Auto-da-fé celebrated at Seville in 1560—proceedings of the
Inquisition during the reigns of Philip III. Philip IV. and
Charles II.—M. Legal, the French commander, throws open the doors
of the Inquisition, and liberates the prisoners—state of the
Inquisition during the reigns of Ferdinand VI. Charles III. and
Charles IV.—it is suppressed by Bonaparte—is re-established by
Ferdinand VII.—persecuting spirit of the modern Inquisition.
Previous to giving any further account of individual persecutions by
the Inquisition, we shall now resume the history of that tribunal
in Spain. On the 22d of December 1560, a splendid auto-da-fé was
celebrated at Seville, at which fourteen individuals were burnt in
person, three in effigy, and thirty-four were subjected to various
penances.[16] Several of the sufferers were Englishmen, whose only
crime was that they possessed wealth. Under the pretext that they
were guilty of heresy, their property was seized by the hands of the
avaricious Inquisitors, and not a few of them were condemned to the
flames.[17]
In 1561, the Inquisitor-general, Valdes, published a new code of laws,
for the regulation of the different tribunals of the "Holy Office"
throughout Spain. This code consisted of eighty-one articles, "which
have been, till the present time, the laws by which the proceedings of
the Inquisition have been regulated."[18]
From 1560 to 1570, one auto-da-fé, at least, was celebrated annually
in every Inquisition throughout Spain, at which many adherents of the
Reformation were consigned to the flames. Thirty individuals were
burnt at Murcia in 1560, twenty-three in 1562, seventeen in 1563, and
thirty-five in the two years following, besides many in effigy; and
great numbers were condemned to different other punishments. Similar
tragedies were acted in Toledo, Saragossa, Grenada, &c., where not a
few of the victims who were sacrificed to the cruelty of this barbarous
tribunal were the disciples of Luther and Calvin.
During the remaining years of Philip II. the power and insolence of
the Inquisitors daily increased, and the kingdom of Spain literally
groaned under their oppressive yoke. Philip III. who succeeded his
father in 1598, was no less bigoted and superstitious. Having assembled
the Cortes of the kingdom at Madrid, in 1607, the members of that
assembly represented to their new sovereign, that in 1579 and 1586,
they had required a reform of the abuses committed in the tribunal of
the Inquisition, to put an end to the right which the Inquisitors had
usurped, of taking cognizance of crimes not relating to heresy; that
Philip II. had promised to do this, but died before he could perform
it, and that in consequence they renewed the request. Philip replied,
that he would take proper measures to satisfy the Cortes. In 1611, when
he convoked the new Cortes, they made the same request, and received
the same answer; but nothing was attempted, and the Inquisitors became
daily more insolent, and filled their prisons with victims.
Philip IV. was equally averse to any reform in the court of
Inquisition; on the contrary, he even permitted the Inquisitors to take
cognizance of the offence of exporting copper money, and to dispose
of a fourth of what fell into their hands. During the reign of this
monarch, and that of Charles II. numerous autos-da-fé were annually
celebrated throughout Spain; and many were the victims which were
sacrificed to Inquisitorial cruelty in that blinded country, who,
though "tried by fire," were found steadfast defenders of the truth,
and eminent witnesses against the idolatries of Popery, and against
that barbarous tribunal which for so many ages has shed the blood of
the saints.[19]
On the death of Charles II. in 1700, and the accession of his uncle
Philip V., a kind of civil war broke out in Spain, in consequence
of the pretensions of the Archduke Charles of Austria. Among the
troops employed by Philip, were about fourteen thousand auxiliaries
provided by the King of France. This force was sent into Arragon,
the inhabitants of which had declared for Charles. The people were
soon overawed; and in their victorious career, the French came into
possession of the city of Saragossa, in which there was a number of
convents, and in particular one belonging to the Dominicans. M. de
Legal, the French commander, found it necessary to levy a pretty heavy
contribution, on the inhabitants, not excepting the convents. The
Dominicans, all the friars of which were familiars of the Inquisition,
excused themselves in a civil manner, saying that they had no money,
and that if M. Legal insisted upon the demand of their part of the
contribution, they could not pay him in any other way, than by sending
him the silver images of the saints. These crafty friars imagined that
the French commander would not presume to insist upon such a sacrifice,
or if he did, that they would, by raising the cry of heresy against
him, expose him to the vengeance of a blind and superstitious people.
But M. Legal was indifferent alike to the destruction of the images,
and to the rage both of the priests and people. He therefore informed
the Dominicans, that the silver saints would answer his purpose equally
the same as money. Perceiving the dilemma in which they had now placed
themselves, the friars endeavoured to raise a mob, by carrying their
images in solemn procession, dressed in black, and accompanied by
lighted candles. Aware of their intention, M. Legal ordered out four
companies of soldiers well armed, to receive the procession, so that
the design of raising the people completely failed.
M. Legal immediately sent the images to the mint, which threw the
friars into the greatest consternation, and they lost no time in making
application to the Inquisition, to interpose its supreme power in order
to save their idols from the furnace. With this request the Inquisitors
speedily complied, by framing an instrument, excommunicating M. Legal,
as having been guilty of sacrilege. This paper was put into the hands
of the secretary of the holy office, who was ordered to go and read it
to the French commander. Instead of expressing either displeasure or
surprise, M. Legal took the paper from the secretary after hearing it
read, and mildly said, "Pray tell your masters, the Inquisitors, that I
will answer them to-morrow morning."
The Frenchman was as good as his word. Having caused his secretary to
draw out a copy of the excommunication, with the simple alteration of
inserting "the Holy Inquisitors," instead of his own name, he ordered
him on the following morning to repair with it, accompanied by four
regiments of soldiers, to the Inquisition, and having read it to the
Inquisitors themselves, if they made the least noise, to turn them to
the door, open all the prisons, and quarter two regiments in the sacred
edifice. These orders were implicitly obeyed. Amazed and confounded
to hear themselves excommunicated by a man who had no authority for
it, the Inquisitors began to cry out against Legal as a heretic, and
as having publicly insulted the Catholic faith. "Holy Inquisitors,"
replied the secretary, "the king wants this house to quarter his troops
in; so walk out immediately." Having no alternative, the holy fathers
were compelled to obey. The doors of all the prisons were thrown open,
and four hundred prisoners set at liberty. Among these were sixty
young women, who were found to be the private property of the three
Inquisitors, whom they had unjustly taken from their fathers' homes in
the city and neighbourhood!
The next day the Inquisitors complained to Philip; but that monarch
calmly replied, "I am very sorry; but I cannot help it; my crown is in
danger, and my grandfather defends it, and this is done by his troops.
If it had been done by my troops, I should have applied a speedy
remedy; but you must have patience till things take another turn." They
were accordingly obliged to exercise that patience for a period of
eight months.
The archbishop, however, deeply concerned for the honour of the holy
tribunal, requested M. Legal to send the women to his palace, promising
that he would take care of them, and threatening with excommunication
all who should dare to defame, by groundless reports, the tribunal of
the Inquisition. M. Legal professed his willingness to comply with this
request; but as to the young women, he informed his grace, that they
had already been taken away by the French officers. This affair, which
is related by Gavin, and other writers, shows at once the detestable
nature of a tribunal where deeds of darkness, "of which it is a shame
even to speak," were so unblushingly committed. For these young women
"were chiefly ladies, beautiful and accomplished, who had been forcibly
carried away, at the pleasure of the Inquisitors, from the most opulent
families in the city, to enrich their seraglio, and who probably would
never have been seen without the walls of the holy office, but for such
a deliverance as that which was effected by the French soldiers."
Philip was not so devoted to the court of the Inquisition as his
predecessors had been. In the first year of his reign, a solemn
auto-da-fé was celebrated in honour of his accession to the throne;
but though Philip declared it to be his intention to protect the
tribunal of the holy office, yet he decidedly refused to be present
at a scene so barbarous. During the reign of this monarch, however,
which lasted forty-six years, one auto-da-fé was annually celebrated
by every Inquisition throughout the kingdom, at which, it has been
calculated, upwards of fourteen thousand individuals suffered, who had
been condemned by the holy tribunal to different punishments. It was
in the reign of Philip, too, that the freemasons became the objects of
persecution by the Inquisition. Pope Clement XII. had excommunicated
them in a bull which he issued in 1738; and, copying the example of his
holiness, Philip in 1740 enacted several severe laws against all who
were, or should be connected with that order; in consequence of which
many of the fraternity were arrested and condemned to the galleys.
Never behind in any species of cruelty or oppression, the Inquisitors
apprehended every freemason upon whom they could lay their hands; and
in a short time they seemed to be more intent upon their suppression
than even upon that of heretics.
The same rigour against freemasonry existed under the reign of
Ferdinand VI., which lasted from 1746 to 1759. Yet during these
years, no general auto-da-fé, and only thirty-four private ones, were
celebrated in Spain. At these private acts of faith, one hundred and
eighty individuals were punished, ten of whom only were burnt alive.
Historians differ in opinion as to the cause of this decrease in the
number of autos-da-fé at that period in Spain, and the consequent
diminution of the victims who were sacrificed by the tribunal of
the holy office. The following account, given by Llorente, who was
secretary to the Inquisition, seems to be the most probable: "The
rise of good taste in literature in Spain," says that author, "the
restoration of which was prepared under Philip V. was dated from the
reign of Ferdinand VI. On this circumstance is founded the opinion,
that the accession of the Bourbons caused a change in the system of
the Inquisition; yet these princes never gave any new laws to the
Inquisition, or suppressed any of the ancient code, and consequently
did not prevent any of the numerous autos-da-fé which were celebrated
in their reigns. But Philip established at Madrid two royal academies,
for history and the Spanish language, on the model of that of Paris,
and favoured a friendly intercourse between the literati of the two
nations. The establishment of weekly papers made the people acquainted
with works they had never before heard of, and informed them of
resolutions of the Catholic princes concerning the clergy, which a
short time before they would have considered as an outrage against
religion and its ministers. These circumstances, and some other causes,
during the reign of Philip V., prepared the way for the interesting
revolution in Spanish literature, under Ferdinand VI. This change was
followed by a great benefit to mankind; the Inquisitors, and even their
inferior officers, began to perceive that zeal for the purity of the
Catholic religion is exposed to the admission of erroneous opinions."
The Inquisition remained in nearly a similar condition, during the
reigns of Charles III. and Charles IV., the former supporting it
because he hated freemasons, and the latter "because the French
revolution seemed to justify a system of surveillance, and he found a
firm support in the zeal of the Inquisitors-general, always attentive
to the preservation and extension of their power, as if the sovereign
authority could find no surer means of strengthening the throne than
the terror inspired by the Inquisition."
A great number of the works which were published in France, at the
period of the revolution in that country, having been conveyed to
Spain, and eagerly read by the people, the Inquisitors lost no time in
prohibiting and seizing all books, pamphlets, and newspapers relating
to French affairs, and gave peremptory orders to every person to
denounce all who were friendly to the revolutionary principles. The
consequence was, that informations were lodged against vast numbers,
who were immediately apprehended, and thrown into prison. Among others,
two booksellers in Valladolid were condemned in 1799 to two months'
imprisonment, two years' suspension of their trade, and to banishment
from the kingdom.
The invasion of Spain by Bonaparte in 1808, and abdication of the
throne by Charles IV. in favour of his son Ferdinand VII., gave a
tremendous blow to the Inquisition. In that year Napoleon Bonaparte
suppressed the holy office at Chamastin near Madrid; and, with the
approbation of Joseph Bonaparte, Llorente burnt all the criminal
processes in the Inquisition, excepting those which belonged to history.
On the 22d of February, 1813, the Cortes-general of the kingdom
assembled at Madrid, and having decreed that the existence of the
Inquisition was incompatible with the political constitution which
had been adopted by the nation, that assembly fully suppressed that
odious tribunal, and restored to the bishops and secular judges, the
jurisdiction which they had anciently enjoyed.
"Thus ended the existence of a tribunal," to use the words of the
translator of Puigblanch, "which in Spain had lorded it over the people
for more than three hundred and twenty years, had been an outrage to
humanity, and a powerful engine of internal police in the hands of
despots. Thus perished a tremendous and inconsistent power, which even
in Rome no longer held sway; and though the triumph was unfortunately
short, the daring and enlightened measure of the Cortes will ever
remain on record as part of that great attempt to rally round the
sacred standard of civil and religious liberty, as far as was possible
in a country so benighted as that over which they presided; and, as a
meritorious act, the destruction of the Inquisition thence entitles
them to the respect of their contemporaries, and the gratitude of
posterity."
But, alas! notwithstanding the abolition of this most detestable
tribunal, and the praiseworthy efforts of many Spanish patriots to
prevent its ever again disgracing their country, it is most distressing
to be compelled to add, that it was soon afterwards re-established
by Ferdinand VII. No sooner did that monarch find himself again in
possession of the throne, for his restoration to which he was indebted
to the valour of the British nation, than he annulled the acts of the
Cortes, and re-established the Inquisition in its full powers. The
following are the terms of the edict, which set up anew this unjust
court.
"The past tumults, and the war, which have desolated all the provinces
of the kingdom for the space of six years—the residence therein during
this period of foreign troops consisting of many sects, almost all
infected with abhorrence and hatred of the Catholic religion, and the
disorders these evils always bring with them, together with the little
care latterly taken to regulate religious concerns are circumstances
which have afforded wicked persons full scope to live according to
their free will, and also given rise to the introduction and adoption
of many pernicious opinions, through the same means by which they
have been propagated in other countries," viz. the press: "Wherefore
I have resolved that the council of the Inquisition, together with
the other tribunals of the holy office, shall be restored, and for
the present continue in the exercise of their jurisdiction, as well
ecclesiastical—a power granted them by the popes at the request of
my august predecessors, united with that vested in local prelates
by virtue of their ministry—as also royal, conferred upon them
by successive monarchs; the said tribunals, in the use of both
jurisdictions, complying with the statutes by which they were governed
in 1808, as well as the laws and regulations it had been deemed
expedient to enact at various times, in order to prevent certain
abuses." Dated Madrid, July 21, 1814.
No sooner accordingly were the Inquisitors re-invested with power, than
they began to display a similar spirit to that of their persecuting
predecessors. On the 12th of February, 1815, they issued the following
injunction to all confessors throughout European and American Spain.
"1st, Each one is with the greatest efficacy to persuade the penitent
to accuse himself before the said confessor, of all the errors or
heresies into which he may have fallen, without promising him the
benefit of absolution in any other form, assuring him of the inviolable
secrecy he will keep, and which is kept in the holy office, and that
the smallest injury shall not thence result to him; rather that this
measure will serve as a means to prevent his being punished, in case he
should be accused by any other person of the errors and heresies which
it behoves him to manifest, and to which he otherwise stands liable.
"2dly, In case he should consent, the confessor shall take down his
declaration under oath to speak the truth, and the act shall bear the
following heading: 'In the town of N., on such a day, month, and year,
spontaneously appeared before me the undersigned confessor——(expressing
his name, country, and profession.') The document shall then relate,
in the most specific manner, all his errors and their accompanying
circumstances, the time and place in which he may have committed them,
seen, or heard them committed; and if any persons were present, they
are to be named, and he is also to specify of them all he knows. He is
then to sign his declaration, if he knows how; and, if not, he is to
make a cross, but the confessor is always to sign it.
"3dly, He (the confessor) shall cause him to abjure his heresy, and
absolve him by reconciling him to the church; he shall moreover enjoin
him secretly to confess all his errors, and impose on him such penance
as he may deem fit; which being done, the whole is to be forwarded to
the Holy Office.
"Finally, if the most efficacious persuasions have not been able
to prevail on the penitent, in case he should evince due signs of
repentance and detestation of his offences, the confessor shall
absolve him from excommunication in the _internal_ form only," (that
is, not exempt him from the future prosecutions of the Inquisition,)
"explaining this to him for his government and information. As soon as
the statement of all this has been drawn up by the confessor, he is
also to forward it to the Holy Office."
On the 5th of April, Don Francisco Xavier de Mier y Campillo, the
Inquisitor-general, published an edict, offering a term of grace to
those who had fallen into the crime of heresy, provided they denounced
themselves before the end of the year; and declaring that "Spain
was infected by the new and dangerous doctrines which had ruined
the greatest part of Europe." And on the 22d of July following, the
Inquisitors issued an order for the suppression of almost every work
which had been published in Spain during the revolution, subjecting
every reader and retainer of any of the proscribed books to the most
grievous punishments.
Thus, although both the king and the Inquisitors pretended that
reformations had taken place in the holy tribunal, and the latter
in particular boasted of the "sweetness and charity which are now
used in the ecclesiastical procedure," yet it is evident that the
re-established Inquisition differs little or nothing from that which
was suppressed. It does not appear that a single public auto-da-fé
has been celebrated since that period,[20] and it is to be hoped that
a scene so barbarous will never again be exhibited in Spain; yet,
while that odious tribunal exists, who can be safe in that oppressed
and degraded country? Its secret prisons, and its various modes of
torture and other punishments, still remain. Spain, therefore, can
never be happy, or its inhabitants one moment secure, while the falsely
denominated "Holy Office" continues to enjoy the smallest footing in
that kingdom.
Nor let these remarks be termed the effects of prejudice. On the
contrary, it is proved by numerous living authors, who adduce facts,
the best of all evidence, in support of their statements, that the
procedure of the modern Inquisition is equally cruel with that of the
ancient, excepting indeed the celebration of public autos-da-fé. Among
these none give a more ample detail of the present state of the holy
tribunal, than Lieut. Colonel Don Juan Van Halen, and Llorente. The
former of these writers has published a narrative of his imprisonment
in the dungeons of the Holy Office in 1817. He was confined first in
the Inquisition of Murcia, and subsequently in that of Madrid, for
the active part which he took in the exertions of the _liberales_ to
deliver their country from tyranny, both civil and ecclesiastical. He
was arrested at Murcia, on the 21st of September, and all his papers
were seized, among which were several that very nearly involved many
eminent persons in the same persecution. Passing over the sufferings
which he endured while confined in the Inquisition of Murcia, we shall
give here, in his own words, an account of part of those which were
inflicted on him in Madrid.
"About eight o'clock at night, on the 20th of November," says he, "Don
Juanita, (one of the Inquisitors,) entered my dungeon, with a lantern
in his hand, followed by four other men, whose faces were concealed by
a piece of black cloth, shaped above the head like a cowl, and falling
over the shoulders and chest, in the middle of which were two holes for
the eyes. I was half asleep when the noise of the doors opening awoke
me, and, by the dim light of the lantern, I perceived those frightful
apparitions. Imagining I was labouring under the effects of a dream, I
earnestly gazed awhile on the group, till one of them approached, and,
pulling me by the leather strap with which my arms were bound, gave me
to understand by signs that I was to rise. Having obeyed his summons,
my face was covered with a leather mask, and in this manner I was led
out of the prison. After walking through various passages on a level
with that of my dungeon, we entered a room, where I heard Zorilla (the
other Inquisitor) order my attendants to untie the strap.
"'Listen, with great attention,' he then exclaimed, addressing me,
'since you have hitherto been deaf to the advice which this holy
tribunal has repeatedly given you in their spirit of peace, humanity,
and religious charity. Propagator of secret and impious societies,
established by the heresies of their members to destroy our holy
religion and the august throne of our Catholic sovereign, you have
maintained, for the space of a year, an uninterrupted correspondence
with more than two hundred sectarians.... This holy tribunal has at
last recourse to rigour. It will extort from you the truths, which
neither the duty of a religious oath, demanded without violence, nor
the mild admonitions which have been so often resorted to, in order to
induce you to make the desired declarations, have been able to obtain.
This evident pertinacity obliges us to use a salutary severity. We
judge the cause of our Divine Redeemer and of our Catholic king, and we
shall know to fulfil the high ministry with which the supreme spiritual
and temporal authority has invested us. The most rigorous torments will
be employed to obtain from you these truths, or you shall expire in
the midst of them. All the charges I have just mentioned in a summary
manner must be amply explained,—yes! amply explained! justice, God, and
the king require that it should be so. This holy tribunal will fulfil
their duties—yes!'
"The agitation of the moment permitted me to utter only a few words,
which, however, were not listened to, and I was hurried away to the
further end of the room, the jailer and his assistants exerting all
their strength to secure me. Having succeeded in raising me from
the ground, they placed under my arm-pits two high crutches, from
which I remained suspended; after which my right arm was tied to the
corresponding crutch, whilst the left being kept in a horizontal
position, they encased my hand open in a wooden glove extending to the
wrist, which shut very tightly, and from which two large iron bars ran
as far as the shoulder, keeping the whole in the same position in which
it was placed. My waist and legs were similarly bound to the crutches
by which I was supported; so that I shortly remained without any other
action than that of breathing, though with difficulty.
"Having remained a short time in this painful position, that unmerciful
tribunal returned to their former charges. Zorrilla, with a tremulous
voice that seemed to evince his thirst for blood and vengeance,
repeated the first of those he had just read, namely, whether I did not
belong to a society whose object was to overthrow our holy religion,
and the august throne of our Catholic sovereign? I replied that it
was impossible I should plead guilty to an accusation of that nature.
'Without any subterfuge, say whether it is so,' he added, in an angry
tone.
"'It is not, sir,' I replied. The glove which guided my arm, and which
seemed to be resting on the edge of a wheel, began now to turn, and,
with its movements, I felt by degrees an acute pain, especially from
the elbow to the shoulder, a general convulsion throughout my frame,
and a cold sweat over-spreading my face. The interrogatory continued,
but Zorrilla's question of 'Is it so? is it so?' were the only words
that struck my ear amidst the excruciating pain I endured, which became
so intense that I fainted away, and heard no more the voices of those
cannibals.
"When I recovered my senses, I found myself stretched on the floor of
my dungeon, my hands and feet secured with heavy fetters and manacles,
fastened by a thick chain, the nails of which my tormentors were still
riveting! Left by those wretches stretched in the same place, I could
have wished that the doors, which closed after them, should never again
open. Eternal sleep was all I desired, and all I asked of Heaven. It
was after much difficulty that I dragged myself to my bed. It seemed
to me that the noise of my chains would awaken the vigilance of my
jailers, whose presence was to me the most fatal of my torments. I
spent the whole of the night struggling with the intense pains which
were the effects of the torture, and with the workings of my excited
mind, which offered but a horrible perspective to my complicated
misfortunes. This state of mental agitation, and the burning fever
which was every moment increasing, soon threw me into a delirium,
during which I scarcely noticed the operation performed by my jailers,
of opening the seams of my coat to examine the state of my arm."
Having undergone innumerable sufferings, his enemies being bent on his
destruction, Van Halen at length succeeded, on the 30th of January,
1818, in making his escape from the prisons of the Inquisition;
upon which he repaired successively to France, England, and Russia,
returning to Spain in 1821.
Llorente again, records the following fact, which he says was given
by one who was present when the Inquisition was thrown open in 1820,
by orders of the Cortes of Madrid. Twenty-one prisoners were found in
it, not one of whom knew the name of the city in which he was; some
had been confined three years, some a longer period, and not one knew
perfectly the nature of the crime of which he was accused. One of
these prisoners had been condemned, and was to have suffered on the
following day. His punishment was to be death by the pendulum. The
method of thus destroying the victim is as follows:—The condemned is
fastened in a groove upon a table, on his back; suspended above him is
a pendulum, the edge of which is sharp, and it is so constructed as to
become longer with every movement. The wretch sees this implement of
destruction swinging to and fro above him, and every moment the keen
edge approaching nearer and nearer: at length it cuts the skin of his
nose, and gradually cuts on, until life is extinct. It may be doubted
if the Holy Office, in its mercy, ever invented a more humane and rapid
method of exterminating heresy, or ensuring confiscation! This, let it
be remembered, was a punishment of the secret tribunal, A. D., 1820!!
How, indeed, is it possible that any amelioration can have taken place
in the Inquisition, that great bulwark of Rome, when Popery, and the
measures of the Holy See, continue unaltered? Though not bearing
directly on the point in hand, yet illustrative of the hatred which
the Romish Church bears to Protestants and to their works, and of
her determination still to persecute when in her power all who dare
to call in question any of her dogmas, the following extracts from a
speech delivered before the British Parliament, in May, 1825, by Sir
Robert H. Inglis, are submitted to the reader;—"I will tell you,"
said the Honourable Baronet, "not what the literature of the Church
of Rome _is_, but what it _is not_. Her tyranny over literature, her
proscription at this day of all the great masters of the human mind,
can be paralleled only by the tyranny and the proscription which she
exercised five centuries ago over the minds and bodies alike. The
volume which I hold in my hand—the Index Librorum Prohibitorum—contains
a list of the books which are at this time proscribed in the Church
of Rome under the penalties of the Inquisition. It was printed at
Rome, by authority, in 1819, and I bought it there in 1821.[21] The
first book in this great catalogue of works, which are taken from the
faithful every where, and are given up to the Inquisition, is 'Bacon
de Augmentis Scientiarum.' 'Locke on the Human Understanding,' and
'Cudworth's Intellectual System,' follow in the train. Many other
English works are proscribed. One only I will mention, the 'Paradise
Lost' of Milton. The reading of the work was interdicted, indeed,
nearly a hundred years ago; but the prohibition was renewed in 1819.
Is not this enough to prove that the character of the Church of Rome
is not so open to a beneficial change as some of my honourable friends
are willing to hope and believe it to be? I pass over large classes of
books, the very possession of which is forbidden, but I must notice the
impartial prohibition of science. Will the House believe it possible,
that the celebrated sentence, in 1633, against Galileo—a sentence
immortalized by the execration of science in every country where the
mind is free—should be renewed and published in 1819? Yet of this fact
I hold the proof in my hand, in the volume of the 'Index,' which I
have already quoted. The work of Algarotti, on the Newtonian system,
shares the same fate: so that every modification of science—in other
words, every effort of free inquiry—every attempt to disengage the mind
from the trammels of authority, is alike and universally consigned
to the Inquisition. Am I not justified in saying that the Church of
Rome remains unchanged, the unchangeable enemy to the progress of the
human mind? Every other institution is advancing with sails set, and
banners streaming, on the high, yet still rising tide of improvement:
the Church of Rome alone remains fixed and bound to the bottom of the
stream, by a chain which can neither be lengthened nor removed."
FOOTNOTES:
[16] Constantine Ponce de la Fuente, one of the victims, was persecuted
with so great a degree of barbarity, that he exclaimed, "My God, were
there no Scythians or cannibals into whose hands to deliver me, rather
than to let me fall into the power of these barbarians!"—Olmedus,
another sufferer at Seville, who died in prison from bad treatment, was
once heard to exclaim, "Throw me any where, O my God, so that I may but
escape the hands of these wretches."
[17] The unspeakable cruelty and inhumanity exhibited at an auto-da-fé,
with its effects on the public mind are exhibited briefly in the
following account:—"Amid this horrid exhibition scenes of atrocity
occurred which it is appalling even to describe. Those about to be put
to death were teased by Jesuits to recant. The executioners and these
ghostly attendants united their endeavours to add to the misery of
their victims; and when there was no hope of recantation, they were
left in the hand of him who was supposed to be the fomenter of their
heresy—Satan. When the priests abandoned them, a shout was raised by
the people. This was like the death-knell, and, amid coarse and ribald
expressions, blazing furze was first thrust into the faces of the
sufferers. This inhumanity was commonly continued until the face was
black as coal, and was accompanied with loud acclamations from the
spectators. If the wind was moderate, the agony of the murdered men
lasted perhaps for half an hour, but on other occasions an hour and a
half or two hours were needed to terminate their sufferings.
"In the year 1706, Mr. Wilcox, afterwards bishop of Rochester, was
chaplain to the English factory at Lisbon, and furnished Burnet, bishop
of Salisbury, with the following account of an auto-da-fé, at which
Wilcox attended as a spectator. 'Five condemned persons appeared,' he
says, 'but only four were burnt—Antonio Travanes being reprieved after
the procession. Heytor Dias and Maria Pinteyra were burned alive, and
the other two were strangled. The woman,' says Wilcox, 'was alive in
the flames for half an hour, and the man above an hour. The king and
his brother were seated at a window so near as to be addressed for a
considerable time, in very moving terms, by the man as he was burning;
and though he asked only a few more faggots, he was not able to obtain
them. Those who were burned alive,' Wilcox continues, 'are seated on a
bench twelve feet high, fastened to a pole, and above six feet higher
than the faggots. The wind being a little fresh, the man's hinder parts
were perfectly roasted; and as he turned himself, his ribs opened
before he ceased to speak, the fire being recruited only so far as
to keep him in the same degree of heat. All his entreaties could not
procure for him a larger allowance of wood to shorten his misery and
despatch him.'
"'But, though out of hell,' says one who witnessed an auto-da-fé,
'there cannot possibly be a more lamentable spectacle than this, added
to the sufferers (as long as they can speak) crying out, '_Misericordia
por amor di Dios!_' (Mercy, for the love of God!) yet it is beheld by
people of both sexes, and all ages, with such transports of joy and
satisfaction as are not, on any other occasion, to be met with.' He
adds, at another place:
"'That the reader may not think that this inhuman joy is the effect
of a natural cruelty that is in these people's dispositions, and not
of the spirit of their religion, he may rest assured that all public
malefactors, except heretics, have their violent deaths nowhere more
tenderly lamented than amongst the same people, even when there is
nothing in the manner of their deaths that appears inhuman or cruel.'"
[18] See Appendix, No. II.
[19] "The Inquisition," says Salgado, "is subject to no other laws,
but arbitrarily racks souls, and murders bodies, of which there are
clouds of witnesses,—men condemned, because the Inquisition would be
cruel. What blasphemy in this tribunal ever to pretend to be actuated
by a divine impulse, where every brick seems a conjuring spell, and
every officer a tormenting fiend; for suppose a Jew, a Mahometan, or
a Christian, in their hands, what do they pretend to do with such an
one? Would they chastise him? What need have they then of so many
officers? Why such scandalous methods, as a secret chamber, an unseen
tribunal, invisible witnesses, a perfidious secretary, and merciless
servants,—confiscation of goods through fraud and guile, keepers as
hard hearted as the relentless walls, the fiscal mutes, the shameful
sanbenitos, unrighteous racks, a theatre filled with horror to astonish
the prisoner, a hypocritical sentence, a disguised executioner, and
a peremptory judgment? In all the times of Paganism, no such Roman
tribunal was ever erected. In their amphitheatres, men had not quite
put off humanity; those condemned to die were exposed to wild beasts to
be torn to pieces, they knew their executioner; but here the condemned
are tormented by disguised ones;—men they should be by their shape, but
devils by their fierceness and cruelty."
[20] "I myself," says the Rev. Joseph Blanco White, "saw the pile on
which the last victim was sacrificed to Roman infallibility. It was an
unhappy woman whom the Inquisition of Seville committed to the flames,
under the charge of heresy, about forty years ago, (this was written in
1825.) She perished on a spot where thousands had met the same fate. I
lament from my heart, that the structure which supported their melting
limbs, was destroyed during the late convulsions. It should have been
preserved, with the infallible and immutable canon of the Council of
Trent over it, for the detestation of future ages."
[21] A copy of this work is to be found in the Franklin Library in
Philadelphia.