CHAPTER VIII.

NEW GRANADA.

Although the _Nuevo Reino de Granada_ originally formed part of the

Viceroyalty of Peru, it was the earliest settlement on the continent of

South America. When Balboa, in 1514, reported his rich discoveries in

Darien, no time was lost in sending out Pedro Arias Dávila as governor,

who landed at Santa Marta. He took with him as bishop Fray Juan de

Quevedo, who formed one of his council with a right to vote, thus

founding at the start that curious complication of jurisdictions which

exercised so unhappy an influence on the development of the Spanish

colonies. The see of Santa Marta, however, was not founded until 1531

and, as settlements were pushed into the interior, Santa Fe de Bogotá

was established as the capital, where the Audiencia, or high court, was

organized in 1547 and governed the colony until 1564, when Andrés Díaz

Venero de Leiva was sent out as president.[756] It was not erected into

a viceroyalty until 1719, from which it was reduced to its former state

in a few years, to be restored again in 1740.[757]

In 1532 the see of Cartagena was founded and, in 1547, that of Popayan.

In 1553 came the Franciscan Fray Juan Barrios with a bull of Julius III

by which the see of Santa Marta was transferred to Santa Fe and erected

into an archbishopric, thus sundering it from the metropolis of Lima.

Santa Marta was reduced to an abbacy, to be subsequently re-erected.

Cartagena was dismembered from Santo Domingo and the archiepiscopal

province included it with Popayan and Santa Marta. In the absence of the

Inquisition, Archbishop Barrios exercised its functions and, in a series

of Synodal Constitutions, issued in 1556, he ordered that no books

should be possessed or sold without being first examined by the bishop

or his deputies, under the penalty of fifty pesos.[758]

When, in 1570, the tribunal of Lima was established, its authority

extended over all the Spanish possessions from Panamá to the south. The

organization of so extended a territory was a work of time and the

material at hand for it was of the worst description, as we have seen in

the preceding chapter. It was not until 1577 that Inquisitor Cerezuela

appointed a commissioner for Santa Fe, when his choice fell upon D. Lope

Clavijo, dean of the metropolitan chapter. In the exercise of his new

authority, Clavijo naturally became involved in bitter quarrels with the

archbishop, Luis Zapata de Cardenas. His character reflected no credit

on the Holy Office, if it be true as reported that his official

apartments became a receptacle for women, on some of whom he committed

violence, and that the nuns of Tunja were obliged to forbid his entrance

into their parlor, in order to escape his licentious conversation. The

Commissioner of Popayan, Gonzalo de Torres, was no better and was the

source of infinite trouble to the bishop, until the visitador, Juan Ruiz

de Prado, summoned him to trial in Lima, on a prosecution containing

twenty charges. He seems, in 1589, to have been deprived of his office,

which, as Archbishop Lobo Guerrero said to the Suprema, he used only as

a means of committing offences against God. We hear also of Juan García,

Commissioner of Cumaná, appointed by Inquisitor Ulloa, as a reward for

committing perjury against an enemy of the latter. His adulteries and

incests with maids, wives and widows, mothers, daughters and sisters,

were notorious and he had caused the death of more than a hundred Indian

laborers without baptism or confession. Like the others, he only sought

the place for the protection afforded from punishment for his

crimes.[759]

Under worthies such as these, it is easy to understand that little

attention was paid to the purification of the faith among the colonists.

The cases sent to Lima for trial were few and unimportant. There were no

Protestants among them; the only accusation of Judaism was that of Juan

de Herrera, in 1592, of which he was absolved in 1595, after undergoing

torture; the rest were the ordinary run of inquisitorial

business--sorcery, bigamy, blasphemy and propositions, more or less

innocent. That the commissioners, however, did not neglect opportunities

that presented themselves may be assumed from the case of Juan

Fernández, a merchant who, in 1588, denounced himself to the

Commissioner of Cartagena because, on hearing that a man had hanged

himself he had exclaimed “May God forgive him!” This proposition was

decided to be heretical; Fernández was arrested, with sequestration of

property, and was sentenced to abjure _de levi_, to hear mass as a

penitent, and to pay a fine of a hundred pesos.[760]

It was evident that, if the faith was to be properly guarded, some

authoritative tribunal nearer than Lima or Mexico was necessary for the

vast territory which included the whole sweep of the Antilles and the

coast of Tierra Firme from Panamá to Guiana. As early as April 8, 1580,

Inquisitor Cerezuela wrote that the people of New Granada were asking

for one, in view of their distance from Lima; this was great--fully six

hundred leagues--and there would be no inconvenience in such a step

except that he has understood that there were no suitable persons there

to serve as consultors and calificadores.[761] Again, in 1600,

Inquisitor Ordóñez y Flores represented to the Suprema the enormous

extent of the territory assigned to the Lima tribunal and suggested two

new ones--one at La Plata and the other at Santa Fe. The latter should

include the sees of Popayan, Cartagena, Santa Marta and Venezuela,

making a district four hundred leagues in length, in which it was

impossible to provide commissioners; at present there was but one, with

whom communication was so difficult that sometimes two years passed

without hearing from him. A year earlier, in 1599, Archbishop Lobo

Guerrero had written to the king to the same effect. He described the

land as the most vicious and sinful in the Spanish dominions, and the

faith as on the point of destruction; the distance to Lima was so great

that offenders either died or escaped on the road and there was no money

to meet the cost of sending them.[762]

The same cry went up from the islands. In 1594 the Council of Indies

suggested to the king that, in view of the failure of all efforts to

suppress the dealings of the people of Santo Domingo with the English

and French corsairs, and with pirates of all nations, the

inquisitor-general should commission the Archbishop of Santo Domingo as

an inquisitor. On this being submitted to the Suprema it replied that

there were disadvantages in the plan and the true remedy would be to

establish a tribunal on the island, which could be done on the most

economical basis. Philip II ordered a junta of a member of each council

to consider a grant of inquisitorial power to the archbishop for a term

of three or four years.[763] Nothing was done. The king shrank from the

expense of a new tribunal and the Suprema was too jealous of the

episcopate to delegate its power to the archbishop. A similar fate

awaited a complaint of Bishop Martin of Puerto Rico, in 1606, as to the

influx of heretic traders and sailors with their books, to remedy which

he urged that a tribunal be established in Santo Domingo, or that

delegated power be granted to the bishops, including authority to

appoint alguaziles and familiars with the recognized privileges and

exemptions.[764]

There can be no doubt that many representations of the same import

poured in upon the court and finally, in 1608, the Council of Indies

formally urged the erection of a tribunal in Santo Domingo. After due

discussion, it was resolved to include in the district all the lands

surrounding the Caribbean, except Central America, and, as its

inquisitors subsequently boasted, it enjoyed the most extensive

territories of any tribunal, embracing the archbishoprics of both Santa

Fe and Santo Domingo and the bishoprics of Cartagena, Panamá, Santa

Marta, Popayan, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and Santiago de Cuba.[765] Its

seat was fixed at Cartagena, as a central point and leading port of

entry, which had had time to recover from its devastation by Drake in

1585. Its position and its safe and capacious harbor, easily defensible

by fortifications, rendered it the entrepôt of the trade with the

Pacific, and the place where the treasures of the colonies were gathered

for transhipment to Spain, while the pearl fishery of Margarita and the

productions of a province rich in mineral and agricultural wealth gave

it a large and lucrative commerce. As the seat of a tribunal it had the

advantage that, unlike Lima and Mexico, it was not a capital where the

humors of inquisitors could be in some slight degree controlled by a

viceroy and a royal Audiencia. They had only to deal directly with a

local governor and municipal authorities on the one side, and with a

simple bishop on the other; there was little to restrain them, short of

the Suprema beyond the Atlantic, and we shall see that they took full

advantage of their position in the endless embroilments which formed

their chief occupation. The history of the tribunal is to be found not

so much in its autos de fe as in the guerrilla war which for a century

it maintained with the authorities, civil and ecclesiastical, rendering

decent and orderly government impossible and going far to explain the

decadence and decrepitude of the colony.

Extensive as was the district of the tribunal, it sought to extend its

authority still farther over Florida. As early as 1606 there is a

curious letter from Fray Juan Cabezas, Bishop of Cuba, reciting that the

tribunal of Mexico had appointed Fray Francisco Carranco as commissioner

in Havana--under what authority does not appear. On the news of his

coming the good bishop fled from Havana and took refuge in St.

Augustine, whence he despatched his provisor to Spain to protest against

the announced intentions of Carranco to include Florida within his

jurisdiction. This had caused lively anxiety among the garrison, some

three hundred in number, who with the friars were the only Spaniards

there. The Indians as yet were so little rooted in the faith that

recently in the missions they had slain four or five of the

missionaries. There were, he adds, many women and children, for most of

the soldiers were married and the effort was made to induce all to

marry, for the hardships of the place were such that, without these

ties, the governor would not venture to send any one away with the

expectation of his return.[766] In 1621 there was some discussion as to

sending a commissioner there, but nothing was done. Then, in 1630,

Inquisitor Agustin Ugarte y Saravia reported from Cartagena that he had

sent to the Governor of St. Augustine, Luis de Rojas y Borja,

commissions in blank for a commissioner and familiar, fearing that, if

appointees were sent, he would not receive them, as the settlement was

wholly military, even the Franciscan missionaries being rated as

soldiers.[767] It is not likely that the governor filled out the

commissions, for Florida remained deprived of the blessing of the Holy

Office. In 1692 another attempt was made. The Cartagena tribunal

appointed Fray Pedro de Lima as commissioner with power to nominate

subordinates, without requiring proofs of limpieza. Of this he availed

himself to create a notary, an alguazil mayor and four familiars, thus

establishing a tribunal of his own. The governor, Don Diego de Quiroga y

Lanada, took the alarm and wrote earnestly to the Council of Indies. All

this, he said, was simply to escape the royal jurisdiction; Fray Pedro,

as a friar, was ineligible to the post of commissioner; the tribunal of

Cartagena had no jurisdiction over Florida, where, by the Concordias,

there was to be no Inquisition and, if cases of faith arose, they were

to be treated by the cura or the ecclesiastical Vicariate. The Council

of Indies, December 9, 1695, reported this to the king, asking that the

Suprema be told to order the Cartagena tribunal to desist; to this

Carlos II assented and the attempt to establish an Inquisition in

Florida seems to have ended here.[768]

On June 29, 1610, Mateo de Salcedo and Juan de Mañozca--the latter a

name of evil import to the Spanish colonies--the newly appointed

inquisitors for Cartagena, set sail from Cádiz, with a fiscal, alguazil,

notary and messenger, and power to appoint all necessary subordinates,

whose commissions would be issued by the Suprema. On August 9th they

arrived at Santo Domingo, where they were received with all honor and

published the Edict of Faith; they received some self-denunciations,

they appointed the Dominican Provincial as temporary commissioner, and

the archbishop surrendered the papers of all cases heard by him and his

predecessors. Sailing on September 4th, they reached Cartagena on the

21st, where their reception by the civil and ecclesiastical authorities

was conducted with great pomp. On the 26th the royal letters were read

and the oaths of obedience taken; three houses were rented for their

occupation until a suitable building could be rented. The king allowed

them 8000 pesos for their installation, with which they bought the

houses in which they were lodged, paying half in cash and, with the

remainder of the money, building a prison with thirteen cells.[769] For

the support of the officials, as in the case of Mexico and Lima, the

king provided a subvention of 8400 ducats a year, until the fines and

confiscations should suffice to defray expenses; but, profiting by

experience, he endeavored to guard against the habitual deceit of the

tribunals. In his cédula of March 8, 1610, to the treasury officials of

Cartagena, he ordered that sum to be paid out of any funds in the

treasury or, if those were not sufficient, then out of what came in from

the province, but, in order to know how much of this subvention should

be paid, the receiver of the tribunal was required to furnish every year

a statement of the confiscations and of all moneys applicable to the

salaries, which were to be duly deducted from the treasury

payments.[770] We shall see, as in Mexico and Peru, how fruitless was

the precaution against audacious inquisitorial mendacity.

The tribunal found little to do in justification of its existence. It

was not until February 2, 1614, that it held its first auto de fe, in

which it presented about thirty penitents, whose offences consisted of

trivial propositions, blasphemies, superstitious arts and the like.

Nevertheless the ceremonies were conducted with all solemnity to impress

the population, and a long and grandiloquent report was sent to the

Suprema. Four readers of the sentences were employed, so that the

reading could be continuous, yet such was the verbosity that the

ceremonies lasted from half-past nine in the morning until after sunset

and the auto had to be finished by torch-light. There were about a dozen

sentences of scourging through the streets and when, on the next

afternoon, the infliction was to commence, a motley crowd of negroes,

mestizos, mulattos and Spaniards, estimated at four thousand, assembled,

armed with oranges and other fruits wherewith to pelt the victims. The

escort provided for them was afraid to venture forth until the

inquisitors made proclamation threatening a hundred lashes for any such

manifestation of pious zeal, when every one dropped his missile and the

punishment was carried out in peace.[771]

Besides these there had been despatched in the audience-chamber sixteen

cases, one of which is worth mentioning as an example of the spirit in

which the inquisitors commenced their duties. For some matter of slight

importance, Doña Lorenza de Acereto, a noble married woman, had been

penanced by the episcopal provisor Almanso, prior to the founding of the

tribunal. Probably stimulated by the Edict of Faith she was impelled to

denounce herself to it and Mañozca, who had some private grudge to

satisfy, imprisoned her for eight months and then sentenced her to a

fine of 4000 ducats and exile for two years. When the sentence was read,

she appealed to the inquisitor-general but, as she was leaving the room,

she was warned that she would be immured for life in the secret prison

and, in dread of this, she withdrew the appeal. It chanced that Almanso

was soon afterwards sent to Madrid by his bishop to complain of the

tribunal; he represented this matter to the Suprema, which sent for the

papers of the trial and, on examining them, suspended the case as

groundless.[772]

It was in unimportant routine work of this kind that the inquisitors

employed the intervals of their quarrels with the civil and

ecclesiastical authorities. Cartagena numbered a population of only five

hundred Spaniards; the rest were negro slaves, Indians and the

half-castes so numerous in the Spanish colonies. The Indians were not

subject to inquisitorial jurisdiction and among the whites there was not

intellectual energy sufficient to produce serious heresy. Mañozca, in

fact, in a letter of March 17, 1622, to the Suprema describes them as

wholly devoted to the pursuit of gain and utterly regardless of honor

and reputation, from the Governor down. There is no one, he says, who

will trouble himself with useful works, and virtue and honor are

contraband, for they are only prized where there are virtuous and

honorable men.[773] There were left the negroes and mixed races,

ignorant and superstitious. The slaves had brought from the Guinea coast

the mysteries of Obeah and dark practices of sorcery. The native Indians

had ample store of superstitions, to cure or to injure, to provoke love

or hatred; the colonists had their own credulous beliefs, to which they

added implicit faith in those of the inferior races. The land was

overrun with this combination of the occult arts of three continents,

all of which were regarded by the Inquisition, not as idle fancies, but

as the exercise of supernatural powers, involving express or implicit

pact with the demon. Had the tribunal seriously labored to eradicate

them, it would have had ample work for its energies, but the offenders

were slaves or paupers; there was neither honor nor profit in their

prosecution, and consequently no energy. Indeed Mañozca, in the letter

just quoted, endeavored to be released from the task--perhaps the only

instance on record of an inquisitor desiring to abandon a portion of

the jurisdiction for which the Holy Office was wont to struggle so

desperately.

He gives a fearful account of the witchcraft practised by the negro

slaves in the mines of Saragossa, in Antioquia, who kill, cripple and

maim men and women and suffocate children and destroy the fruits of the

earth. There are about four thousand of them, brought from Guinea, who,

though baptized, are wholly untaught in the faith, and are more like

brutes than men. The missionaries among them pay no heed to their

instruction but are wholly absorbed in the search for gold. The district

is remote and mountainous and only to be reached by footpaths; the

smallest coin there is gold and to arrest a culprit costs more than his

value as a slave. The tribunal has no funds to bring them hither for

trial and their maintenance in gaol is a heavy burden on the owners.

Four have been tried and condemned to reconciliation and perpetual

prison, but the Inquisition has no penitential prison and, if there was

one, they would starve to death, as they could not earn their support

and the alms of the pious would not reach so miserable a set of beings.

They have therefore been put into the Hospital General, where they can

be employed and hear mass and perform their penance. As for the great

mass of the culprits, it would be impossible for the tribunal to arrest

and try them--the cost would be enormous and the result, according to

law, would be to set them free, which would fill the land with demons,

nor would the owners permit their capture, in the certainty of losing

them. To meet these difficulties Mañozca therefore suggests a general

pardon, after which the civil authorities shall have cognizance of their

crimes and punish them otherwise than with the benignity habitual with

the Inquisition. The Suprema was hardly prepared thus to surrender even

so unprofitable a portion of its jurisdiction and, in forwarding this

letter to the king, urged that an Edict of Grace should be proclaimed;

that he should assist the tribunal with the funds necessary for the

support of the officials and the expense of its functions, and that the

Council of Indies should order the royal officials to inflict severe

punishment, in so far as they had jurisdiction, and should assist the

Inquisition in making arrests and other acts. To this Philip IV drily

replied that the Council of Indies would order the governors to apply

such remedies as they deemed advisable.[774] All parties thus sought to

wash their hands of this troublesome and costly affair, and witchcraft

and sorcery continued to flourish.

They were not confined to the slaves in the mines of Antioquia and, some

ten years later, there was an outburst which offered fairer inducements

to repay prosecution. A great assembly of witches was discovered among

the negroes of the town of Tolú--an accessible sea-port, about

sixty-five miles from Cartagena--where the witnesses testified to all

the classical features of the Sabbat--flying through the air, dancing

around a goat, kissing him _retro_ and all the customary performances.

Since the great auto de fe of witches at Logroño in 1610, the Suprema

had grown skeptical and cautious as to these superstitions, and had

impressed on the tribunals the necessity of acting with great reserve in

all such cases. In reporting this matter therefore, September 25, 1632,

the inquisitors said that they had observed these instructions and had

arrested only a mulatto woman and a mestiza, who had persistently denied

the charges. Still the testimony continued to pour in, spreading the

epidemic to Cartagena and implicating Spaniards of consideration and

property, for witnesses who confessed to having been at the Sabbat were

free to designate whomsoever they chose as having been present--a fact

which explains the rapid multiplication of accomplices, whenever a

persecution commenced. Animated by the prospect thus opened, the

inquisitors threw aside their caution; they accepted the most absurd

stories and attributed to witchcraft many cases of ordinary sickness

occurring in the town. They erected additional prisons to receive the

culprits and sentenced to burning two of those accused as

leaders--negresses named Elena de Vitoria and Paula de Eguiluz, but the

sentence of the former was revoked by the Suprema and, when that of the

latter was received, it sent orders that no sentence of relaxation

should be executed until a copy of the process was submitted to it.

Torture was freely employed, resulting in an auto de fe held, March 26,

1634, where twenty-one witches were exhibited, whose punishment mostly

consisted of scourging, although one, Ana de Avila, a mestiza widow, who

had overcome seven turns of the _mancuerda_ in her torture, was fined

1000 pesos. A sentence of absolution was read of Ana Beltran, who had

been tortured without confession for an hour and a half and had died of

its effects. This was followed, June 1, 1636, by another auto with

sixteen penitents, among whom was Elena de Vitoria. Another was Guiomar

de Anaya, who had overcome the torture and was sentenced to exile and a

fine of 200 ducats. Paula de Eguiluz was reconciled in an auto of March

25, 1638, after six years of imprisonment, and was condemned to two

hundred lashes and irremissible prison. It seems that she enjoyed a high

reputation as a physician and was allowed to leave the prison in the

practice of her profession, numbering among her patients even the

inquisitors and the bishop, Cristóbal de Lazárraga. She was permitted to

cast off the sanbenito and appeared in a mantle bordered with gold and

in a sedan chair; she earned much money and was charitable in relieving

the necessities of her fellow-prisoners.[775]

In the other chief source of inquisitorial business--blasphemy--the

mercifulness of the Suprema brought about a curious and unexpected

result. The most usual expletive, _reniego á Dios_--I renounce God--was

reckoned as heretical and therefore subject to the jurisdiction of the

Holy Office, but it was so frequent that the Suprema ordered it to be

punished only with a reprimand. As the inquisitors complained, in a

letter of June 28, 1619, the effect of this was that, when a master

flogged a slave, at the first lash the latter promptly renounced God; he

thus became, on the spot, subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the

tribunal; the flogging ceased and he was handed over to it, to go

through the formality of a trial, at the end of which he was discharged

with a scolding. This was a process which might be repeated

indefinitely, to the manifest detriment of the discipline indispensable

to slavery.[776]

It was not till the tribunal had been established for more than ten

years that it had any serious business in vindicating the faith. In an

auto de fe celebrated March 16, 1622, there were four negro witches

reconciled, two negro sorceresses punished and one bigamist banished

from the Indies. In addition to these there was a Protestant burnt

alive--an Englishman named Adam Edon (Haydon?). He had been sent, in

1618, by an English merchant, to purchase tobacco in Cumaná, where he

was arrested in 1619 and sent to Cartagena. For two years the most

earnest endeavors to wean him from his errors were fruitless, and his

fate was inevitable. Mañozca, in his report, described him as a most

engaging person; at the _quemadero_ he was not chained as usual to the

stake, but he calmly sat on a faggot and remained motionless till life

was extinct, a veritable martyr to his convictions.[777]

After this auspicious beginning there opened a prospect of greater

usefulness. At an auto de fe of June 17, 1626, solemnized with great

magnificence, there were twenty-two penitents, of whom one was a

Calvinist and seven were Judaizers. Of the latter, Juan Vicente had

already been reconciled in Coimbra and again in Lima. Under the canon

law, a single relapse entailed relaxation; this he had been spared in

Lima, and his persistent backsliding left no hope of ultimate

conversion, so he was duly consigned to the flames.[778] After this

there was an interval during which inquisitorial energy had to be

content with witches, blasphemers and the like, until the raid made on

the Portuguese merchants in Lima gave occasion for similar action in

Cartagena. One of the accused, in the former city, gave evidence against

a compatriot in the latter; it was duly forwarded and the arrest was

made March 15, 1636. The circle spread until there were twenty-one in

prison. Torture was savagely employed and one of the prisoners, Paz

Pinto, a man widely esteemed, died from its effects. Most of the cases

were ready for an auto held March 25, 1638, at which eight were

reconciled and nine were absolved. There were no relaxations, but the

confiscations, as we shall see, put the tribunal in possession of ample

funds.[779]

Little remains to be said as to the activity of the tribunal in its

appropriate sphere, although its contributions from time to time to the

Suprema show that it occasionally obtained some wealthy penitent to

strip, among the inconspicuous mass of blasphemers, bigamists and

sorceresses. Its energies became more and more devoted, during the

remainder of the century, to internal dissensions and quarrels with the

secular and ecclesiastical authorities, leaving small leisure for its

proper functions. Such was its inertia in this respect that we are told

that there was no publication of the annual Edict of Faith between 1656

and 1818.[780] Then it was dealt a heavy blow in the capture of

Cartagena, in 1697, by the French adventurers under the Baron de Pointis

and his buccaneer allies, after which it was sacked by the latter. A few

days after the commencement of the bombardment April 10th, the tribunal

abandoned the city, carrying some of its prisoners to Majates, about

fourteen leagues distant, where an auto de fe was held, with three

penitents, and those whose cases were not ready were sent further inland

to Mompox. When the fort of Bocachica was taken, the French found there

nine prisoners accused of bigamy; eight of these joined the enemy and

the ninth, Pedro Sarmiento, voluntarily went to Mompox and surrendered

himself. The town capitulated May 6th and, when the French entered, they

promptly sought the Inquisition, where they took the vestments of the

officials and the sanbenitos and mitres of the penitents and held in the

plaza a mock auto de fe, reading sentences and parodying the

solemnities. Inquisitor Lazaeta was anxious to obtain possession of

certain papers and employed the good offices of Don Sancho Jimeno, the

castellan of Bocachica, whose gallant defence had earned the respect of

the enemy. He had been rereleased but returned to Cartagena to defend

himself against certain charges, after which he requested of the leaders

permission to get the papers; the mere mention of the Inquisition

provoked a tempest of passion, but after it had cooled off he asked

leave to get some papers of his own and, while collecting them, he

succeeded in including those desired by the inquisitor. After the

invaders had sailed, Lazaeta returned to Cartagena, June 22d. He found

the building much damaged by the bombardment; it had been sacked and the

chests broken open and left empty, but the records were untouched. With

a donation which he begged and 12,000 pesos obtained from the governor,

he had everything in order by the end of August, but this proved the

turning-point of the tribunal which thenceforth declined rapidly.[781]

Repairs to its habitation became necessary in 1704, but these were

inefficiently performed and, in 1715, the tribunal was obliged to shift

its quarters to the house of the senior inquisitor and even this had

been so maltreated in the bombardment that it threatened to fall. The

trouble culminated in 1741 when Admiral Vernon bombarded Cartagena; a

bomb dismantled the Inquisition and it had to be torn down, though the

records escaped as they had prudently been transferred in advance to

Tenerife, near Santa Marta. It was a quarter of a century before Carlos

III, in 1766, granted for the rebuilding 12,600 pesos from the revenues

of the vacant archbishopric.[782]

All this was but a symptom of the general decadence of the tribunal. In

1747 the Inquisitor, Francisco Antonio de Ilarduy, wrote that the only

consultor he had was also the advocate of the fisc and of the accused;

for three years there had been but one calificador, and the provincial

at Seville had been vainly urged to send out frailes; there were but two

familiars, who were engrossed in earning their living and no one cared

to accept the position; for seven years the Suprema had not taken the

trouble to reply to the applications for advice and instructions.

Ilarduy vainly tendered his resignation, but it was not accepted until

at length he obtained a transfer to Córdova and left Cartagena in 1754.

Under such conditions there was little done and the Inquisition lost its

terrors. The royal permission to draw articles of necessity from foreign

sources brought to Cartagena Danish, Dutch and other heretic ships, in

which there came Jews whom the governor, in spite of the reclamations of

the tribunal, allowed to establish themselves and to walk the streets

like natives. The tribunal appealed to the Archbishop-viceroy, Antonio

Caballero y Góngora, who contented himself with ordering that the

limitation of importations to articles of necessity should be

enforced.[783]

A typical case was that of Don David de la Mota, who came in 1783, and

who made no secret of being a Jew. The tribunal summoned him and swore

him in the Jewish fashion, when he said that he was born in

Velez-Malaga; his parents had been penanced and his grandfather had been

burnt by the tribunal of Granada; he had married a Jewess in the Danish

island of Santa Cruz and had been circumcised fifty years before in

Santa Eustacia. It indicates the altered situation when this case, which

formerly would have been treated with little ceremony, was the subject

of doubt and discussion. The inquisitors forbore to arrest him, for he

represented foreign interests, which would have complained to the consul

and he to the ambassador. They accordingly shrank from the

responsibility and let him go. In Spain the exclusion of Jews was still

rigidly enforced and, when they reported their action to the Suprema, it

censured their timidity and ordered them always to arrest such parties

when the evidence sufficed. It was the same in other parts of the

district. In Santo Domingo the governor was liberally inclined and, in

1783, the Archbishop complained to the Suprema that, during the previous

year, a Jew named José Obediente had come and was allowed to go about

freely, to entertain persons of distinction and even to be present in

the solemnities of Holy Week. The commissioner had vainly appealed to

the authorities, and the archbishop was afraid to say anything, for fear

of public disturbance. This year he had come again, bringing six or

seven others, who kept house and lived like any other residents.[784] It

was not the Jews alone whom the tribunal, in its weakened state, was

afraid to attack. In 1784, the royal auditor at Mompox, Don Francisco

Antonio Antona, was denounced for having, at a banquet given by a

priest, proposed for discussion some manifestly heretical propositions.

In place of prosecuting him, the inquisitors consulted the Suprema

alleging, as a reason for their timidity, the character of the accused,

the relations of his wife with the best families, and the protection

given to him by the viceroys in the conduct of his office.[785] A

tribunal thus shorn of its audacity could only be an object of contempt.

There was, however, a little recrudescence of activity as the progress

of free-thought and the approach of the Revolution called for the

exercise of the functions of censorship. This has been well-nigh in

abeyance. The edicts prohibiting books, as sent out by the Suprema, were

regularly published as matters of routine, but they were regarded by no

one. In fact, the intellectual torpor of the colony was so profound that

there was little danger of the spread of dangerous literature. In 1777

Cartagena could not even support a small printing-office, and the

inquisitors complained that they had to copy the edicts by hand; there

had been a printer, but the poor man had sold his stock elsewhere and no

one had ventured to replace him.[786] Seizures of prohibited books had

been exceedingly rare. In 1661 some copies had been suppressed of “Horas

y oraciones devotas,” printed in Paris in 1664. In 1668 there was a

little flurry when, on one of the affluents of the Orinoco, a Dutchman

was found in possession of copies of a work in Spanish, apparently

printed in Holland, entitled “Epistola á los Peruleros,” consisting of a

Calvinistic catechism and exhorting the colonists to withdraw their

allegiance from Spain and ally themselves with the Dutch, whose colony

of Guiana was dangerously near. In 1732 a little book called “Paraiso

del alma” was seized in Santa Fe and, in 1757, some copies of Bishop

Palafox’s “Ejercicios devotos.” The moral phase of censorship had

manifested itself in 1736, when the commissioner at Panamá took from the

French astronomers, on their way to the equator to measure an arc of the

earth’s surface, an engraving of a woman which he regarded as indecent,

but when he sought to get possession of another, said to be even worse,

they assured him that it had been burnt and threatened to complain to

the king of the insult offered to them. So, in 1807, there were

denounced to the tribunal some watches brought by a Danish vessel, of

which the cases were enamelled with indecent pictures; the enamels were

destroyed and the watches were restored to the owner.[787]

In 1774 a more difficult question was forced upon the tribunal. José

Celestino Mutis, distinguished both as priest and physician and

professor in the Colegio Mayor of Santa Fe, in 1773, presided over some

conclusions in which the Copernican theory of the solar system was

defended. In June, 1774, the Dominicans of the Universidad Tomistica

resolved to celebrate other conclusions to prove the contrary by

Scripture and St. Augustin and St. Thomas, and that the Copernican

theory was intolerable for Catholics, indefensible and prohibited by the

Inquisition. Mutis addressed a defence of Copernicus to the viceroy, who

sent a copy to the commissioner; he transmitted it to the tribunal,

which submitted it to two calificadores. One of these reported that the

propositions were not subject to theological censure; the other held

that the Copernican system was opposed to Scripture and no Catholic

could defend it. The matter then passed into the hands of the

inquisitor-fiscal, who argued that all authors of greatest repute

detested the system as absolutely contrary to Scripture, repeatedly

condemned by the Roman Inquisition and, as some say, by Urban VIII. He

was especially shocked by an assertion of Mutis that the king had

ordered all Spanish universities to teach the works of Newton which were

based on Copernicus. Dr. Mutis, he added, was the first and only one

who, in this kingdom and perhaps in all America, had publicly declared

himself in favor of this system. Thereupon the tribunal, at a loss what

to do in a matter beyond its comprehension, sent all the papers to the

Suprema for instructions, and the latter discreetly filed them away

without answering.[788]

Of more practical importance was the manifesto of the French Constituent

Assembly on the rights of man, of which a Spanish version appeared under

the title of _Derechos del Hombre_. This was condemned in Cartagena by

edict published December 13, 1789. Then, in 1794, there was a sudden

command for its vigorous suppression. In almost identical phrase the

Viceroys of New Granada and Peru wrote to their respective tribunals,

describing it as a work destructive of social order and advocating

toleration. Every pains, they said, must be taken to hunt up every copy

and to ascertain when and how and from whom they came. The tribunals

accordingly exerted their utmost diligence, but were not rewarded by

finding a single copy.[789] Probably equal ill-success attended their

efforts to obey the orders of the Suprema to suppress _Gli Animali

parlanti_ of Giambattista Casti and to spare no pains in ascertaining

the possessors of the poem which, as a clever satire directed against

the vices and follies of kings and courts, was especially distasteful to

an autocratic monarch. The work had appeared in Paris in 1802 and these

orders came from the Suprema under date of May 23, 1803, although the

formal decree suppressing it was not issued until June 23, 1805, to be

followed, August 6th, by a similar papal prohibition.[790]

If the results of the labors of the tribunal in defence of the faith

were thus meagre, it was far more successful in its true vocation of

creating scandal, by incessant quarrels with the civil and

ecclesiastical authorities, and by its internal discords. Hardly had it

been organized when the Easter solemnities of 1611 offered occasion for

dissension, over questions of etiquette and precedence, with the secular

and spiritual powers, giving rise to antagonism throughout the district,

especially on the part of the bishops, who grudged the deprivation of

the jurisdiction which they had been accustomed to exercise in matters

of faith. They continued to disregard the exclusive functions of the

inquisitors, who complained bitterly of them as ignorant prelates, with

officials whose ignorance was equalled by their turbulence; they had few

duties to occupy them and they desired to retain this jurisdiction

because of the hold which it gave them over their subjects. It probably

would be unjust to estimate them by one of their number, Fray Juan

González de Mendoza, Bishop of Popayan, who, on his arrival at Cartagena

in 1610, introduced the practice of divination with sticks, which he

asserted to be allowed by the Inquisition and to be used by the queen

and the Duke of Lerma. It spread rapidly among all classes and, as all

divination was held to imply pact with the demon, the inquisitors were

greatly exercised and inquired anxiously of the Suprema, January 31,

1611, what they should do about it, to which apparently they received no

answer.[791]

Mañozca, arrogant, unscrupulous and ambitious, was the leading spirit of

the tribunal. He speedily made it apparent that, under his guidance, it

was to be the dominant power in the community, and that its awful

authority was to be restrained by no considerations of law or justice.

The governor, Diego Fernández de Velasco, was good-natured and made

every effort to keep on good terms with the inquisitors, but his

moderation only encouraged their insolence and at length, in a letter of

July 4, 1613, to the king, he poured forth his grievances. The tribunal,

he said, sought to render itself the supreme master and had become so

feared that the whole province was terrorized, so that, not only for the

inquisitors but for their servants and slaves, there was no law but

their own will. They were accustomed to arrest butchers, fishermen,

bakers and other dealers in provisions; to seize with violence the goods

of merchants and to summon and scold them for objecting. In two cases

Mañozca forced parties who imported cargoes of slaves to give him some

of them, whom he sold. They took, without notice, prisoners from the

public prisons and, on one occasion, when the gaoler asked for a

voucher, as requisite for his justification, the messenger wounded him

on the head with his sword and was not punished. The governor added

numerous instances of outrages on all classes, winding up with himself,

as having been publicly proclaimed as excommunicated in all the

churches.[792]

The regular Orders had equal cause of complaint and managed, with some

trouble, to send to Spain a procurator to represent that everything in

the convents was regulated by Mañozca’s powerful hand, whence it

resulted that many estimable frailes were unjustly punished, while those

were untouched who deserved to be castigated and reformed. This brought

upon Mañozca, from the Suprema, a severe reprimand with orders to

abstain from such interference.[793] Apparently the warning was

disregarded if we may believe a memorial addressed by a fraile, May 12,

1619, to the king, representing that to leave Mañozca at his post was to

keep a monster in the seat of an angel of light. This was substantiated

with ample details of his scandalous mode of life, his nocturnal sallies

in disguise and the general terror which he inspired, for terrorism was

the means by which he had become the ruler of all. When the secular

authorities sought to banish the courtezans and concubines he prevented

it and, when the preachers preached against them, he issued what he

called an _instruccion de predicadores_ in which he called them

dishonoring names and covered them with ridicule. The writer relates a

number of cases by which it appears that Mañozca controlled the local

courts and officials, dictating sentences and procuring that his

supporters escaped justice and won their suits, however unrighteous.

Moreover he gave occasion for an indefinite amount of smuggling;

arrivals were reported to him in advance of the custom officials, and he

received bribes--negro slaves and other things of value--to enable the

owners to defraud the customs--a matter presumably easy of

accomplishment through the supervision of all arrivals, by which the

Inquisition was empowered to prevent the intrusion of heretics and the

importation of heretic books.[794]

Quarrels with the bishops were incessant and only the bishop of Cuba,

Alfonso Henríquez de Almendáriz, who was old and self-willed and prompt

in quarrel, held his own, leading to numerous complaints of him by the

tribunal.[795] Then, towards the middle of 1619, there came a new

governor, García Giron, with whom there was speedily trouble. A negro

slave of Inquisitor Salcedo was refused meat by a negro in the market;

he complained to his master who gave him a paper requiring the dealer to

supply it. Armed with this, he struck the negro several times with the

flat of a _machete_, took what meat he wanted and told the man that, if

he wanted pay, he could send for the money. Thereupon Giron ordered a

prosecution; the inquisitors sent for the notary employed in it and

ordered him to surrender the papers under the customary threat of fine

and excommunication; the governor ordered him not to obey, but he was

finally obliged to pay the fine and deliver the papers.[796]

Complaints against Mañozca came pouring in upon the Suprema, especially

from members of the regular Orders, including whole convents, until it

found itself obliged to have an investigation made into his life and

morals. The result justified the accusations and it ordered him to

present himself in Madrid. He had no trouble in gathering

certificates--which no one dared to refuse--as to his good character and

conduct, with which he sailed for Spain, towards the end of July, 1620.

There he succeeded so completely in exonerating himself that, in April,

1621, the inquisitor-general wrote that his presence in the court being

no longer necessary, for the business on which he had been summoned, he

had been ordered to return to his post. Thus, after a year’s absence, he

reoccupied his seat in the tribunal, but only for a short time. With the

customary policy of the Holy Office, he was promoted to the more

important tribunal of Lima, to be elevated, in 1643, as we have seen, to

the archbishopric of Mexico. He remained, however, in Cartagena, until

the arrival of his successor, Agustin de Ugarte y Saravia, in the middle

of 1623.[797]

During his absence at the court, his colleague Salcedo had become

involved in a furious quarrel with the bishop, Diego de Torris

Altamirano, by forcibly taking from his prison a priest named Pedro de

Quesada, condemned to degradation and death for robbery and murder.

Quesada, through his confessor, informed the tribunal that he had a

deposition to make; Salcedo sent a message informally to the provisor to

send the culprit, who would be returned, but when the messenger went for

him, he was found fast in the stocks and the key carried off. The bishop

declared that he should not be delivered without a written demand, but

Salcedo sent a party of familiars, who carried him off by force and then

returned him within an hour--the object being simply to humiliate the

bishop and demonstrate the superior authority of the Inquisition.[798]

Salcedo and Altamirano both died in 1621, but the new bishop, Francisco

de Sotomayor, who arrived in 1622, became immediately involved in a

serious quarrel with Mañozca, which had to be referred to Spain for

settlement.[799]

In 1630 the Council of Indies presented to Philip IV a formal complaint

in thirty-four articles against the tribunal of Cartagena, which very

probably contributed to the enactment of the Concordia of 1633.[800]

Meanwhile a new governor, Francisco de Murga, had resolutely undertaken

to abate the insolence of the inquisitors and had become involved in

specially bitter quarrels with the inquisitor Vélez de Asas y Argos, who

had been promoted, in 1626, from the position of fiscal. In a letter of

December 12, 1632, the inquisitors describe him as the most dangerous

man on earth, for he daily framed a thousand devices to trip them up

and, if this could not be stopped, there would be no living in the city.

He was certainly audacious for one day he took from the executioner a

negro who was being scourged through the streets for heresy. For this

they excommunicated him, but when they sent officials and familiars to

notify him, he clapped them all into gaol and held them there under

heavy guard for twenty-four hours. Then he called a junta in the house

of the bishop and, by its advice, asked for absolution, which was

administered in a manner so humiliating that the Council of Indies

presented a formal complaint to the king. This did not tend to harmony

and the quarrel went on, to the discomfiture of the tribunal, showing

what a determined man could do, when supported by the universal

detestation in which the Inquisition was held. In fact, as the

inquisitors complained, in a letter of August 8, 1633, the mass of the

people held them in mortal hatred, which they could explain only by the

wiles of the devil seeking to obstruct their pious work.[801]

Meanwhile the home authorities were leisurely engaged in endeavoring to

reconcile the irreconcileable. A consulta of the Suprema, March 23,

1633, suggested measures to that effect but in vain. Philip IV adopted a

more practical course in ordering the Suprema to summon Vélez to Spain,

but it disobeyed and, when he repeated the order, it replied, May 3,

1635, that it was ready to obey but had deferred in expectation of his

replying to its consulta of May 26, 1634; besides, it had not yet

received the papers containing the inquisitors’ side of the matter. To

this the king replied by curtly commanding immediate compliance, but it

still dallied and it was not until 1636 that Vélez was compelled to

sail for Spain. At the same time the Suprema admitted the fault of the

tribunal by ordering the inquisitors, March 15, 1636, not to plot and

conspire against Murga nor, after his retirement, against his deputy and

officials. The sincerity of this was soon put to the test. Murga had

died before Vélez left Cartagena and, in April, 1636, the tribunal was

delighted to receive orders to arrest his deputy, Francisco de Llano

Valdés, who was asserted to be the cause of all the troubles. The order

was joyfully obeyed, but to little effect. In prison Llano Valdés became

intimate with Inquisitor Cortázar, for both were Biscayans; a false

certificate of illness was procured from the physician and he was given

his house as a prison; he was soon seen on the streets again and was

even called in frequently to administer torture, as the tribunal had no

official skilled in the art.[802]

The death of Murga did not end the debate, which was transferred to

Spain, where Vélez arrived in December, 1636. It dragged on with

customary procrastination. The Suprema urged his return to Cartagena,

declaring that his service had been most satisfactory, and that he had

been dishonored by being summoned to Spain without cause, which could

only be repaired by his restoration. The Council of Indies insisted that

he had exposed Cartagena to destruction and that he should be provided

for with a post in Spain. Philip IV sought to compromise the matter by

deciding against his return and that he should have one of the best

Spanish tribunals--it being the ordinary policy of the Inquisition that

when a man had proved his unfitness in one position, he should be

promoted to a higher station in which to exercise his powers of evil.

Finally it was settled that he should have the great tribunal of Mexico,

but the commander of the fleet, Don Carlos de Ibarra, ordered him to

take ship direct to Honduras and made public proclamation that no one

should receive him on board or carry him to Cartagena, under pain of

treason and confiscation. Then the Suprema, September 30, 1639, made a

final effort to obtain his restoration to Cartagena, but this failed and

he at last took his seat in the Mexican tribunal.[803]

Vélez had been on terms not much better with his colleague, Martin de

Cortázar y Ascarate, who accused him of endeavoring to encompass the

death of Llano Valdés in prison and of seeking to rule the tribunal with

a faction of the officials, consisting of the fiscal Juan Ortiz, his

son, the secretary Luis Blanco and the other secretary, Juan de Uriarte,

father-in-law of Blanco. As for Cortázar himself, two of the consultors,

Juan de Cuadros Peña and Rodrigo de Oviedo, wrote to the Suprema, August

10, 1635, representing his utter ignorance; he knew no Latin and his

Castilian was so imperfect as to be unintelligible; he was proud and

haughty and his cruelty was evinced by the savage tortures which he

inflicted on the accused. Then, on November 16, 1640, Ortiz was promoted

to the inquisitorship and his family had complete control.[804]

They used their power for their own enrichment, dividing among

themselves the moneys in the coffer and paying no debts unless they were

bribed. That they should soon be involved in strife with the

municipality, was inevitable. In 1641 an excessive scarcity caused by

the ravages of locusts led the cabildo, or city authorities, to

prescribe maximum prices for provisions and to order an examination into

the quantities of produce in the several plantations, so as to prevent

exportation. Ortiz and his officials claimed exemption from these

regulations; he ordered the secretary of the cabildo to furnish him with

its proceedings, that he might see which of the regidores voted for

them, so that he might imprison them, as was done with Don Cristóval de

Bermúdez and Don Baltasar de Escovar, on complaint of the servants of

the officials, for distributing provisions equally--arbitrary

imprisonment without observing any formalities or opportunity for

defence. Then, as the secretary did not comply with the demand, he was

similarly thrown in prison. When meat was brought into the city for

distribution the servants of the officials claimed whole carcasses,

which they cut up and retailed at excessive prices. Driven to

extremities, the city complained to the king of the violence of the

tribunal and the excesses of its officials, when Ortiz again demanded a

copy of the proceedings of the cabildo, leading to further intolerable

vexations, which caused it to send the regidor, Nicolás Heras Pantoja as

procurator to ask for a visitador.[805]

This imprisonment in the secret prison, we may remark, was an inveterate

abuse; it was in itself the severest punishment, as it implied heresy

and inflicted indelible infamy on the individual and his posterity. It

was the subject of repeated complaints and, at last, a consulta of the

Council of Indies, June 14, 1646, led the king to order the Suprema to

instruct the Cartagena tribunal not to molest the people; when any one

was arrested for matters not of faith, he must be placed in a decent

prison, outside of the Inquisition. The Suprema had already taken such

action in letters of April 28, 1645, and it repeated this July 28, 1646.

Yet a letter from Cartagena of June 10, 1649, represented that, in spite

of these orders, the inquisitors continued to throw many people into the

secret prison, for causes not of faith, till at length three citizens

who had been thus dishonored supplicated the king to remedy the great

injuries thus inflicted. The Council of Indies, in a consulta of

February 21, 1650, represented strongly to the king the disorders

arising from the disregard of his commands and urged that positive

orders to obey be given to the inquisitors. This he sent with his

endorsement to the Suprema, which, on April 8th, wrote to the tribunal

to observe its previous instructions--but without producing permanent

effect.[806]

Meanwhile the prayer of the city for a visitador had been answered after

a fashion, though not in consequence of its supplication. According to a

statement of the Suprema in 1646, it had, at the close of 1642,

determined to send an inspector to Lima and Cartagena, as those

tribunals had not been visited since their foundation. There had

recently been great sequestrations and confiscations, giving rise in

Lima to over two thousand lawsuits, while in Cartagena it was necessary

to investigate the settlements made with the claimants and the net

collections secured. There were no charges, it said, against the

inquisitors and it was only the financial matters that were concerned.

There was hesitation as to the selection of a visitor; he had to be an

old inquisitor and no one would accept the position without the

assurance of a good benefice in the Indies or of a place in the Suprema

itself. To give him more authority it was resolved to make him a member

of the Suprema and to swear him in before his departure. Unfortunately

the choice fell upon Dr. Martin Real, then serving in the tribunal of

Toledo, a man of learning and imbued with the highest conceptions of

inquisitorial authority, who had acted as visitor in Sicily, where he

earned the reputation of a breeder of troubles, through his ungovernable

temper and headstrong character. This was known to the Suprema, but it

was thought that what he had suffered in consequence of it and the

warnings that would be given would render him cautious. Philip IV

objected, in view of what had occurred in Sicily, and suggested other

names, but yielded on condition that he should not take the oath as

councillor until the day of his departure. Then the Council of Indies

protested against the appointment as dangerous to the peace of the

colonies, but the Suprema represented that the matter had gone too far

to be reconsidered without disgracing Real; that the opposition came

from those who desired to prevent the visitation and that it did not

concern the inquisitors but only the confiscations. The king made no

further objection and Real was duly commissioned and departed early in

1643.[807]

The result justified fully the apprehensions of Philip and the Council

of Indies, but it may be doubted whether the most even-tempered visitor,

honestly bent on performing his duty, could have averted an explosion.

The object of the mission was the investigation of the finances; there

can be little question that, as in the other tribunals, false reports

had been made as to the results of the enormous confiscations accruing

from the prosecution of the Judaizing New Christians, and an inspection

of the accounts was to be prevented at all hazards. The city was in a

state of combustion with the chronic quarrels between the tribunal and

the civil and military authorities. Real’s temper would not allow him to

be neutral and it was easy to create a situation which should preclude

the dreaded investigation. Such, at least, is the most rational

explanation of the events as they can be disentangled from the somewhat

conflicting accounts that have reached us.

Towards the end of July, 1643, Real arrived in Cartagena and with him

came a new inquisitor, Juan Bautista de Villadiego, a man nearly seventy

years of age, and a fiscal, Pedro Triunfo de Socaya. Real’s first act

was to forbid Ortiz and Uriarte from entrance to the secreto, evidently

with a view of examinating their accounts without interference, at the

same time handing them appointments to equivalent positions in Llerena

and Logroño--the favorite method used by the Suprema when officials had

destroyed their usefulness where they were. Villadiego however refused

to let Real have the keys of the money-chest, so the object of his

visitation was frustrated and he revenged himself by exceeding the

powers of his commission and assuming control of the tribunal. To obtain

the keys of the coffer he led a disorderly crowd to Villadiego’s house,

broke it open, personally assaulted him, seized the furniture and sold

it at auction to pay the fine which he had imposed on him. Real further

espoused the cause of the governor and cabildo and interfered by

liberating a secretary whom Villadiego had arrested in order to learn

who had voted against him. Then Villadiego endeavored to establish a

rival tribunal in his own house and appointed officials to run it, a

schism which lasted for two months, until Real judicially sentenced him

to consider his house as a prison. Villadiego thereupon, on the night of

February 11, 1644, with his own hands, posted notices that Real was

excommunicated and Real retorted by arresting him.

He was replaced by Juan Pereira Castro, who took possession as

inquisitor, August 22, 1644, and lost no time in organizing a faction

among the officials and the clergy against Real and was concerned in

libels upon him which were posted on the night of September 3d. For

this, on insufficient evidence, Real arrested Ortiz de la Masa, an

ecclesiastic of high standing, and proposed to torture him, which

created an immense scandal among both clergy and laity. Pereira in vain

endeavored to release him and, on January 25, 1645, he and Real

exchanged excommunications, resulting in an interdict under which the

city lay for many months. A few days later, on January 28th, Pereira,

the fiscal Socaya and the notary, Tomás de Vega, locked themselves up in

the tribunal for fear of arrest, and there they remained for seven

months, solacing their self-inflicted captivity with feasting and

gambling, while Real could neither get his salary nor the papers which

were necessary for the business of his visitation. Many of those whom he

had treated harshly hurried to Spain and brought suits against him in

the Suprema, and we hear of Socaya sending with them forty bars of

silver to substantiate their complaints.

The Suprema was not a little perplexed by the turn which affairs had

taken. It ordered Villadiego to be restored to his place in the

tribunal, an order received February 17, 1645, but it was accompanied

with a summons to present himself at court within four months. This he

disobeyed and recommenced to hold a tribunal in his own house, with the

object, as Pereira wrote in February, 1646, of diverting attention from

the scandals of his licentious life. To this Villadiego retorted by

accusing Pereira of defending the gaoler in his crimes with female

prisoners and of holding indecent banquets with him and the fiscal. The

only immediate solution to the troubles seemed to lie in the recall of

Real; he was ordered home and left Cartagena at the end of October,

1645. As the time of his arrival in Spain approached, the Suprema grew

uneasy at the prospect of receiving him as a member and, February 16,

1646, it presented a consulta to Philip IV containing a condensed

narrative of his doings and representing that his seat in the Council

was intended, not as a reward for past services but as an incentive to

those he was to render; his visitation had cost 20,000 pesos and had

brought no results, nor was it held advisable that he should be allowed

to repeat his performances in Lima. Besides, it would be indecent for

him to sit in judgement on the numerous suits brought against him in the

Suprema so that, all things being considered, it was suggested that his

membership should be suspended until those suits were settled--a

suggestion to which the king cordially assented.[808]

The inquisitors were not so busy quarrelling among themselves but that

they had leisure to keep up dissensions with the secular authorities. A

bitter struggle with the governor was occupying the court in 1644 and

1645, leading the Junta de Guerra de Indias, on November 9th of the

latter year, to urge that instructions be sent to the tribunal not to

excommunicate the governor and captain-general on account of the evils

that would result.[809] Then a consulta of the Council of Indies, March

7, 1647, complained of the invasions of secular jurisdiction, in

violation of the Concordia of 1610, causing regrettable disturbances. It

alluded especially to a competencia with the royal Audiencia of Santa Fe

over a civil case of the familiar Rodrigo de Oviedo y Luron, in which

1500 pesos were deposited with Capitan Francisco Beltran de Cairedo to

await the adjudication of the claims of his creditors, when the tribunal

stepped in and seized the money, although it had no jurisdiction over

the civil cases of familiars. The Council therefore asked that the

tribunal be ordered to abstain from civil cases and that its

competencias with the Audiencias of Santa Fe, Panamá and Santo Domingo

be settled--an appeal to which the king returned no answer, as he

doubtless transmitted it to the Suprema, where it probably lay

buried.[810]

As long as Real was on the ground, Villadiego and Pereira united in

efforts to destroy him, but as soon as he departed they quarrelled and,

in February 1646, Pereira commenced a prosecution against his colleague

for holding a tribunal in his own house. The only hope of restoring the

Inquisition to decency and usefulness seemed to lie in another

visitation. This time the choice fell upon Pedro de Medina Rico,

Inquisitor of Seville, whom we have already met in his subsequent

discharge of similar duties in Mexico. He arrived in Cartagena, December

11, 1648, and found everything in disorder. As he wrote, May 19, 1649,

the prisoners were rotting in the dungeons, some of whom had been lying

there for eight years. He set vigorously at work with the cases, but it

was difficult to make progress. There was no clock in the city; the

hours were announced by the soldiers of the guard in the streets with a

bell, but they were irregular and little attention was paid to them. The

officials came late to their duties and left early; Pereira was

especially brief in his attendance and, when he came, thought of nothing

but getting away. Medina Rico therefore begged the Suprema to send out a

fitting person to serve as secretary and also two inquisitors of

learning and probity; Pereira was worthy of severe punishment and ought

on no account to be allowed to remain.[811]

Medina Rico of course was at once involved in bitter antagonism with the

officials whom he had come to reform; his powers however were limited

and he was unable to use censures or arrest, which put him at a

disadvantage, and there were no such exhibitions of violence as

characterized the visitation of his predecessor. The Governor Pedro

Zapata, moreover, took sides with the incumbents and wrote to the

Council of Indies complaining that the city had been kept in a turmoil

for ten years, attributable to the delay of the visitadors in completing

their visitations. Real had been there for two years and returned,

leaving the task incomplete and now Medina Rico has been at work for a

year, with no prospect of completion, on account of which the city is in

great affliction, dreading a renewal of former disturbances. Philip

transmitted this to the Suprema, March 13, 1649, ordering, for the sake

of peace, that Medina Rico be instructed to finish as speedily as

possible. To this the Suprema replied that the illness of Pereira had

thrown the unfinished business of the tribunal on Medina Rico, but that

orders had already been despatched to him to complete his task without

loss of time. Zapata continued his complaints and the Marquis of Miranda

de Auta, President of the Audiencia of Santa Fe, joined in condemning

his arbitrary acts; in civil cases he had arrested the procurators of

pleaders and he had issued letters to the judges of the Audiencia

threatening that in three days they would be posted as excommunicates.[812]

Medina Rico’s task was difficult for the abuses of the tribunal were so

inveterate that the sharpest measures were necessary. Real’s report,

based on 231 witnesses, brought sixty-eight charges against Villadiego

and a hundred and thirteen against Pereira, but his hurried departure

had prevented his submitting it to the accused for their defence and it

therefore could not be acted upon. Fresh evidence was naturally hard to

obtain. The people knew the power of Pereira and Uriarte and that they

were favored by the governor and the Bishop of Santa Marta; they had

seen the failure of Real’s visitation and anticipated the same result

from the present one, when vengeance would follow on all who deposed

against them. Medina Rico was therefore obliged to proceed cautiously.

He states that he had to take precautions against attempts on his life

by Uriarte and that such fears were not groundless for there was

evidence in his hands that the former notary, Luis Blanco del Salcedo,

was poisoned by his wife and the Inquisitor Juan Ortiz, then receiver,

who subsequently married her; Inquisitor Cortázar was poisoned by Ortiz

and Uriarte, who intercepted his letters accusing them to the Suprema.

Rodrigo de Oviedo was killed by order of Uriarte, whose accomplice he

had been. There was, he said, every facility for such crimes in this

land filled with evil negroes; it was held for certain that in this way

perished Bishop Cristóbal de Lazárraga and all his family; to poison was

attributable the death of Juan de Lorrigui, acting fiscal, and also that

of the governor who was in office at the time of his arrival.[813]

In spite of these apprehensions he gathered evidence, confirmatory of

Real’s charges and of subsequent misdeeds and, under pressing orders to

betake himself to Mexico, towards the summer of 1650 he drew up

accusations against the inquisitors and the chief officials. Those

against Pereira were virtually the same as Martin Real’s. Villadiego he

accused of friendship with Jews who had been penanced, of receiving

gifts and loans from them and using them as agents to sell goods for

him; he was continually exacting gifts and abused those who refused them

and there was also his general licentiousness with women. The fiscal,

Bernardo de Eyzaguirre, was charged with embezzling the money of the

prisoners. Secretary Uriarte he accused of selling his influence to the

kindred of those on trial, giving them information and advice and

arranging to bribe the consultors and episcopal Ordinary; of

encompassing the death of his accomplice Rodrigo de Oviedo, who

threatened to denounce him; of falsifying the accounts and robbing the

tribunal to the amount of 200,000 pesos; after the death of Cortázar, he

had a secret door made by which he entered the secreto to commit these

thefts and he embezzled the property of the accused by bribing those in

charge of it, in addition to all which his life was scandalously

incontinent. Against Juan Ortiz he reproduced the sixty general charges

made by Real and added seventy-nine special ones of the same

character--bribery, receiving presents, appropriating the property of

prisoners, falsified accounts, subornation and violence--when a butcher

did not give him the best meat, he summoned him to the tribunal and

struck him a blow on the head that left him senseless.[814]

In July, 1650, there arrived a new fiscal, Juan de Mesa, who was to be

associated with Medina Rico, in case Uriarte recused him, as in fact he

did. Pereira had become so apprehensive as to the results of the

visitation that Mesa, on August 4th, in handing him the charges, told

him that they would kill him. It so turned out. Pereira took them and

pondered over them until midnight. In the morning he sent for a

physician who at once told him that his case was hopeless and, on the

13th, he was dead. Uriarte followed him to the grave, on February 1,

1651, and Medina Rico’s task was accomplished. He was under orders to

start for Mexico, but was detained by prolonged illness and did not

leave Cartagena until June 8, 1654.[815]

The perennial quarrels with the authorities continued, of which the

Council of Indies complained in a consulta to Philip IV, May 14,

1652.[816] Matters were not improved when, about this time, there came a

new inquisitor, Diego del Corro Carrascal, followed shortly by Pedro de

Salas y Pedroso as fiscal, who was soon promoted to the inquisitorship.

He was so completely dominated by his senior that the Suprema took him

to task, after which he manifested his independence by perpetual

_discordias_, which left the accused perishing in the prison, awaiting

the slow decisions in Spain. Corro Carrascal moreover was rebuked by the

Suprema for cruelty and for speculating on the operations of the

tribunal by having the confiscations bought in for him at the auctions

at low prices. His dissolute life was so notorious that Governor Zapata

said that his going out at night in disguise and having amours with

married women passed into a proverb.[817] The dissension between the

inquisitors grew bitterer until, in 1658, they had a common object of

dislike in a new fiscal, Guerra de Latrás, a man who had had a somewhat

distinguished career as doctor of laws, professor and author, and who

had served in various important positions. The Suprema had often

reproved the tribunal for its disregard of established procedure and

Guerra sought to reduce it to order, bringing upon himself the

hostility of the inquisitors, who characterized his representations as

childish. Early in 1660 he had a fall from his mule and broke his arm,

which incapacitated him from writing; the inquisitors refused to allow

him to employ an assistant and the business of the tribunal was

paralyzed. In 1665 Corro Carrascal was made President of New Granada,

Salas fell sick and was absent for weeks at a time and, in this atrophy,

the Inquisition ceased to inspire awe or even respect. The opportunity

was propitious for the secular power to reassert itself, and the

Governor, Benito de Figueroa y Barrantes, availed himself of it. August

23, 1666, meeting the executioner who was scourging two penitents

through the accustomed streets, he sent three of his soldiers to release

them. The tribunal prosecuted the soldiers and, on the 29th, had two of

them arrested by its secretary, Gonzalo de Carvajal, who, in the

process, fired a shot and had a struggle with one of the soldiers.

Figueroa thereupon surrounded the Inquisition with guards to starve out

the inmates; Guerra sought an interview and agreed to surrender the

prisoners but, four days later, the governor arrested Carvajal, threw

him fettered into the public prison, sequestrating his property and

taking his confession in the torture-chamber. Guerra and Salas proceeded

to prosecute the governor and proclaimed a _cessatio a divinis_. The

bishop intervened and Carvajal was relieved of his chains, but remained

in prison. The affair completely discredited the Inquisition; as the new

fiscal, Montoyo y Angulo, reported, April 16, 1669, there was no petty

official who did not think himself able to give orders to those of the

tribunal.[818]

It had not, however, as yet reached the depth of its degradation. Salas

had died, December 28, 1667; Guerra had been promoted some months

earlier to the inquisitorship and he too died March 21, 1671, leaving

the fiscal Luis de Bruna Rico alone. Then, August 19, 1673, there came a

new inquisitor, Juan Gómez de Mier, followed, in 1674, by a colleague,

Alvaro Bernardo de Quirós, and a new fiscal, José de Padilla, Bruna Rico

having been transferred to Lima. The colleagues speedily quarrelled and

Padilla joined Mier to oppose Quirós. The latter, on his arrival, had

observed the abuses current in the importation of merchandise and slaves

and wrote on the subject to the Council of Indies. The governor, who was

compromised, succeeded in winning him over, so that he spent most of his

time in the governor’s house card-playing and wrote to the Council,

withdrawing his charges. It was too late, however, for Juan de Mier y

Salinas, a judge at Santa Fe, was commissioned to investigate and came

to Cartagena, where he lodged in the house of his uncle, the Inquisitor

Mier. The two commenced making arrests and the inculpated took asylum in

the churches. Among them was a friend of Quirós, who exerted himself in

vain to protect him, and in failing to do so broke definitely with his

colleague. He allied himself closely with the governor, for whom he drew

up edicts, notably one in 1678 which, under pretext of a threatened

attack by the French, discharged all the prisoners and put an end to the

prosecutions. He is described as wandering around at all hours of the

day and night, mingling with every body, even dancing in public and

universally despised. Mier’s association with his nephew the judge

brought upon him a shower of denunciations; he held relations with the

English of Jamaica, who sent him negroes; these he entered at night as

prisoners of the Inquisition, guarded by the alguazil mayor, through

whom, moreover, he sold positions--commissionerships and the like--to

all who would pay for them. The fiscal Padilla shut himself up in his

house and would see no one. The master spirit of the tribunal was the

secretary, Miguel de Echarri, to whom were attributed all the evil deeds

of Mier. Every one went to him for the distribution of favors; his

anteroom was like that of a viceroy and presents were showered upon him;

he was assiduous in the gambling-houses and, as Fray Juan Cabeza de Vaca

had written, January 30, 1670, “while he is in this city there will

neither be peace in the tribunal nor will the people be without a demon

to disturb everybody and keep them in open war.”[819]

This state of affairs continued for years. Mier was transferred to

Mexico and Quirós to Lima in December, 1681, leaving as sole inquisitor

Padilla, who died March 31, 1682, appointing as successor ad interim the

Archdeacon Andrés de Torres. Matters took a new aspect with the arrival,

March 27, 1683, of a new inquisitor, Francisco Valera, who had filled

important offices in Lima. He dismissed Torres and made Echarri fiscal;

he gave five hours a day, in the tribunal, to cases of faith and three

hours in his house to affairs of property. He pushed the pending trials

to conclusion and in five months, August 29th, he celebrated an auto de

fe.[820] Under such a man the tribunal was speedily lifted from its

degradation, but he had the defects of his qualities, and his imperious

temper speedily involved him in a struggle of which the scandal was

greater than that of any previous one.[821]

In 1681, two years before Valera’s arrival, there had come to Cartagena

a new bishop, Manuel de Benavides y Piedrola, who seems to have been

impulsive and inconsiderate. Almost at once he fell into trouble by

listening to the prayer of the nuns of Santa Clara, who desired to

transfer their obedience from the Franciscans to the episcopal provisor,

leading to a contest which was envenomed by the bishop’s endeavor to

restrain the disorderly intercourse between friars and nuns. Castillo de

la Concha, the President of New Granada, ranged himself against the

bishop, on whom a sentence of banishment was pronounced, to which he

replied by casting an interdict on the city and leaving it. The populace

took sides with a vehemence which led to frequent riots and almost to

civil war, during which the nuns sustained a siege of six months.

Valera, on seeing the condition of affairs, endeavored to make peace and

sought the bishop in his retreat, but was unsuccessful and his

disappointment was aggravated by the bishop’s refusal to allow him to

celebrate mass in his own house during the interdict. On his return to

Cartagena he boldly celebrated mass, which greatly encouraged the

anti-episcopal faction. Matters however seemed to be settling down,

when, by order of President Castillo, Diego de Baños, Bishop of Santa

Marta, came to Cartagena and removed the interdict. The two bishops

exchanged excommunications and the quarrel became fiercer and more

intricate than ever. Castillo ordered Benavides to leave the diocese,

but he refused and excommunicated the governor and all the authorities;

in fact, his enemies said that he had a mania for such censures and once

excommunicated an object which he saw through the blinds of a balcony,

without knowing whether it was a bag of cocoa or a sack of wool.

Valera was not long in being involved in the conflict. The authorities

had armed the citizens and broke by force into the cathedral, seizing

three ecclesiastics, whom the governor threw into the fort of Bocachica;

one of them, Baltasar de la Fuente, was a commissioner of the tribunal

and claimed the fuero, but Valera refused to come to his assistance.

When, however, the governor ordered Benavides to withdraw the censures,

the latter excommunicated Gerónimo Isabal, the advocate who signed the

letter, and it chanced that he was also acting advocate of prisoners in

the tribunal, though without a commission, and Valera sprang to his

assistance and demanded the papers. Benavides retorted with an edict

declaring that Isabal was not entitled to the fuero for defect of title,

that Valera had incurred censures for not protecting la Fuente and that

he, as episcopal inquisitor, would supply any deficiencies in the

tribunal. One account states that as Valera kept himself housed, the

bishop went there personally and affixed the edict to his door; another

asserts that he led a mob of negroes and mulattos to seize the

inquisitor, who barely escaped by a back door and took refuge in the

tribunal.

The edict was printed and posted throughout the town, when the alguazil

mayor of the Inquisition tore it down and arrested the ecclesiastics who

were concerned in it. Benavides went to the tribunal to rescue them and

was contumeliously refused admittance; the governor came and a scene

ensued, the accounts of which are irreconcileable, but which served

still further to scandalize the people and inflame the passions of both

sides. The unlucky clerics, after two years of prison, were fined and

exiled. Benavides meanwhile had the cathedral bells tolled for an

interdict, when all the other bells in the city were rung to drown

them--a brazen warfare to which the people had become accustomed. Then

he ordered a _cessatio a divinis_, but the convents refused to observe

it; the Bishop of Santa Marta pronounced it null and Valera posted a

declaration that he raised it. The Audiencia of Santa Fe had ordered the

expulsion of Benavides and now it fined him 4000 pesos for delay in

executing the decree. The cathedral was surrounded with guards; the

chapter fortified it, but the Bishop of Santa Marta had the doors broken

open and ordered the chapter, to declare the see vacant. On their

refusal, the provisor, treasurer and _maestre-escuela_ were arrested and

the cathedral was handed over to priests of his faction. A certain Don

Gómez de Atienza declared that he wished Benavides had come forward to

resist this desecration, for he would have finished him. The vengeance

of heaven was not long delayed, for that night a tempest of unexampled

violence burst over Cartagena; the lightning sought out Atienza in the

midst of his family and slew him, while another bolt struck his farm in

the country, burnt his granaries and killed his mules. He was buried

with much pomp by the Bishop of Santa Marta and his dead mules were

hidden, to keep the people in ignorance.

A new governor, Juan Martínez Pando, on his arrival was ordered by the

Audiencia to remove Benavides, but it was impossible to ship him away,

for the buccaneers commanded the sea. He was confined in his house under

strict guard and his temporalities were seized. The clergy and people

who were faithful to him were arrested, banished and their properties

confiscated. The nuns of Santa Clara refused to recognize the confessors

appointed for them, when the convent was broken open and in spite of

their resistance they were beaten and confined on bread and water, while

some of them were put in irons. The Archbishop of Santa Fe had ordered

the Bishop of Santa Marta to retire and leave Benavides in possession,

but the mandate was taken from the messenger, was pronounced to be

forged, and prosecutions were brought against all who professed

obedience to it.

Matters took a sudden turn when there came a royal cédula of May 16,

1683, addressed to Valera ordering him to replace Benavides in his see,

which he accordingly did with extraordinary pomp. That he was master of

the situation was generally recognized and peace for a time was

restored, although he refused the bishop’s demand for the return of the

clergy and domestics whom he had exiled. Then Benavides’ position was

further strengthened by a papal brief of November 3, 1683, based wholly

on the adverse representations of the Audiencia, ordering the nuns of

Santa Clara to be remitted to his care. Thus the original cause of

quarrel was settled and the troubles which followed were a simple trial

of strength between the episcopacy and the Inquisition.

Passions had not yet exhausted themselves and the struggle for supremacy

had not been decided. A new element of discord came with the arrival in

November, 1684, of another inquisitor, Juan Ortiz de Zárate, who

regarded Valera as having been timid and irresolute in the quarrel and

boasted of his own unyielding firmness. Causes of dissension were not

lacking and open war broke out when Benavides removed, perhaps with

unnecessary violence, seats which the inquisitors had placed in the

church, giving as a reason the “tertulia” or talkative crowd thus

attracted. Thereupon they excommunicated the bishop and ordered his name

to be omitted from the mass, to enforce which they excommunicated, fined

and banished the dean and the Prior of San Agustin for including it. The

bishop had torn down the edicts of his excommunication, had

ostentatiously celebrated mass and had ordered the arrest of the clergy

who would not assist him, which led the tribunal to order him to keep

his house as a prison, an order enforced by obtaining from the governor

a guard which rendered him practically a prisoner. During this turmoil

it is easy to imagine the condition of the community, terrorized by the

Inquisition. The majority of the people, we are told, favored the

bishop, but were afraid of the absolute power exercised by the tribunal,

with the support of the governor. The better part of the clergy saved

themselves by flight and there was general demoralization. To render

their victory complete the inquisitors assembled the chapter in order to

have the see declared vacant. All but two voted in the negative and left

the room, when the remaining two declared the vacancy and elected

provisors to govern the diocese.

Then three vessels arrived from Spain which it was hoped would bring

despatches putting an end to the troubles. Nothing was given out as to

their nature, but it was observed that each night the guard at the

bishop’s palace was reduced until it was entirely withdrawn and

Benavides was released after a confinement that had lasted from April 13

to August 22, 1687. At the same time there arrived Gómez Suárez de

Figueroa as inquisitor to replace Valera, who had been transferred to

Lima early in 1685 but who had awaited the arrival of his successor; he

sailed September 2, 1687, reaching Panamá on the 23d and Lima in June,

1688.

Suárez at first seemed inclined to deprecate the excesses of his

predecessor, but the traditions and interest of the Inquisition were too

strong and he soon yielded to them. The tribunal still held the bishop

to be excommunicated. The news of the terrible earthquake of Lima, March

9, 1687, improved by the preachers, caused a wave of religious fervor in

which many persons abandoned their scandalous lives and applied to

Benavides for licences to marry but, when the banns were published, the

inquisitors excommunicated the officiating priests. They also gave

notice that all who communicated with the bishop must seek absolution at

their hands--an absolution which they ostentatiously administered.

Seeing them thus determined to carry on war to the knife, he resolved to

publish a papal brief of January 15, 1687, which he had received. This

treated the matter as exclusively a quarrel between him and Valera; it

recognized fully the justice of his side and stated that the nuncio at

Madrid had been ordered to prevail with the king that all his rights

should be restored to him and that he should have public satisfaction

for injuries endured. Although this brief had passed the Royal Council,

when he applied to the civil authorities for aid in its publication this

was refused and when he circulated copies the inquisitors stigmatized it

as a forgery. They filled their prison with the bishop’s supporters and

they garrotted in the plaza a Franciscan named Francisco Ramírez,

without observing any formalities or even degrading him from holy

orders--a tragedy in which the governor, Francisco de Castro, acted the

part of executioner.

A new governor, Don Martin de Ceballos y la Cerda, brought with him a

royal cédula, ordering the restitution of the bishop to his full rights

and jurisdiction. This was received with rejoicings, which showed how

few had been really opposed to him, although terrorism had forced men to

dissemble. One article of the cédula, however, commanding the

restitution of all fines and confiscated property, was not obeyed,

because the judge commissioned to enforce it belonged to the

inquisitorial faction and had the support of Ceballos, with whom the

bishop had speedily quarrelled. This encouraged the tribunal to a

renewal of molestation. When the bishop ordered the prosecution of

Doctor Francisco Javier de Cárdenas, for abuses committed in a

visitation, the inquisitors threatened the provisor that, if he did not

release Cárdenas, he should be imprisoned as the bishop had been. During

the troubles the tribunal had been conducted without the necessary

concurrence of an episcopal Ordinary. To remedy this, Benavides

appointed Don José Pedro Medrano to act, but the inquisitors took away

his commission and refused to allow him to serve. Seeing that the

contest was endless, the bishop resolved to present himself at the court

and embarked in an English vessel for London, but hearing in Jamaica of

the expulsion of James II, he returned to Cartagena to await the

arrival of the Spanish galleons. When they came, they brought a despatch

calling him to Madrid and he accompanied them on their return.

At this point the narrative in both Groot and Medina fails us and we

know nothing of his reception at court, except that it was not wholly to

his satisfaction. We learn from a consulta of the Council of Indies, in

1696, that Innocent XI had rendered a decision invalidating the

excommunications uttered by the inquisitors and affirming those

proclaimed by the bishop and that all comprised under the latter must

obtain absolution. To do this would be so unexampled a humiliation that

the Suprema had not enforced it, and Benavides had, without asking the

royal permission, gone to Rome to accomplish its execution. This placed

him in antagonism with all Spanish traditions and, in 1695, the

ambassador was endeavoring to obtain papal authority to carry him back

to Spain, but apparently without success, for in 1696 he was still

there. The indomitable old man died in Cádiz, but in what year is not

known and the see remained vacant until 1713.[822]

However the Suprema may have interposed to prevent the humiliation of

the inquisitors, it set its seal of disapprobation on Valera. His

transfer to Lima indicates that it considered, early in the quarrel,

that his usefulness in Cartagena was ended. His action during the

interval between 1685 and 1688 evidently confirmed the unfavorable

impression and, as we have seen, he was met, on his arrival at Lima,

with orders from the Suprema to return to Spain--orders which he

evaded--and in 1691 the Viceroy Moncada was instructed by the king to

ship him home. As this was merely a royal command, it received no

attention, and he continued to exercise his functions; apparently he had

profited by experience for we hear of no controversies with either the

spiritual or temporal power. With the advent of the Bourbon dynasty,

however, there came a determination to curb inquisitorial exuberance and

his Cartagena performances were not forgotten. In 1703 there came

orders from both the king and inquisitor-general to jubilate him on half

his salary, the other half being applied to the Church of Cartagena, in

consideration of the controversy which he had with it, thus condemning

him to make to it such reparation as he could. The sentence came too

late, however, as he had died on August 2, 1702.[823]

Governor Ceballos had no reason to congratulate himself on siding with

the tribunal against Bishop Benavides. Its excesses had convinced the

court that some thorough change was necessary if peace and harmony were

to be restored in the colony and a Junta of two members each, of the

Suprema and of the Council of Indies, was ordered to carry it into

effect, but these intentions were balked by the members of the Suprema

never meeting their colleagues.[824] Nothing was done and the absence of

the bishop left the tribunal in absolute command of the city. How

despotically it exercised its authority is shown in a plaintive despatch

of Governor Ceballos, January, 1693, reciting how the butcher of the

public shambles having refused to give the preference to a negro of

Inquisitor Suárez, the latter sent the gaoler of the secret prison to

bring the butcher bound to the prison or, if he could not be found, then

one of the regidores of the city in his place. The butcher was found and

thrown into the prison, where he was still lying. The governor says that

he was afraid to take the proper steps and contented himself with

addressing a civil request to Suárez, which was disregarded. He found it

impossible to get legal evidence as to the affair, for witnesses were in

such terror that they would make no formal depositions. On January 13th,

after drawing up a despatch on the subject, he went to his residence,

whither came Secretary Luna of the tribunal, accompanied by a mob of

followers and, with much disturbance, required him under threat of major

excommunication and other censures to sign letters declaring that the

case belonged to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition and that he

abandoned it; also that all references to the matter be erased from the

books of the municipality and all the papers be delivered to the

tribunal. In this strait he consulted with Don Francisco Gorrechategui,

President of the Royal Audiencia of Santa Fe, and Don Fernando de la

Riva Aguero, Judge of the Audiencia of Panamá, but they could render him

no assistance; he was helpless and, for the sake of peace, he submitted

to the demands of the Inquisition.[825] When such was the condition to

which the tribunal had reduced the civil and military power in

Cartagena, we need no further explanation of the ease with which the

French adventurers captured it in 1697.

That catastrophe, as we have seen, was the turning-point in the history

of the tribunal, which thenceforth rapidly declined. In 1705, Pablo de

Ozaeta took possession as fiscal and found himself alone, in consequence

of the severe illness of Inquisitor Lazaeta, until the arrival of Manuel

de Verdeja y Cosio as his colleague. There was a lively quarrel on foot

with the governor, Juan Díaz Pimienta, to whom the tribunal had imputed

the concealment of the property of a person deceased. The two

secretaries, Echarri and Ventura de Urtecho, took his part and were

excommunicated and arrested, Urtecho being banished for eight years and

Echarri ordered to leave the city within twenty-four hours, while his

son was thrown into the secret prison. On the other hand, Pimienta

seized Luis de Cabrera, the notary of sequestrations, and threw him into

the fort of Bocachica, where he died in the course of eight months, and,

on another occasion, acting on a royal order, he took, from Lazaeta’s

house, Julian Antonio de Tejada, who had been sent out to report on the

capture. To avenge these insults, the tribunal commenced twenty-four

prosecutions against the governor, but it was in no position to assert

itself. In a letter of February 27, 1706, it exhaled its griefs. Ozaeta

and Verdeja were ailing--one wanted to go to Spain and the other to be

transferred to Mexico. Everything was in ruin; the money coffer was

empty; for ten years no galleons had arrived; Pimienta slighted Lazaeta

at every turn, so that for eighteen months he had been obliged to shut

himself up in his house. As for Ozaeta, Verdeja, in a letter of

September 13th, accused him of devoting himself wholly to trade. He had

brought merchandise with him and was the agent of foreign merchants,

whose goods he introduced without paying duties, and there was no

business of this kind, throughout the extensive district of the

tribunal, that was not under his control. He was allowed to enjoy this

profitable commerce until 1716, when he returned to Spain and was

rewarded with an appointment to the tribunal of Llerena.[826]

He was replaced in Cartagena by Tomás Gutiérrez Escalante who did as

little honor as his predecessor to the Holy Office, though he retained

his position until his death, in 1738. He was involved in bitter

quarrels with the governor, Francisco Baloco, of which the details are

lacking, though we may assume that he was in fault, for constant

complaints of him were sent to the Suprema, and the Bishop Molleda y

Clerque (1734-41) accused him of interfering in matters beyond his

jurisdiction and that in his house there was nothing but banquets and

gambling. One of these feasts was given in honor of the saint’s day of a

young mulatto girl whom he kept and whom his guests had to honor.[827]

After this we cease to hear of troubles with the civil authorities, but

the dissensions between the officials of the tribunal continued to the

end of the century and the exhortations and commands of the Suprema were

fruitless in maintaining harmony.[828]

* * * * *

The financial history of the tribunal, at least during the seventeenth

century, is similar to that which we have already traced in Mexico and

Peru. As we have seen, when Philip III established it in 1610 he was

careful to specify that the royal subvention of 8400 ducats was to

continue only as long as the confiscations and fines and penalties were

insufficient; the receiver was ordered to furnish a yearly statement of

his receipts which were to be deducted from the payments to be made by

the treasury. Clearly as this program was laid out, it is perhaps

needless to say that it never received the slightest attention from the

tribunal. It had not been long in operation when the fruits of its

industry began to pour in. A letter of July 22, 1621, conveyed the

pleasing information that it had secured the handsome sum of 149,000

pesos from the confiscated estate of the Judaizer Francisco Gómez de

Leon.[829] Windfalls such as this were of course exceptional, but a more

or less steady stream of smaller amounts can scarce have failed to

reward its activity. Still this brought no relief to the royal treasury,

which was regularly called upon for the subvention and, in 1630, we

chance to hear of the complaints of the treasury officials, who were

summoned before the tribunal and scolded when they had not funds

wherewith to meet the demands promptly.[830] In 1633 there duly came the

suppression of a canonry in every cathedral of the district for the

benefit of the tribunal--a measure designed for the relief of the royal

treasury--but the revenues of the prebends were quietly absorbed without

relaxing hold on the subvention.

Wealth flowed in with the discovery of Judaizers in 1636, whose

confiscations were announced in the auto de fe of March 25, 1638. That

of Juan Rodriguez Mesa amounted to 65,000 pesos; that of Blas de Paz

Pinto to 50,000; of Francisco Rodríguez Pinto to 40,000, while the

smaller ones brought the aggregate up to 200,000, as reported, June,

1638, by Andrés de Castro the receiver who assuredly did not exaggerate,

and besides this there were confiscations in Havana amounting to

150,000.[831] In 1639 there came orders to sell at auction three _varas_

of alguaziles, one each in Santa Fe, Caracas and Popayan, but

competition was not eager and we do not know the amount realized.[832]

The tribunal was evidently accumulating abundant capital, although it

was obliged to contribute a part of its gains to the Suprema. In 1644

the latter alludes to a remittance shortly expected from Cartagena of

about 10,000 ducats; by a letter of September 24, 1650, it appears that

the tribunal admitted to having on hand 187,677 pesos; according to a

certificate of June 30, 1659, there had been deposited in the money

coffer 430,414 pesos and, although there had been more than 100,000

remitted to the Suprema, there was ample left. In addition there were

houses and lands; there were 95,332 invested in censos, yielding about

4000 a year but the royal subvention was still regularly collected, the

8400 ducats being reckoned at 11,500 pesos.[833]

The subvention continued to be paid though, with the increasing penury

of the Spanish treasury, it was apt to be in arrears. In 1670 we find

the Suprema ordering the tribunal to use gentle methods; it learns that

the garrison is unpaid and therefore the fault may be with the governor;

the last payment collected was for the _tercio_ (four months) of

November, 1668, and the annual amount alluded to is 8400 ducats. The

tribunal was not satisfied and, in its replies of May 6 and October 8,

1671, it asks for permission to apply pressure; the governor excuses

himself by the expenditures necessary to provide for the safety of the

place, but these pretexts will never be lacking, the civil salaries are

regularly paid and the garrison is partially so. Yet the arrearage to

the tribunal had been diminished and was reduced to only three tercios,

showing that at least two years’ subvention had been collected during

the past twelvemonth.[834] Then the arrearage increased and on April 17,

1674, the tribunal reported it at nearly eighteen months, whereupon the

Suprema, February 3, 1675, addressed a strong remonstrance to the

queen-regent, threatening that if the officials were not paid regularly

they would be obliged to desert their posts; it recapitulated the

financial history of the tribunal; the royal grant, in 1610, of 8400

ducats per annum, until the confiscations and fines and penances should

suffice, followed by the suppression of the prebends in 1633, and it had

the effrontery to assert that since then the prebends and fines and

penances had been deducted from the subvention; the royal officials

asserted that there were no moneys appropriated for the purpose, and

that they could not pay without special orders, wherefore the queen was

asked to make the subvention a first charge on the treasury. Against

this the Council of Indies protested vigorously on March 9th, going over

the whole history of the matter and pointing out that whatever was paid

to the Inquisition must be withdrawn from the protection of the coasts,

ravaged constantly by the buccaneers, and especially of Cartagena, which

was the object of their special cupidity. In fact, large expenditures

were made on the defences of the city, which was the entrepôt of the

shipments of the precious metals to Spain; as the Council stated, the

royal treasuries of Santa Fe and Quito had already been drawn upon to

the amount of 17,390,300 mrs. for that purpose.[835]

The debate went on, without either side abandoning its position. The

Suprema, on May 11, 1676, insisted that the subvention was a necessity

for the tribunal. Five of the canonries produced a total of only 2535

pesos and the sixth, of Puerto Rico, only about 100; the revenues from

investments were 5491 pesos while the expenses were 18,770, so that even

with the subvention there was a deficit. It is evident that not much

faith was felt in these figures, for the Count of Peñaranda, in a

consulta of December 10, 1677, pointed out that there never had been any

statement furnished as to the amount of the confiscations and fines and

penances, nor had any effort been made to obtain from Cartagena and

Peru, as there had been from Mexico, restitution of the sums improperly

obtained from the treasury, to which they were evidently large enough to

afford sensible relief.[836]

In some Cartagena documents of 1684 we find the first evidence that the

treasury had the benefit of other receipts of the tribunal. On June 2d

the receiver presented to Inquisitor Valera a dolorous complaint as to

the financial condition. In the failure to collect the royal subvention

it had been impossible to pay the salaries and other expenses without

drawing upon the funds held for creditors of confiscated estates

awaiting settlement. The buildings of the Inquisition and its houses

were out of repair and threatening ruin; the last payment obtained from

the treasury was up to the end of October, 1678, since when there had

accrued 61,764 pesos, 5 reales, 22 mrs. from which was to be deducted,

of collections from the canonries, 8221 pesos, 3 quartellos, leaving a

balance due of 53,543 pesos, 4 reales, 31 mrs., which Valera was urged

to collect in order that the fund held for creditors might be reimbursed

and the necessary repairs made to the buildings. Thereupon Valera

addressed to the governor, Don Juan Pando de Estrada, a vigorous appeal,

embodying the receiver’s statement of the account and asking at least

for a partial payment. The governor submitted this to the treasury

officials, who admitted the correctness of the statement, and from their

figures it appears that in the settlements from November 1, 1675, to

October 31, 1678, due allowance had been made for receipts from the

canonries--but they add that in 1680 a royal cédula had ordered the

archbishop and bishops to report to them all payments to the tribunal on

account of the canonries, an order which had been obeyed only by the

Bishop of Cartagena. They professed the utmost desire to pay the

Inquisition and deplored their inability, in view of the demands of the

home government for remittances and the indispensable outlays for the

maintenance and safety of the city.

This the governor transmitted to the tribunal with the assurance of his

deep regret and a request for a statement of its other receipts, in

order that an accurate balance could be reached. Valera met this last

demand by procuring from the receiver and his predecessor sworn

statements that nothing had been received from confiscations, fines and

penances, the truth of which may be doubted in view of the receiver’s

previous complaint as to the use made of the sums in litigation with

creditors of confiscated penitents--but he added that, if there had been

receipts from these sources, they were especially appropriated to the

secret and necessary expenses of the Inquisition, which was a manifest

falsehood. Moreover, as the tribunal was a creditor of the treasury, and

it appeared that there were no funds applicable to the discharge of the

debt, it had a right to have a detailed statement of receipts and

expenditures, to lay before the king, with a request for relief. What

reply the governor made to this impudent demand, we have no means of

knowing, but we may assume that the tribunal fared no better in the

future. It had appealed, October 1, 1683, to the Suprema, setting forth

its deplorable condition; as it was forbidden to use pressure, it was at

the mercy of the officials and it asked that the treasurers of Santa Fe

and Quito be instructed to remit directly to its receiver. For some

reason this appeal was not considered by the Suprema until April 10,

1685, and then it was simply ordered to be filed away with the other

papers.[837]

We may reasonably assume that much of the distress, thus movingly

represented, was fictitious, to parry the demands of the Suprema for the

contributions which it was accustomed to exact. Notwithstanding the

recalcitrancy of the royal officials, the tribunal by diligent siege

managed to extract an occasional payment and, though it unquestionably

suffered heavily at the capture of Cartagena, in 1697, what with the

prebends and the occasional fortunate capture of a wealthy penitent, it

would seem not to have suffered from the lack of means. At least so the

Suprema thought when, in a letter of June 15, 1705, it ordered the

tribunal to be prompt in remitting the contribution demanded of it. Thus

spurred, on February 27, 1706, it sent 6000 pesos, which it stated it

had been obliged to borrow, as it had no resources save to pledge

repayment out of the first moneys it should receive, and it expected to

do this out of the estate of Don Juan de Zavaleta, the settlement of

which was hourly expected. It went on to give a dolorous account of its

condition. The capture of the city had left it in a miserable state--all

the money in its coffers was taken and all its buildings and houses were

damaged. Its chief means of support, it says, is the royal subvention,

but for six years it had failed to receive any important assistance from

this; arrearages due amount to more than 140,000 pesos and its

applications to the treasury are met with enmity and ill-will. The

suppressed canonries produce less than 5000 pesos a year; as for the

houses, they have declined greatly in value; for more than ten years the

galleons have ceased to visit the port and commerce has so decreased

that the houses are generally untenanted and repairs consume most of the

rentals received.[838]

In this sombre description there is doubtless a large element of truth.

The kingdom of New Granada, though less than two centuries old, was

already decaying and the Inquisition necessarily suffered with the rest

of the community. Its poverty became so pressing that, in 1739, the

houses held by it were sold on ground-rents. To add to its misfortunes,

as we have seen, in 1741, during the bombardment by Admiral Vernon, a

bomb dismantled the Inquisition so that it had to be torn down and it

was not rebuilt until 1766. Still the tribunal managed to exist and

when, in 1811, it was expelled from Cartagena, it had 4000 pesos in its

coffer.[839]

* * * * *

When came the Revolution the Inquisition evidently had lost all claim on

the respect of the people and was one of the early objects against which

popular detestation was directed, rendering its career in those

turbulent times different from that of its sister tribunals. Before

Hidalgo raised the banner of revolt, in September, 1810, already in July

insurrection had broken out in Santa Fe and, on August 13th, a

revolutionary Junta was established in Cartagena, although complete

independence of the Spanish crown was not yet contemplated. Matters

remained for a year in this uncertain condition, during which the

tribunal sought to ingratiate itself with the rising forces of

Revolution by acquitting and discharging a patriotic priest, Juan A.

Estévez sent to it by the Santa Fe Government to be imprisoned and

punished for a sermon characterized as seditious; and it furthermore

dismissed its commissioner, Doctor Lasso, who had started the

prosecution--a service warmly recognized by the Supreme Junta in a

manifesto of September 25, 1810.[840]

As in Spain, the Liberals were careful to proclaim their adhesion to the

principle of intolerance. The Constitution of Cádiz in 1812 declared

that the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman faith was the religion of the State

and that no other worship, public or private, would be permitted, while

the Articles of Federation of the Provinces of New Granada enumerated

among their duties that of maintaining the Catholic religion in its

purity and integrity.[841] Yet when the Revolution culminated for the

time in Cartagena, November 11, 1811, by an armed rising of the people,

one of the demands made on the Junta was that the Inquisition be

suppressed and the inquisitors be handed their passports. The Junta was

prompt in executing the popular wishes. The same day it issued a decree

that all who did not favor independence should leave the country within

eight days, and it summoned the various corporations to come forward and

take the oath of independence.[842] The next day, notice was sent to the

tribunal that its existence was incompatible with the new order of

affairs, and that the inquisitors, with such officials as desired to

follow them, must sail for Spain within fifteen days, while those who

remained must forthwith take the oath; all papers were to be transferred

to the bishops of the dioceses to which they referred and the property

was to be made over to the public treasury. To this the inquisitors

replied, on the following day, that the decision had been extorted by an

armed mob and, as soon as popular agitation should subside, they

expected to resume the august functions confided to them by Divine

Providence. Insistence, however, brought compliance and, on November

28th, they announced their readiness to go, though not to Spain; the

authorities took possession of all their property and the papers

connected therewith, but it was not until December 17th that their

passports were sent, and further delays postponed their departure until

January 1, 1812, when they sailed for Santa Marta. There they erected

their tribunal and remained for about a year, when the occupation of the

place by the revolutionary forces caused their transfer to Puertobelo.

When Santa Marta was regained by the royalists they returned there and

soon afterwards they received news of the suppression of the Inquisition

by the Córtes of Cádiz in February, 1813. This rendered their condition

more precarious than ever. In a report of July 8, 1815, they state that

on their ejection from Cartagena, they notified the various chapters to

preserve the fruits of their prebends for them; those of Santiago de

Cuba, Havana and Panamá came regularly, but were paid into the royal

treasury; those of Puertobelo and Santo Domingo were held back through

fear of pirates; that of Caracas by the revolution, so that they were in

arrears of their salaries by five tercios and had been living on

borrowed money.[843] If their salaries were but twenty months in

arrears, in July, 1815, it indicates that the previous complaints of

poverty had been exaggerated and it suggests that, in spite of the

seizure of property, they had succeeded in carrying from Cartagena a

fair supply of funds.

The triumph of the Spanish War of Independence and the restoration of

Fernando VII in the Spring of 1814 changed the face of affairs. The

whole power of the monarchy could be directed to the subjugation of the

revolted colonies and, in 1815, a heavy force was sent, under Don Pablo

Morillo, to effect that of New Granada. Although the Inquisition had

been revived in Spain by royal decree of July 21, 1814, it was not until

March 31, 1815, that the joyful news reached Santa Marta, where the

inquisitors celebrated it with a solemn mass and Te Deum and the

announcement that they resumed their duties, although, to keep up the

semblance of a tribunal, they had appointed as fiscal the alcaide of the

secret prison and as secretary the alcaide of the penitential prison.

Morillo reached Santa Marta on July 24th and on August 15th he advanced

to reduce Cartagena, accompanied by the senior inquisitor, José Oderiz,

whom he appointed as _teniente vicario general_ of his army. After a

siege of a hundred days, in which the inhabitants were almost destroyed

by famine and pestilence, Cartagena fell on December 6th and Oderiz at

once took measures to seize prohibited books and resume his authority.

The other inquisitor, Prudencio de Castro, deferred the transfer of the

tribunal until May, 1816, awaiting the restoration of sanitary

conditions in the unhappy city, and it could not fully commence

operations until January 21, 1817, the date at which the two

secretaries, who had remained behind, were reinstated in office, after

undergoing the process of “purification,” to remove all taint of

liberalism. Morillo himself had accepted the position of honorary

alguazil.[844]

On April 29, 1818, there was a solemn publication of the Edict of Faith

and of the Edict of Grace of the Suprema for heresies occasioned by the

war. This was followed in the afternoon by a procession through the

streets carrying the banner of the Inquisition; the standard-bearer was

Colonel Jiminez, accompanied by the principal officers of the army, to

whom the ceremonial was a farce, for we are told that they were nearly

all Free-Masons.[845] It was not until near the end of the year,

however, that the organization of the tribunal was completed, by the

arrival of the new fiscal, José Antonio de Aguirrezabal. Although thus

ready for business, it had little to do, in the disturbed condition of

the land, and it was in no condition to render active service. As it

reported, September 25, 1819, it was suffering acutely from poverty,

without means to repair its building which threatened ruin; it was

unable to imprison offenders because they could not be fed; the salaries

were unpaid and the officials had no means of livelihood, for there were

no charitable hands to solace their misery. In fact, its last case was

that of Don Rafael Barragan of Santa Fe, for propositions. His

accusation dated back to 1813; after infinite trouble he was thrown into

the secret prison and, in September, 1818, his sentence was read in the

audience chamber with closed doors; he abjured _de levi_ and was

absolved _ad cautelam_.[846]

The Revolution of 1820 in Spain revived the energies of the patriots who

felt that they had little to fear from further efforts of subjugation.

The suppression of the Inquisition by the royal decree of March 9, 1820,

seems to have attracted little attention in New Granada and, if the

tribunal continued to exist, it must have disappeared when Cartagena was

captured by the revolutionists in October, 1821. Still, on September 3d

of that year the Vice-president of the United States of Colombia, Doctor

José María Castillo, deemed it necessary to issue a decree declaring the

Inquisition abolished. No traces of it should be allowed to exist and

therefore the authorities of Cundinamarca were ordered not to permit the

commissioner in Santa Fe to exercise his office. In future no

inquisitorial edicts should be published, no books should be suppressed

except by the Government and no ecclesiastical authority should

supervise their importation. As the commissioner at Santa Fe, Doctor

Santiago Torres, had previously died in exile, the zeal of the

vice-president was somewhat superfluous except in so far as the edict

deprived the bishops of censorship.[847]

Shortly after this the Congress of the United States of Colombia adopted

a law declaring the Inquisition extinguished forever and never to be

re-established. All its properties were appropriated to the State. The

bishops were restored to their ancient jurisdiction over matters of

faith, but appeal from their decisions lay to the civil courts. This

however applied exclusively to Catholics. Foreigners of other faiths

were assured against molestation on account of religion, so long as they

observed due respect to the national one, and finally the civil power

assumed to regulate the external discipline of the Church, such as the

prohibition of books and similar matters.[848] As the United States of

Colombia then embraced the whole of the Spanish South American

possessions, north of Peru, these liberal principles were effective over

a wide expanse of territory and, when the victory of Ayacucho, December

10, 1824, finally destroyed the Spanish power in Peru and liberated the

colonies, the last chance disappeared that the reactionary government of

Spain might attempt to revive the Inquisition.

* * * * *

Many causes contributed to the decay of the Spanish colonies, but among

them not the least was the impossibility of settled and orderly

administration occasioned by the multiplicity of rival jurisdictions,

inherited from the medieval conceptions of the relations of Church and

State. There were the military represented by the viceroy, and the civil

by the Audiencia; the spiritual, exercised by the bishops over the

secular clergy; the numerous Regular Orders, exempt from the bishops and

subjected each to its own provincial; the Cruzada, whose numerous

officials owed obedience only to the Commissioner General or his

representative, and finally the Inquisition which claimed supremacy over

all, in a sphere of action the limits of which it defined practically at

its pleasure. Of these the most disturbing element was the Inquisition,

armed with the irresistible weapon of excommunication, by which it could

paralyze its antagonists at will, and the arbitrary power of arrest,

which inspired general terror. We have seen what manner of men it was

that Spain habitually sent to the colonies to wield this irresponsible

authority, the use which they made of it and, when their abuse of it

became unbearable, how they were rewarded by transfer to better

tribunals or to episcopal seats. The commissioners whom they distributed

through the provinces aped their masters and carried oppression and

discord to every corner of the land, while the ægis of protection was

extended over every criminal who could claim any connection, however

illusory or fraudulent, with the tribunals.

Complaints to the Council of Indies came pouring in by every fleet from

bishops, governors, officials and individuals. These were duly laid

before the king, who referred them to the Suprema; it would promise to

call for a report from the tribunals and this would be the last of the

matter, for however severely it might berate its subordinates in secret,

it steadfastly defended them in public. In 1696 the Council submitted an

elaborate consulta to Carlos II, recapitulating a number of flagrant

cases, occurring from Mexico to Cumaná, and its fruitless efforts to

obtain redress; it pointed out how completely the tribunals disregarded

the provisions of the Concordias and the impossibility of securing their

observance; it suggested various reforms, the most radical of which was

depriving the Inquisition of its temporal jurisdiction; it declared the

matter to be of greater importance than any other that could arise in

the monarchy, and it concluded with an earnest and eloquent appeal for

immediate action. The Inquisition, it said, was founding a supreme

monarchy, superior to all others in the State. It was regarded with

universal hatred in all the regions of the Indies and with servile fear

by all, from the lowest to the greatest.[849]

Of course nothing was done and the condition of the colonies went on

steadily deteriorating. To this the Inquisition contributed not only as

a leading factor in internal misgovernment, but also by its hideous

system under which the affluence of the tribunals depended upon the

confiscations which they could levy. We have seen how large a part this

played in their financial vicissitudes and how it was regarded on all

hands with eager expectation, and it is doing no injustice to the kind

of men sent out as inquisitors to assume that it was a motive far more

potent than the desire to maintain the faith with exact justice. To say

nothing of the cruel wrongs inflicted on countless victims, commerce

could not flourish when the gains of the trader only served to render

him a tempting prey to such men, armed with irresponsible power

exercised through the inquisitorial process and shielded from criticism

by the secrecy of procedure and the stern punishment administered for

complaint. The Suprema was constantly calling for remittances and, to

satisfy its exigencies and their own wants, there could be small

hesitation in prosecuting any merchant whose success might excite

cupidity, especially when trade was so largely in the hands of

descendants of New Christians. The benumbing effect of this on the

withering prosperity of the colonies is self-evident.

How it fared with New Granada, under all the various depressing

influences of Spanish policy, is described in a report, made in 1772, by

Francisco Antonio Moreno y Escandon. The condition of the colony is

represented as most deplorable and the tone of the report is that of

utter hopelessness, in view of the universal decay and dilapidation. The

local officials everywhere were indifferent and neglectful of duty; the

people steeped in poverty; trade almost extinct; capital lacking and no

opportunities of its employment, for the only source of support was the

cultivation of little patches of land and the mining of the precious

metals. There were no manufactures and no means of retaining money in

the country, for, though it was bountiful in products, it was unable to

cultivate for export in consequence of the restrictions imposed by the

home Government; if freedom of export could be had for its cocoa,

tobacco, precious woods, etc., it would flourish. The mines were still

as rich as ever, but their product was greatly decreased; the province

of Chico, which had large mineral wealth, was approachable by the river

Atrato but, since 1730, the navigation of that stream was forbidden

under pain of death. It is true that, in 1772, Viceroy Mexia obtained

permission to send two vessels a year up the river, but the permits for

this were held at a prohibitory price. The commerce with Spain consisted

in one or two ships, with registered cargoes, annually from Cádiz to

Cartagena, whence the goods were conveyed into the interior, but so

burdened with duties and expenses that there was no profit in the trade.

In the consequent absence of all industry every one sought to obtain

support from the Government by procuring some little office. The

frontier territories were “Missions,” under charge of frailes, the

different Orders having charge of the various stations, while the

Government defrayed the expenses and furnished guards of soldiers, which

entailed heavy outlays with little result. They had all been established

for at least a century but had failed to advance the propagation of the

faith, for the Indians, when apparently converted and brought into

_pueblos_ or villages, would run away and take to the mountains. This

Moreno explains by the absence of the apostolic spirit on the part of

the missionaries, who undertook the career only to enjoy a life of ease

and sloth.[850] The spirit of the secular clergy was even more

reprehensible, if we may believe the relation drawn up by Viceroy Manuel

de Guirior, in 1776, for the guidance of his successor. The deplorable

condition of the Church he ascribes to its subordinating its spiritual

duties to the exaction of taxes and tithes, in illustration of which he

states that the parish priests omitted from their registers the records

of marriages, baptisms and interments, in order to evade payment of the

excessive fees levied by the bishops on their official functions.[851]

To appreciate the full import of this we must bear in mind that on the

completeness and accuracy of the parish registers depended the position

in the community of every individual.

This degrading secularization of the Church was not confined to New

Granada. When, in 1735, Don Jorje Juan and Don Antonio de Ulloa were

sent to Quito, in company of the French men of science, to measure an

equatorial degree of the earth’s surface, they were commissioned to

investigate and report as to the condition of the colony in all its

various aspects. The voluminous and detailed report which they

presented, some ten years later, to the Marquis of la Ensenada, under

Fernando VI, gives a vivid picture of the disorders of clerical life.

Public prostitutes were scarce known in the cities, for licence and

concubinage were so universal that there was no call for professionals.

Dissolute as were the laity the clergy were worse, and of the clergy the

regular Orders bore the palm for the effrontery of their scandalous mode

of life--excepting, indeed, the Jesuits who are highly praised for their

assiduity in their duties and the strictness with which the regulations

of the Society were enforced, by the expulsion of all unworthy members.

The disorders of the others are attributed to their wealth and idleness.

The position of a provincial of any of the larger Orders, for the

regular term of three years, was worth from 300,000 to 400,000 pesos,

derived from the patronage of guardianships, priories, parish churches

and plantations, which were distributed to those of his faction who

would pay proportionately for them--payments for which they recouped

themselves by grinding exactions on their parishioners and subjects. The

convents were dens of prostitution, occupied only by those who could not

afford separate establishments. The wealthier ones lived in their own

houses with the concubines whom they changed at will and the children in

whom they took no shame, and these houses were the scenes of gambling,

dancing and drinking, causing frequent scandalous disorders which the

police were unable to check, as the civil power had no jurisdiction over

the clergy. Notwithstanding this extravagance, their revenues were so

large that all the best lands in the colony were rapidly passing into

their possession, and this was especially the case with the Jesuits, who

husbanded their resources and managed their extensive properties with

businesslike precision. What plantations were left to the laity were

mostly burdened with heavy ground-rents and there was danger, if the

process were not checked, that eventually the whole land would pass into

_mainmorte_. As regards the missions, the report bears the same

testimony as we have seen in New Granada. With the exceptions of the

Jesuits, the Religious Orders, whose presence in the colony was based on

the pretext of spreading the faith, were too worldly and indolent to

devote themselves to that duty and the Jesuits were apt to find that

when they sought to civilize their converts, these interesting

neophytes would murder them and take to the mountains.[852]

All this frightful demoralization was beneath the attention of the

Inquisition. Its business was the salvation of souls by enforcing unity

of faith, and its duties as to morals were confined to destroying such

works of art as it considered to be improper. Yet Ensenada, if he took

the trouble to read the report so laboriously prepared, might reasonably

ask himself whether a system which led to such results was fitted either

for the spiritual or the material benefit of the populations subjected

to the Spanish monarchy.

APPENDIX.

I.

KING FERDINAND TO THE SICILIAN INQUISITION, OCTOBER 25, 1512,

(Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro III, fol. 202). (See p. 12).

EL REY.

Inquisidor entendido habemos que estos dias passados à causa de ciertos

robos que se facian en el feyo de femmy saluco (?) que es del doctor de

Julien por unos quatro esclavos del dicho doctor con otros ladrones e

bandidos que alli se recogen mando nuestro visorrey en esse Reyno al

Capitan de la dicha tierra que trabajase en prenderlos todos, y diz que

despues de haber prendido dos ò tres de ellos porque los otros siendo

avisados se le fueron vos procedeis con censuras cerca del dicho capitan

para que estos entreguen los dichos presos, diciendo que son del dicho

doctor de Julien que es Official asalariado de esse Sancto Officio de la

Inquisicion y que pertenece à vos el conoscimiento de los dichos

ladrones, y para que creyesemos que esto fuesse asi se nos embiara

traslado de las provisiones que vos disteis sobre esto. Tenemos no poco

sentimiento que esse Sancto Officio de la Inquisicion querais ponerlo en

defension de los ladrones lo que no procede de nuestra voluntad que si

el doctor de Julien interviene en el vocar de los processos no por esso

han de gozar de esempcion las personas que tiene en sus heredades de mal

bibir asi que nuestra voluntad es y vos mandamos que luego revoqueis las

dictas provisiones y mandamientos que el Sancto officio de la

Inquisicion no se ha de entremeter de tales personas. Tambien diz que

esto otro dia se echo un malfechor huyendo del Capitan de essa Ciudad en

la cassa de esse Sancto Officio de la Inquisicion y siguiendolo los

Officiales del dicho Capitan lo defendieron vuestros Officiales y

mynistros mano armada. Esto da ocassion de escandolo y porque algun dia

vos y vuestros Officiales seays poco acatados proveed que tales cossas

no se fagan que no se podrian tolerar con paciencia, pues lo que se dice

que se face en la Adduana por no pagar los derechos cossa es de muy mal

exemplo. Todo es menester que se enmiende y no se faga desorden sino

sera forcado que nuestro visorrey lo provea de una manera que assi gelo

escribimos que los Officiales de tan Sancto Officio de la Inquisicion

religiosamente han de bibir y quitarse de toda manera de escandalo y

incombenientes y assi sera el Officio de la Santa Inquisicion mas

honrrado y acatado.

Yo el Rey.--Calcena Secretario.

II.

SICILIAN INSTRUCTIONS OF INQUISITOR-GENERAL MANRIQUE, JANUARY 31, 1525.

(Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 933, p. 565). (See p. 20).

Don Alonso Manrique, por la divina miseracion arzobispo de Sevilla, del

consejo de sus Magestades, inquisidor apostolico general contra la

heretica pravedad y apostasia en todos los sus reinos y señorios. A vos

los reverendos inquisidores contra la heretica pravedad y apostasia en

el reino de Sicilia y à los oficiales y ministros del oficio de la

sancta inquisicion del dicho reino à quien lo de yuso en esta nuestra

carta contenido toca y atañe y à cada uno y qualquiera de vos salud y

bendicion. Sepades que ante nos en el consejo de la general inquisicion

se ha agora visto y examinado el proceso de la visita que el venerable

Benedicto Mercader maestro en sacra teologia hizo en este dicho sancto

oficio por mandado y comision de nuestro muy sancto Padre Adriano Sexto

de feliz recordacion siendo inquisidor general y ha parecido que por lo

que conviene al servicio de Dios y de sus magestades y à la buena

administracion de la justicia y por dar orden como el santo oficio se

ejercite y haga con todo rectitud y brevedad que se deben guardar y

cumplir las instrucciones siguientes por quanto por la dicha visita

parece que aquellas hasta aqui no se han guardado y es cosa justa y

debida que se guarden.

Primeramente la instruccion que manda que en las presiones de los que se

mandaren prender concurran el alguacil para hacer y ejecutar su oficio y

el notario de sequestros para hacer los inventarios de los bienes que se

sequestran y deudas y acciones y escrituras que se hallan y el receptor

para lo mismo por el interese que puede suceder al fisco y que con

asistencia de todos tres, alguacil, notario de sequestros y receptor se

hagan y firmen los inventarios y sequestros y firmados queden en poder

del dicho notario de sequestros para hacer cargo dellos al dicho

receptor en caso de condemnacion, la qual instruccion se guarde como en

ella se contiene so pena de privacion de sus oficios.

Item, la instruccion que dispone que en el vender de los bienes

confiscados concurran el receptor y notario de sequestros para que el

uno los venda con las solemnidades y pregones que la instruccion manda y

el otro haga cargo de los precios y plazos en que se venden so la dicha

pena y en caso que ocurrieren necesidad que hayan de enviar otras

personas en su lugar sea con parecer de los inquisidores y las tales

personas sean de mucha confianza.

Item, la instruccion que manda que el juez de bienes confiscados y

notario de su audiencia tengan libros en que asienten todas las

condemnaciones de bienes que se hacen à instancia del receptor y sus

procuradores para dar noticia dellos al notario de sequestros para que

haga cargo dello al receptor y que los jueces de bienes y notarios de

audiencias juran de ansi lo guardar y cumplir.

Item, la instruccion que manda que los bienes sequestrados, por las

presiones de los que se mandan prender queden en poder de personas

llanas y abonadas para acudir con ellos à quien los inquisidores

mandaren y que hasta la distincion de la causa criminal y principal y

condenacion del preso los receptores no tengan entrada en los bienes

sequestrados so la pena de privacion de oficio y que vuelvan lo que asi

entraren y ocuparen de los dichos bienes sequestrados con otro tanto

para el oficio de la santa inquisicion.

Item, la instruccion que manda que por evitar dilaciones superfluas

dentro de los quince dias de la presion de cada uno se hagan las tres

amonestaciones caritativas y siendo negativos se presenten los

acusaciones à los quince dias ò antes sobre lo qual se encarga la

conciencia à los inquisidores.

Item, la instruccion que dispone que de quince en quince dias se visiten

los presos para haber informacion de como son tractados y proveidos y

curados en sus enfermedades.

Item, la instruccion que manda que en la camara del secreto donde estan

las escrituras del crimen no entren sino solos los inquisidores y

oficiales del secreto so pena de excomunion.

Item, la instruccion que manda que trabajen tres horas en la audiencia

de mañana y otras tres à la tarde sobre lo qual se encarga la conciencia

à los inquisidores para que asi lo hagan guardar y cumplir.

Item, por quanto parece que la instruccion del arca que habla cerca del

depositarse el dinero confiscado que cobra el receptor no se guarda de

dos ò tres años à esta parte y es cosa justa y necesaria que se guarde,

mandamos que en todo caso sea guardada y cumplida so las penas en ella

contenidas.

Item, que se guarden y cumplan de aqui adelante todas las otras

Instrucciones del sancto oficio porque aquellas fueron hechas por los

señores inquisidores generales con mucho consejo y acuerdo de letrados y

en generales congregaciones para el bien y observacion de las

inquisiciones particulares y que para mejor observacion dellas se lean

aquellas dos veces en el año publicamente en el audiencia delante de

todos los oficiales, la una vez por pascua de resurrecion y la otra por

pascua de Navidad, y sobre esto encargamos las conciencias à los

inquisidores.

Item, por quanto parece por el dicho proceso de la visita que por el

receptor de los bienes confiscados se han vendido muchos esclavos

reputados por cristianos que hobieron sido de condemnados ò

reconciliados debiendo gozar de libertad y esto so color que no

mostraban fé y testimonio de su conversion y bautismo, vos los

inquisidores ò qualquiera de vos si asi es declarareis estos tales

esclavos por libres y proveereis que sean puestos en libertad.

Item, porque parece y somos informado que el inquisidor Melchior Cervera

ya defunto anduvo visitando por el reino y recibio muchas informaciones

y testificaciones y es cosa justa y debida que aquellas se pongan en la

camara del secreto para que se haya entera noticia de las penas de los

que quebraron las carcelerias y de los bienes confiscados y mal llevados

al tiempo de la inventariacion de los bienes hecha por los comisarios y

factores y de otras cosas asi civiles como criminales, vos los dichos

inquisidores ò qualquiera de vos proveereis que todas las dichas

informaciones y testificaciones se recojan y se pongan en la camara del

secreto, sino se hobiere ya cobrado para que se haya noticia de las

dichas cosas y se provea en ello todo lo que fuere necesario y las que

pertenecieren al oficio del receptor se le entreguen en presencia y por

ante el escribano de sequestros.

Item, por quanto parece que las provisiones y letras del inquisidor

general y del consejo que se embian à la dicha inquisicion no vienen

algunas veces al secretario ni se alcanza à saber lo que se envia à

mandar sino por discurso de tiempo mandamos que todas las dichas

provisiones y cartas que hasta aqui se han despachado del inquisidor

general y del consejo y de aqui adelante se despacharan se pongan en la

camara del secreto para que de ellas se haya entera noticia y sean mejor

guardadas y cumplidas.

Item, por quanto parece que hay algunos condenados à pena de galeras y

otras penas las quales nunca se han ejecutado mandamos que vos los

dichos inquisidores ò qualquiera de vos veais esto con diligencia y

hagais justicia sobre lo qual os encargamos la conciencia.

Item, por quanto somos informado quel notario de los sequestros ha

pedido muchas veces que se le de noticia de las penitencias impuestas y

de las que dende en adelante se hobieren de imponer para tener cuenta y

razon dellas y hacer cargo al receptor ò à quien las habia recebido ò

recibiere y que nunca se ha hecho, mandamos que al escribano de

sequestros se de noticia y razon de todas las penitencias pasadas.

Item, mandamos que todas las penitencias que de aqui adelante se

impusieren se den al doctor Tristan Calvete el qual tenga razon de las

dichas penitencias y mandamos à los inquisidores y à qualquiera dellos

que pongan diligencia en cobrar las dichas penitencias y ponerlas en el

arca del sancto oficio conforme à la justicia.

Item, porque parece que en la paga del quarto y quinto por las

manifestaciones de bienes ocultos ha habido y hay abuso por los

receptores no guardandose la provision que sobre esto està despachado,

mandamos que aquella se guarde y que el dicho quarto y quinto no se

pague à los denunciantes sino solo de bienes ocultos y que no hayan

venido à noticia del receptor ni de otros oficiales de esa inquisicion y

que los denunciantes no sean oficiales ò personas que por causa y razon

del oficio hayan sabido y manifestado los dichos bienes, y mandamos que

de aqui adelante no se de por manifestacion de bienes ocultos salvo la

quinta parte de los bienes que se cobraren por la tal manifestacion.

Item, por quanto parece que el despensero de los presos tiene un mozo al

qual se da de salario ocho tarines cada dia y de comer, vos los dichos

inquisidores ò qualquiera de vos proveereis en esto lo que convenga de

manera que no traya gastos superfluos.

Item, por quanto somos informado que el escribano de sequestros anduvo

con el inquisidor Cervera en la visita de ese reino catorce meses fuera

de la ciudad de Palermo y que en ese tiempo se han vendido muchos bienes

y cobrado muchas deudas en la dicha ciudad y que no ha podido hallar

razon cuenta de lo que se ha entrado y cobrado, mandamos que vos los

dichos inquisidores ò qualquiera de vos averigueis brevemente con

diligencia esto dando todo el favor que fuere menester al contador y

escribano de sequestros.

Item, porque somos informado que en ese oficio se hacen muchos gastos

que se podrian muy bien escusar y que los inquisidores dan los

mandamientos para ello con mucha facilidad y es cosa justa y debida se

provea esto, mandamos que vos los inquisidores ò qualquiera de vos os

informeis destos gastos extraordinarios y proveais que de aqui adelante

no se hagan gastos superfluos.

Item, porque parece que los presos de la carcel estan alguna vez mal

proveidos de ropa de cama porque à los que son fuera de la ciudad no les

curan de traer ropa y que seria bien que cuando el alguacil trae algun

preso trugese ropa con èl de sus bienes para su cama, vos los dichos

inquisidores ò qualquiera de vos provereis esto de manera que los presos

sean bien proveidos y tratados.

Item, mandamos que los familiares deste santo oficio sean personas

virtuosas, quietas, pacificas y abonadas y que el numero no sea

superfluo porque no haya justa causa de quejas que lo mesmo està

proveido en las otras inquisiciones.

Item, porque parece que por los notarios del secreto se han examinado

algunos testigos del crimen sin presencia de los inquisidores ò de

alguno dellos contra el tenor de la instruccion que esto prohibe

mandamos que la dicha instruccion se guarde como en ella se contiene

sobre lo qual encargamos la conciencia à los inquisidores y notarios del

secreto salvo que fuere dificultoso ir alguno de los inquisidores à

hacer el dicho examen en el qual caso el comisario juntamente con uno de

los dichos notarios lo pueda hacer el qual comisario entonce de

certificacion de la fe que se debe dar à los testigos que asi se

examinaren.

Item, porque consta por el proceso de la dicha visita que à los

oficiales y ministros dese sancto oficio le han hecho algunas

resistencias è injurias las quales no han sido castigadas mandamos que

el fiscal haga acerca desto sus instancias debidas y vos los

inquisidores ò qualquiera de vos hagais justicia porque à los

malhechores sea castigo y à los otros exemplo y los oficiales de aqui

adelante no sean injuriados ni maltratados.

Item, por quanto parece que algunas veces los inquisidores no entienden

personalmente en la ratificacion de los testigos y los comisarios no

guardan el secreto mandamos que la ratificacion de los testigos se haga

ante vos los inquisidores ò qualquiera de vos y que se guarde

enteramente la instruccion que cerca desto habla ansi en el examen

sumario como en las ratificaciones.

Item, porque parece que algunos llamandose comisarios sin tener comision

ni poder del receptor han exigido y cobrado deudas debidas al fisco real

en muchas partes asi en tiempo del receptor Obregon como de Garcia Cid y

aunque algunos dellos vinieron à dar cuenta à los receptores otros no la

han dado, mandamos que el inquisidor contador y escribano de sequestros

que agora van proveidos averiguen esto con mucha diligencia y en todo

provean mediante justicia.

Item, parece que al tiempo que vino en ese reino el ambajador moro de

los Gelves el inquisidor Calvete hizo traer à la inquisicion un

esclavito pequeño que los moros que vinieron con el dicho embajador le

tenian hurtado para se lo volver en Berberia porque no le llevasen à

pedimiento del dueño y tambien porque el mochacho diz que decia que

queria ser cristiano y que ido deste reino el dicho ambajador entrego el

dicho esclavito al fiscal de ese reino y no à la parte cuyo era aunque

lo vino à pedir diversas vices. Porende mandamos que vos los dichos

inquisidores ó qualquiera de vos proveais en esto lo que fuere de

justicia de manera que el dicho esclavo se vuelva y de y entregue à cuyo

es.

Item, parece que por parte de un Francisco Maynente preso por herege se

hobo allegado para su defensa que los testigos fueron conspirados y

conjurados contra èl por un Juan de Avisa y otros consortes suyos para

lo qual nombro testigos y allende aquellos pidio que tambien se

examinasen los nombrados por sus hijos y que yendo à entender uno de los

inquisidores en la probanza desta conspiracion recibio en contradiccion

del fiscal testigos nuevamento nombrados por los hijos è yernos del

preso ò à un suegro suyo è à otros que continuamente con las armas en

las manos han andado en defension del dicho Francisco Mainente, y que

en el examen los susodichos no fueron preguntados de deudos amistad ni

de otras circumstancias necesarias de lugar y tiempo de manera que por

esta via se ha embarazado esta causa y tornandose à desdecir algunos de

los testigos. Porende mandamos que el fiscal haga sus pedimentos cerca

desto ante los inquisidores y que ellos ò qualquiera dellos provean lo

que fuere de justicia.

Item, por quanto parece que los reconciliados traen los habitos

cubiertos por los ciudades y tierras donde moran, los inhabiles per

condemnacion de padres y de abuelos traen armas, seda, oro, plata y usan

de cosas que les son vedadas y prohibidas y que esto no se castiga y es

en mucho deservicio de Dios y menosprecio de justicia mandamos que el

fiscal haga sus pedimentos sobre esto y los inquisidores ò qualquiera

dellos lo castiguen y provean mediante justicia.

Item, porque parece que el receptor se queja que el inquisidor Cervera

en la visita que hizo por ese reino mando acudir con los aquileres de

una casa à un Nadal Valaguer contra toda justicia y razon, la qual casa

con otras bienes diz que estaban cedidos y traspasados à ese santo

oficio por alcances que se ovieron hecho al dicho Nadal de haciendas

cobradas en su tiempo y del receptor Obregon, mandamos que vos los

inquisidores ò qualquiera de vos hagais brevemente justicia.

Item, porque parece que ha habido comunicacion de presos unos con otros

por la mala guarda de las carceles y desto se siguen muchos

inconvenientes al sancto oficio, mandamos que los inquisidores ò

qualquiera de vos proveais cerca desto de remedio convenible.

Item, por quanto parece que al tiempo de la conmocion de ese reino

muchos de los reconciliados por ese sancto oficio se quitaron los

habitos penitenciales y despues aca no se los han vuelto los quales en

mucho deservicio de Dios y grande daño de las animas de los dichos

reconciliados, mandamos que vos los dichos inquisidores ò qualquiera de

vos proveais que todos los dichos habitos se vuelvan à los dichos

reconciliados para que los trayan publicamente y cumplan las sentencias

que contra ellos fueron dadas mirando mucho que esto se haga en tiempo y

de manera que por ello no se pueda seguir escandalo ni inconveniente

alguno, que despues de vueltos se usara con los que cumplieren como

deben sus penitencias de misericordia.

Item, por quanto parece que los inquisidores y otros oficiales de esa

inquisicion han llevado algunos presentes contra la instruccion que esto

prohibe, mandamos que de aqui adelante se guarde la dicha instruccion

como en ella se contiene y lo que se ha llevado hasta aqui de presentes

contra la dicha instruccion de confesos y litigantes se ha restituido à

las partes que dieron los dichos presentes.

Item, porque somos informado que el inquisidor Melchior Cervera por

descargo de su conciencia dejo en su ultimo testamento à ese santo

oficio docientos ducados de oro, y es cosa justa que se cobren, mandamos

que el receptor de los bienes confiscados no pague à el heredero del

dicho Melchior Cervera de lo que se le debiere de su salario los dichos

docientos ducados y si todo su salario fuese pagado se cobren por el

dicho receptor ò contador de los bienes del dicho inquisidor Cervera.

Por ende mandamos à vos los dichos inquisidores y oficiales que agora

sois ò por tiempo fueredes en el oficio de la santa inquisicion del

dicho reino de Sicilia que veades las instrucciones y ordinaciones y

cosas y capitulos susodichos y todas las otras instrucciones del dicho

sancto oficio y cada uno de vos en lo que toca y atañe las guardeis y

cumplais y hagais guardar y cumplir en todo y por todo segun que en

ellas se contiene y contra el tenor y forma de lo en ellas y cada una

dellas contenido no vayais ni paseis ni consintais ir ni pasar en tiempo

alguno so las penas en los dichos capitulos é instrucciones contenidas

sobre todo lo qual vos encargamos la conciencia, en testimonio de lo

qual mandamos hacer la presente firmada de nuestro nombre refrendada del

secretario y sellada con el sello deste sancto oficio.

Datum en la villa de Madrid à xxxi dias del mes de Enero del año del

nascimiento de nuestro señor mil quinientos y veinte y cinco

_Archiepiscopus Hispalensis_.

De mandato Rmi. D. Archiepiscopi Hispalensis inquisitoris generalis

_Joannes Garcia_, secretarius.

Registrata in sancte inquisitionis quinto, fº clv.

III.

COMMISSION FOR THE ARREST OF HERETICS, ISSUED BY VICEROY RIBAGORZA,

JANUARY 14, 1509.

(Chioccarello MSS., Tom. VIII).

(See p. 56).