the inquisitors, and the Roman Catholic persuasion, arose from a report which had been propagated throughout Europe, that he intended to turn Mahometan; the emperor, therefore, judiciously determined, by the height of bigotry and cruelty, to show his attachment to popery. The officers of the inquisition are, three inquisitors or judges, a proctor fiscal, two secretaries, a magistrate, a messenger, a receiver, a gaoler, an agent of confiscated possessions, and several assessors, counsellors, executioners, physicians, surgeons, door keepers, familiars, and visiters, who are all sworn to profound secrecy. The chief accusation against those who are subject to this tribunal is heresy, which comprises all that is spoken or written against any of the articles of the creed, or the tradition of the Romish church. The other articles of accusation are, renouncing the Roman Catholic persuasion, and believing that persons of any other religion may be saved, or even admitting that the tenets of any but papists are in the least reasonable. There are two other things which incur the most severe punishments, viz. to disapprove of any action done by the inquisition, or disbelieve any thing said by an inquisitor.

Heresy comprises many subdivisions; and upon a suspicion of any of these, the party is immediately apprehended. Advancing an offensive proposition; failing to impeach others who may advance such; contemning church ceremonies; defacing idols; reading books condemned by the inquisition; lending such books to others to read; deviating from the ordinary practices of the Romish church; letting a year pass without going to confession; eating meat on fast days; neglecting mass; being present at a sermon preached by a heretic; not appearing when summoned by the inquisition: lodging in the house of, contracting a friendship with, or making a present to a heretic; assisting a heretic to escape from confinement, or visiting one in confinement, are all matters of suspicion, and prosecuted accordingly. All Roman Catholics are commanded, under pain of excommunication, to give immediate information, even of their nearest and dearest friends, if they judge them to be heretics, or inclining to heresy. All who give the least assistance to protestants are called fautors, or abettors of heresy, and the accusations against these are for comforting such as the inquisition have begun to prosecute; assisting, or not informing against such, if they should happen to escape; concealing, abetting, advising, or furnishing heretics with money; visiting, or writing to, or sending them subsistence; secreting, or burning books and papers which might serve to convict them. The inquisition also takes cognizance of such as are accused of being magicians, witches, blasphemers, soothsayers, wizards, common swearers; and of such who read, or even possess the Bible in the vulgar tongues, the Talmud of the Jews, or the Alcoran of the Mahometans.

Upon all occasions, the inquisitors carry on their processes with the utmost severity. They seldom show mercy to a Protestant; and a Jew, who turns Christian, is far from being secure; for if he is known to keep company with another new converted Jew, a suspicion arises that they privately practise together some Jewish ceremonies; if he keep company with a person who was lately a Protestant, but now professes popery, they are accused of plotting together; but if he associate with a Roman Catholic, an accusation is often laid against

him for only pretending to be a papist, and the consequence is, a confiscation of his effects, and the loss of his life if he complain.

A defence is of little use to the prisoner; for a suspicion only is deemed sufficient cause of condemnation, and the greater his wealth the greater his danger. Most of the inquisitors' cruelties are owing to their rapacity; they destroy life to possess the property; and, under pretence of zeal, plunder individuals of their rights. A prisoner of the inquisitors is never allowed to see the face of his accuser, or any of the witnesses against him, but every method is taken, by threats and tortures, to oblige him to accuse himself. If the jurisdic tion of the inquisition be not fully allowed, vengeance is denounced against such as call it in question; or if any of its officers are opposed, those who oppose them are almost certain to be sufferers for their temerity; the maxim of the inquisition being to strike terror, and awe those who are the objects of its power into obedience. High birth, distinguished rank, or eminent employments, are no protection from its severities; and its lowest officers can make the most exalted nobleman tremble at their authority.

Such are the circumstances which subject a person to the rage of the inquisition; and the modes of beginning the process are, 1. To proceed by imputation, or prosecute on common report; 2. By the information of any indifferent person who chooses to impeach another; 3. On the information of spies who are retained by the inquisition; and, 4. On the confession of the prisoner himself.

The inquisitors never forget or forgive; length of time cannot efface their resentments; nor can the humblest concessions, or most liberal presents, obtain a pardon; they carry the desire of revenge to the grave, and wish to have both the property and lives of those who have offended them. Hence, when a person once accused to the inquisition, after escaping, is retaken, pardon is next to an impossibility. If a positive accusation be given, the inquisitors direct an order to the executioner, who takes a certain number of familiars with him to assist in the execution. Father, son, brother, sister, husband, or wife, must quietly submit; none dare resist or even speak; as either would subject them to the same punishment as the devoted victim. No respife is allowed, but the prisoner is instantaneously hurried away.

This dreadful engine of tyranny may, at any time, be introduced into a country where the Catholics have the upper hand; and hence, how careful ought we to be, who are not cursed with such an arbitrary court, to prevent its introduction! In treating of this subject, an elegant author pathetically says, "How horrid a scene of perfidy and inhumanity! What kind of community must that be, whence gratitude, love, and mutual forbearance, with regard to human frailties, are banished! What must that tribunal be, which obliges parents not only to erase from their minds the remembrance of their own children, to extinguish all those keen sensations of tenderness and affection wherewith nature inspires them, but even to extend their inhumanity so far as to force them to commence their accusers, and, consequently, to become the cause of the cruelties inflicted upon them! What ideas ought we to form to ourselves of a tribunal, which obliges children not only to stifle every soft impulse of gratitude, love, and respect, due to those who gave them birth, but even forces them, and that under the most rigorous penalties, to be spies over their parents, and to discover

to a set of merciless inquisitors the crimes, the errors, and even the little lapses to which they are exposed by human frailty! In a word, a tribunal which will not permit relations, when imprisoned in its horrid dungeons, to give each other the succours, or perform the duties which religion enjoins, must be of an infernal nature. What disorder and confusion must such conduct give rise to, in a tenderly affec tionate family! An expression, innocent in itself, and, perhaps, but too true, shall, from an indiscreet zeal, or a panic of fear, give infinite uneasiness to a family; shall ruin its peace entirely, and perhaps cause one or more of its members to be the unhappy victims of the most barbarous of all tribunals. What distractions must necessarily break forth in a house where the husband and wife are at variance, or the children loose and wicked! Will such children scruple to sacrifice a father, who endeavours to restrain them by his exhortations, by reproofs, or paternal corrections? Will they not rather, after plundering his house to support their extravagance and riot, readily deliver up their unhappy parent to all the horrors of a tribunal founded on the blackest injustice! A riotous husband, or a loose wife has an easy opportunity, assisted by means of the persecution in question, to rid themselves of one who is a check to their vices, by delivering him, or her, up to the rigours of the inquisition."

When the inquisitors have taken umbrage against an innocent person, all expedients are used to facilitate his condemnation; false oaths and testimonies are employed to prove the accused to be guilty; and all laws and institutions are sacrificed to the bigoted revenge of papacy.

When a person accused is taken, his treatment is deplorable. The goalers first begin by searching him for books and papers which might tend to his conviction, or for instruments which might be employed in self-murder or escape, and on this pretext they even rob him of his wearing apparel. When he has been searched and robbed, he is committed to prison. Innocence, on such an occasion, is a weak reed; nothing being easier than to ruin an innocent person.

The mildest sentence is imprisonment for life; yet the inquisitors. proceed by degrees, at once, subtle, slow, and cruel. The gaoler first of all insinuates himself into the prisoner's favour, by pretending to wish him well, and advise him well; and among other pretended kind hints, tells him to petition for an audit. When he is brought before the consistory, the first demand is, "What is your request?" To this the prisoner very naturally answers, that he would have a hearing. Hereupon one of the inquisitors replies, "Your hearing is this: confess the truth, conceal nothing, and rely on our mercy." Now, if the prisoner make a confession of any trifling affair, they immediately found an indictment on it; if he is mute, they shut him up without light, or any food but a scanty allowance of bread and water, till his obstinacy is overcome; and if he declare he is innocent, they torment him till he either die with the pain, or confess himself guilty.

On the re-examination of such as confess, they continually say, "You have not been sincere; you tell not all; you keep many things Concealed, and therefore must be remanded to your dungeon." When those who have stood mute are called for re-examination, if they continne silent, such tortures are ordered as will either make them speak, or kill them; and when those who proclaim their innocence

are re-examined, a crucifix is held before them, and they are solemnly exhorted to take an oath of their confession of faith. This brings them to the test; they must either swear they are Roman Catholics, or acknowledge they are not. If they acknowledge they are not, they are proceeded against as heretics. If they acknowledge they arc Roman Catholics, a string of accusations is brought against them, to which they are obliged to answer extempore; no time being given even to arrange their answers. On having verbally answered, pen, ink, and paper are given them, in order to produce a written answer, which must in every degree coincide with the verbal answer. If the verbal and written answers differ, the prisoners are charged with prevarication; if one contain more than the other, they are accused of wishing to conceal certain circumstances; if they both agree, they are charged with premeditated artifice.

After a person impeached is condemned, he is either severely whipped, violently tortured, sent to the galleys, or sentenced to death; and in either case his effects are confiscated. After judgment, a pro-cession is formed to the place of execution, which ceremony is called an Auto da Fe, or Act of Faith.

The following is an account of an Auto da Fe, at Madrid, in the year 1682.

The officers of the inquisition, preceded by trumpets, kettle-drums, and their banner, marched on the 30th of May, in cavalcade, to the palace of the great square, where they declared by proclamation, that on the 30th of June the sentence of the prisoners would be put in execution. There had not been a spectacle of this kind at Madrid for several years, for which reason it was expected by the inhabi- · tants with as much impatience as a day of the greatest festivity and triumph.

When the day appointed arrived, a prodigious number of people' appeared, dressed as splendidly as their circumstances would allow. In the great square was raised a high scaffold; and thither, from seven in the morning till the evening, were brought criminals of both sexes; all the inquisitions in the kingdom sending their prisoners to Madrid. Twenty men and women of these prisoners, with one renegado Mahometan, were ordered, to be burnt; fifty Jews and Jewesses, having never before been imprisoned, and repenting of their crime, were sentenced to a long confinement, and to wear a yellow cap; and ten others, indicted for bigamy, witchcraft, and other crimes, were sentenced to be whipped, and then sent to the galleys: these last wore large pasteboard caps, with inscriptions on them, having a halter about their necks, and torches in their hands,

On this solemn occasion the whole court of Spain was present. The grand inquisitor's chair was placed in a sort of tribunal far above that of the king. The nobles here acted the part of the sheriff's officers in England, leading such criminals as were to be burned, and holding them when fast bound with thick cords: the rest of the criminals were conducted by the familiars of the inquisition.

Among those who were to suffer, was a young Jewess of exquisite beauty, only seventeen years of age. Being on the same side of the scaffold where the queen was seated. she addressed her, in hopes of

obtaining a pardon, in the following pathetic speech: "Great queen! will not your royal presence be of some service to me in my miserable condition? Have regard to my youth; and, oh! consider that I am about to die for professing a religion imbibed from my carliest infancy!" Her majesty seemed greatly to pity her distress, but turned away her eyes, as she did not dare to speak a word in behalf of a person who had been declared a heretic by the inquisition.

Mass now began, in the midst of which the priest came from the altar, placed near the scaffold, and seated himself in a chair prepared for that purpose. Then the chief inquisitor descended from the amphitheatre, dressed in his cope, and having a mitre on his head. After bowing to the altar, he advanced towards the king's balcony, and went up to it, attended by some of his officers, carrying a cross and the gospels, with a book containing the oath by which the kings of Spain oblige themselves to protect the catholic faith, to extirpate heretics, and support, with all their power, the prosecutions and decrees of the inquisition. On the approach of the inquisitor, and on his presenting this book to the king, his majesty rose up barcheaded, and swore to maintain the oath, which was read to him by one of his counsellors; after which, the king continued standing till the inquisitor had returned to his place; when the secretary of the holy office mounted a sort of pulpit, and administered a like oath to the counsellors and the whole assembly. The mass was begun about twelve at noon, and did not end till nine in the evening, being protracted by a proclamation of the sentences of the several criminals, which were all separately rehearsed aloud one after the other. Next followed the burning of the twenty-one men and women, whose intrepidity in suffering that horrid death was truly astonishing: some thrust their hands and feet into the flames with the most dauntless fortitude; and all of them yielded to their fate with such resolution, that many of the amazed spectators lamented that such heroic souls had not been more enlightened! The situation of the king was so near to the criminals, that their dying groans were very audible to him: he could not, however, be absent from this dreadful scene, as it is esteemed a religious one; and his coronation oath obliges him to give a sanction by his presence to all the acts of the tribunal.

Another Auto da Fe.

Another Auto da Fe is thus described by Dr. Geddes :-"At the place of execution there are so many stakes set as there are prisoners to be burned, a large quantity of dry furze being set about them.The stakes of the protestants, or, as the inquisitors call them, the professed, are about four yards high, and have each a small board, whereon the prisoner is seated within half a yard of the top. The professed then go up a ladder betwixt two priests, who attend the whole day of execution. When they come even with the forementioned board, they turn about to the people, and the priests spend near a quarter of an hour in exhorting them to be reconciled to the see of Rome. On their refusing, the priests come down, and the executioner ascends, turns the professed from off the ladder upon the scat, chains their bodies close to the stakes, and leaves them. Then the priests go up a second time to renew their exhortations, and if they find them ineffectual, usually tell them, at parting, that they leave