties.