This bloody work affords a foretaste of what was to come. At the auto of December 10, 1600, there were fourteen Portuguese Judaizers. Twelve of them had professed conversion and were reconciled; with two, convictions were too strong and they were burnt alive—Duarte Núñez de Cea and Baltasar Lucena, whose last words were that he denied Christ.[716]The auto of March 13, 1605, exhibited sixteen Judaizers reconciled in person and one in effigy. Six who had fled were burnt in effigy and three lessfortunate were burnt in person. Besides these was Antonio Corrca who, during his trial, was converted by the inspiration of God; he was reconciled with three years in prison, which he served in the convent of la Merced and then was sent to Spain, dying, in 1622, as a fraile in Ossuna, in the odor of sanctity, which has rendered him the subject of several biographies.[717]
The auto of June 1, 1608, afforded but one case, and that an unusual one—Domingo López, tried for Judaism and acquitted. This may be explained by the fact that the Portuguese New Christians had purchased, in 1604, a general pardon in Spain, which reached Peru in 1605 and for a time repressed inquisitorial activity in this direction. In 1610 there was a noteworthy case of Manuel Ramos, one of the fugitives who had been burnt in effigy in 1605. He had been captured and on being tried was now acquitted.[718]In an auto of June 17, 1612, there were five reconciliations for Judaism.[719]From this time for some years there were only scattering cases. Possibly the terrible energy manifested by the tribunal had served as a deterrent and checked the Portuguese influx, but if so the impression was but temporary. We have seen (p. 337) the complaints that arose about this time concerning the Portuguese immigration by way of Brazil and Buenos Ayres. This increased greatly when, in 1618, a Portuguese inquisitor came to Rio de Janeiro, published an Edict of Faith and then in a few days made many arrests and sequestrated property to the amount of more than 200,000 pesos. The frightened Judaizers sought refuge in Spanish territory and kept the commissioner at Buenos Ayres, Francisco de Trejo, in a state of continual anxiety. He reported, January 15, 1619, that since the new governor, Diego Martin, had come thevisitas de navíoshad been interrupted and he asked for such positive instructions that the authorities should understand that no foreigners could land until he had inspected the ship. His protests were unavailing. By the middle of April there had arrived eight ships bringing Portuguese passengers, who had paid Castilians to take them as servants so that they might enter. Governor Martin was alert and threw them in prison, in order to send them back, but many managed to get through. Some of them were married in prison to Buenos Ayres women, so as to give them a standing in the community; others broke gaol and took refuge in convents, when the frailes refused to surrender them, giving security to the governor that they would prove themselves to be not of the prohibited class, whereupon they scattered to the interior and the man who had furnished the security calmly paid the forfeit. It is true that forty of them were sent back, but it was evidently impossible to exclude these proscribed and hunted beings who were so persistent and resourceful. The tribunal, in fact, was apparently not averse to obtaining fresh material for condemnation and confiscation, for it did not authorize the commissioner to arrest suspects and send them back, but only to compile information about them and forward it to Lima, keeping advised as to their destinations so that they could be seized when wanted.[720]The immigration continued and, in 1623, the tribunal called the attention of the Suprema to the increasing numbers of Portuguese, who were spreading throughout the interior provinces. This continued and, in 1635, the fiscal of the Audiencia of Charcas represented forcibly to the king the evil of the innumerable Jews who had entered and were constantly coming.[721]
The tribunal resumed its labors and, by December 21, 1625, it was ready with an auto in which ten Judaizers were reconciled. Two had committed suicide in prison and were burnt with their bones. Two more were relaxed—Juan Acuña de Noroña, who was described as impenitent and must have been burnt alive, and Diego de Andrada who gave signs of repentance at the last and was probably strangled before burning.[722]
In 1626 there commenced a trial which illustrates forcibly the inexorable discipline of the Church, rendering it the supreme duty of the Christian to persecute and destroy all heresy. Francisco Maldonado de Silva was a surgeon of high repute in Concepcion de Chile. He was of Portuguese descent. His father had suffered in the Inquisition, had been reconciled and brought up his children, two girls and a boy, as Christians. Francisco was a good Catholic until, at the age of 18, he chanced to read theScrutinium Scripturarumof Pablo de Santa María, Bishop of Búrgos—a controversial work written for the conversion of Jews.[723]So far from confirming him in the faith it raised doubts leading him to consult his father, who told him to study the Bible and instructed him in the Law of Moses. He became an ardent convert to Judaism, but kept his secret from his mother and two sisters and from his wife, for he was married and had a child, and his wife was pregnant when he was arrested. During her absence, a year or two before, he had circumcised himself. At the age of 35, considering that his sister Isabel who was about 33, was mature enough for religious independence, he revealed his secret to her and endeavored to convert her, but in vain, and he was impervious to her entreaties to abandon his faith. They seem to have been tenderly attached to each other; he was her sole support as well as that of her mother and sister, but she could not escape the necessity of communicating the facts in confession to her confessor. The prescriptions of the Church were absolute; no family ties relieved one from the obligation of denouncing heresy, and she could not hope for sacramental absolution without discharging the duty. We can picture to ourselves the torment of that agonized soul as she nerved herself to the awful duty which would cost her a lifetime of remorse and miserywhen she obeyed her confessor’s commands and denounced her brother to the Inquisition.
The warrant for his arrest was issued December 12, 1626, and executed at Concepcion April 29, 1627. His friend, the Dominican Fray Diego de Ureña, visited him in his place of confinement, May 2, and sought to convert him, but he was resolved to die in the faith in which his father had died. So when transferred to Santiago, the Augustinian Fray Alonso de Almeida made similar efforts with like ill-success; he knew that he should die for the faith, he had never spoken to any one but his sister and she had betrayed him. He was received in Lima July 23d and was admitted to an audience the same day. When required to swear on the cross he refused, saying that he was a Jew and would live and die as such; if he had to swear it would be by the living God, the God of Israel. His trial went on through all the customary formalities, protracted by the repeated conferences held with theologians who endeavored to convince him of his errors. Eleven of these were held without weakening his pertinacity until, on January 26, 1633, the consulta de fe unanimously condemned him to relaxation.
A long sickness followed, caused by a fast of eighty days which had reduced him almost to a skeleton covered with sores. On convalescing, he asked for another conference, to solve the doubts which he had drawn up in writing. It was held June 26, 1634, and left him as pertinacious as ever. Meanwhile the prison was filling with Judaizers, of whom a number had been discovered in Lima. He asked for maize husks in place of his ration of bread, and with them made a rope by which he escaped through a window and visited two neighboring cells, urging the prisoners to be steadfast in their law; they denounced him and he made no secret of it, confessing freely what he had done. It was a mercy of God, we are told, that his prolonged fast had rendered him deaf, or he would have learned much from them of what had been going on.
The tribunal was so preoccupied, with the numerous trialson foot at the time, that Maldonado was left undisturbed, awaiting the general auto that was to follow. We hear nothing more until, after an interval of four years, a thirteenth conference was held at his request, November 12, 1638. It was as fruitless as its predecessors and, at its conclusion, he produced two books (each of them of more than a hundred leaves), made with marvellous ingenuity out of scraps of paper and written with ink made of charcoal and pens cut out of egg-shells with a knife fashioned from a nail, which he said he delivered up for the discharge of his conscience. Then on December 9th and 10th were held two more conferences in which his pertinacity remained unshaken. The long tragedy was now drawing to an end after an imprisonment which had lasted for nearly thirteen years. He was brought out in the great auto of January 23, 1639, where, when the sentences of relaxation were read, a sudden whirlwind tore away the awning and, looking up, he exclaimed “The God of Israel does this to look upon me face to face!” He was unshrinking to the last and was burnt alive a true martyr to his faith. His two paper books were hung around his neck to burn with him and assist in burning him.[724]
This auto of 1639, the greatest that had as yet been held in the New World, was the culmination of the “complicidad grande”—the name given by the inquisitors to a number of Judaizers whom they had discovered. As they described the situation, in a report of 1636, large numbers of Portuguese had entered the kingdom by way of Buenos Ayres, Brazil, Mexico, Granada and Puerto Bello, thus increasing the already numerous bands of their compatriots. They became masters of the commerce of the kingdom; from brocade to sack-cloth, from diamonds to cumin-seed, everything passed through their hands; the Castilian who had not a Portuguese partner could look for no success in trade. They would buy the cargoes of whole fleets with the fictitious creditswhich they exchanged, thus rendering capital unnecessary, and would distribute the merchandise throughout the land by their agents, who were likewise Portuguese, and their capacity developed until, in 1634, they negotiated for the farming of the royal customs.
In August, 1634, Joan de Salazar, a merchant, denounced to the Inquisition Antonio Cordero, clerk of a trader from Seville, because he refused to make a sale on a Saturday. On another occasion, going to his store on a Friday morning, he found Cordero breakfasting on a piece of bread and an apple and, on asking him whether he had not better take a rasher of bacon, Cordero replied “Must I eat what my father and grandfather never ate?” The evidence was weak and no immediate action was taken, but, in October, the commissioners were instructed secretly to ascertain and report the number of Portuguese in their several districts. The matter rested and, as nothing new was developed, in March, 1635, the evidence against Cordero was laid before a consulta de fe and it was resolved to arrest him secretly, without sequestration, so that the hand of the Inquisition might not be apparent. Bartolomé de Larrea, a familiar, called on him, April 2d, under pretence of settling an account, and locked him in a room; a sedan-chair was brought, and he was conveyed to the secret prison. His disappearance excited much talk and he was supposed to have fled, for the supposition of arrest by the Inquisition was scouted, seeing that there had not been sequestration.
Cordero confessed at once that he was a Jew and, under torture, implicated his employer and two others. These were arrested on May 11th and the free employment of torture obtained the names of numerous accomplices. The prisons were full and to empty them an auto in the chapel was hurriedly arranged and preparations were made for the hasty construction of additional cells. On August 11th, between 12.30 and 2 o’clock, seventeen arrests were made, so quietly and simultaneously that it was all effected before the people were conscious of it. These were amongthe most prominent citizens and greatest merchants of Lima, and we are told that the impression produced on the community was like the Day of Judgement. Torture and inquisitorial methods elicited further information resulting in additional arrests; the affrighted Portuguese began to scatter and, at the request of the tribunal, the Viceroy Chinchon prohibited for a year any one to leave Peru without its licence.
Up to May 16, 1636, the date of a report made to the Suprema, there had been eighty-one arrests; there was evidence against eighty more but, for lack of prison accommodation, their seizure was postponed. The old prison had sixteen cells, nineteen new ones had been constructed, then an adjoining house was bought and seventeen more were fitted up in it. This influx of wealthy prisoners put the fidelity of the gaolers to a strain which it could not stand. The old alcaide, Bartolomé de Pradeda, excited suspicion by buying property beyond his legitimate means; he was investigated and found to be selling favors to those under his charge, revealing secrets, permitting communications and the like. He deserved severe punishment but, in view of his twenty years of service, his seven children and his infirm health, he was allowed to ask permission to retire to his country place. He was replaced by Diego de Vargas, who soon had to be dismissed for the same reasons. Joseph Freile was appointed assistant, but was soon found guilty of similar offences and was sent to the galleys. His successor was Benito Rodríguez, who likewise succumbed to temptation, but he was a familiar and was only dropped. Another was Francisco Hurtado de Valcázar, who subsequently appeared in an auto for the same reasons.
One matter which vexed the souls of the inquisitors was the effort made by the threatened Portuguese to hide their property from sequestration. A proclamation was issued, ordering all who knew of such matters to reveal them within nine days under pain of excommunication and other penalties. This was successful to some extent, but the difficulties in the way were illustrated in the case of Enrique de Paz, for whom Melchor de los Reiessecreted much silver, jewels and merchandise. Among other things he deposited with his friend Don Dionisio Manrique, Knight of Santiago, senior alcalde de corte and a consultor of the tribunal, a quantity of silver and some fifty or sixty pieces of rich silks. Manrique did not deny receiving them, but said that the same night Melchor ordered them taken away by a young man who was a stranger to him. The inquisitors evidently disbelieved the story; they reported that they had unsuccessfully tried friendly methods with Manrique and asked the Suprema for instructions.
The sequestration of so much property brought all trade to a stand-still and produced indescribable confusion, aggravated, in 1635, by the consequent failure of the bank. The men arrested had nearly all the trade of the colony in their hands; they were involved in an infinity of complicated transactions and suits sprang up on all sides. Creditors and suitors pressed their claims desperately, fearing that with delay witnesses might disappear, in the widening circle of arrests. There were many suits pending already in the Audiencia which were claimed by the tribunal and surrendered to it. It was puzzled by the new business thus thrown upon it; to a suit there had to be two parties, but the prisoners could not plead, so it appointed Manuel de Monte Alegre as their “defensor” to appear for them, and it went on hearing and deciding complicated civil suits while conducting the prosecutions for heresy. Mondays and Thursdays were assigned for civil business, and every afternoon, from 3P.M.until dark, was devoted to examination of documents. The inquisitors claimed that they pushed forward strenuously in settling accounts and paying debts, for otherwise all commerce would be destroyed to the irreparable damage of the Republic, which was already exhausted in so many ways. This did not suit the Suprema, which, by letters of October 22d and November 9, 1635, forbade the surrender of any sequestrated or confiscated property, no matter what evidence was produced of ownership or claims, without first consulting it. This exacting payment of all debts and postponing payment of claims threatened general bankruptcy when the rich merchants were arrested, for their aggregate liabilities amounted to eight hundred thousand pesos, which was estimated as equal to the whole capital of Lima. To avert this, some payments were made, but only on the strength of competent security being furnished.
In the excitement of the hour and the mad rush for arresting everybody who might be an apostate, much injustice was committed which aggravated the confusion. Thus on May 8, 1636, Santiago del Castillo, was arrested, a merchant whose licence to sail for Spain was to be signed that afternoon. With him were seized fifty-five bars of silver and ten thousand pesos in coin; he was administrator of customs and it was reckoned fortunate that over thirty thousand pesos belonging to the king had been handed over so that it could be sent by the fleet. He was receiver in the bankruptcy of Joan de la Queba, and as such held about seven thousand pesos which were given to Judge Martin de Arriola to be apportioned among eight hundred creditors. Castillo’s estate was large but he was involved in suits, besides holding considerable property belonging to others, and claims began at once to be presented. All this was wholly superfluous, for on October 23, 1637, he was discharged as innocent and the sequestration was lifted. Alonso Sánchez Chaparro was liberated, February 9, 1637, and more than sixty thousand pesos were returned to him. There were several other acquittals, and a number of cases were suspended involving the release of large sums which ought never to have been tied up.
Meanwhile the trials of the accused were pushed forward as rapidly as the perplexities of the situation admitted. Torture was not spared. Murcia de Luna, a woman of 27, died under it. Antonio de Acuña was subjected to it for three hours and, when he was carried out, Alcaide Pradeda described his arms as being torn to pieces. Progress was impeded, however, by the devices of the prisoners, who were in hopes that influences at work in Spain would secure a general pardon like that of 1604. Withthis object they revoked their confessions and their accusations of each other, giving rise to endless complications. Some of the latter revocations, however, were genuine and were adhered to, even through the torture which was freely used in these cases. Besides this, to cast doubt on the whole affair, they accused the innocent and even Old Christians, which accounts for the acquittals mentioned above. The inquisitors add that they abstained in many cases from making arrests, when the testimony was insufficient and the parties were not Portuguese.
The tribunal was manned with four inquisitors, who struggled resolutely through this complicated mass of business, and at length were ready to make public the results of their labors in the auto of January 23, 1639. This was celebrated with unexampled pomp and ostentation, for now money was abundant and the opportunity of making an impression on the popular mind was not to be lost. During the previous night, when their sentences were made known to those who were to be relaxed, two of them, Enrique de Paz and Manuel de Espinosa, professed conversion; the inquisitors came and examined them, a consulta was assembled and they were admitted to reconciliation. There was great rivalry among men of position for the honor of accompanying the penitents and Don Salvadoro Velázquez, one of the principal Indians,sargento mayorof the Indian militia, begged to be allowed to carry one of the effigies, which he did in resplendent uniform. Conspicuous in a place of honor in the procession were the seven who had been acquitted, richly dressed, mounted on white horses and carrying palms of victory.
Besides the Judaizers there were a bigamist and five women penanced for sorcery. There was also the alcaide’s assistant Valcázar, who was deprived of his familiarship and was exiled for four years. Juan de Canelas Albarran, the occupant of a house adjoining the prison, who had permitted an opening through the walls for communications, received a hundred lashes and five years of exile, and Ana María González, who was concerned in the matter, had also a hundred lashes and four years of exile.
Of the Judaizers there were seven who escaped with abjurationde vehementi, various penalties and fines aggregating eight hundred pesos. There were forty-four reconciled with punishments varied according to their deserts. Those who had confessed readily as to themselves and others were let off with confiscation and deportation to Spain. Those who prevaricated or gave trouble had, in addition, lashes or galleys or both. Of these there were twenty-one, the aggregate lashes amounting to four thousand and the years of galleys to a hundred and six, besides two condemnations for life. In addition to these were the mother of the Murcia de Luna who died under torture, Doña Mayor de Luna, a woman of high social position, and her daughter Doña Isabel de Luna, a girl of 18, who, for endeavoring to communicate with each other in prison, were sentenced to a hundred lashes through the streets, naked from the waist up. There was also one reconciliation in effigy of a culprit who had died in prison.
There were eleven relaxations in person and the effigy of one who had committed suicide during trial. Of the eleven, seven are said to have died pertinacious and impenitent and therefore presumably were burnt alive, true martyrs to their belief. Of these there were two especially notable—Maldonado whose case has been mentioned above, and Manuel Bautista Pérez. The latter was the leader and chief among the Portuguese, who styled him thecapitan grande. He was the greatest merchant in Lima and his fortune was popularly estimated at half a million pesos. It was in his house that were held the secret meetings in which he joined in the learned theological discussions, but outwardly he was a zealous Christian and had priests to educate his children; he was greatly esteemed by the clergy who dedicated to him their literary effusions in terms of the warmest adulation. He owned rich silver mines in Huarochiri and two extensive plantations; his confiscated house has since been known as thecasa de Pilatos, and his ostentatious mode of life may be judged by the fact that when his carriage was sold by the tribunal it fetched thirty-four hundred pesos. He had endeavored to commit suicideby stabbing himself, but he never faltered at the end. He listened proudly to his sentence and died impenitent, telling the executioner to do his duty. There was one other prisoner who did not appear. Enrique Jorje Tavares, a youth of 18, was among those arrested in August, 1635. He denied under torture and after various alternations became permanently insane, for which reason his case was suspended in 1639.
The next day the mob of Lima enjoyed the further sensation of the scourging through the streets. These exhibitions always attracted a large crowd, in which there were many horsemen who thus had a better view, while boys commonly pelted the bigamists and sorceresses who were the usual patients. On this occasion the tribunal issued a proclamation forbidding horses or carriages in the streets through which the procession passed, and any pelting of the penitents under pain, for Spaniards, of banishment to Chile, and for Indians and negroes, of a hundred lashes. There were twenty-nine sufferers in all; they were marched in squads of ten, guarded by soldiers and familiars, while the executioners plied the scourges, and the brutalizing spectacle passed off without disturbance, and with the pious wish of the tribunal that it would please God to make it serve as a warning.[725]
The holocaust had been duly offered to a Savior of love and mercy; the martyrs had sealed in flame and torment their adherence to the Ancient Faith, and the mob had had its spectacle. Satisfied with the results of their pious labors for the greater glory of God, the inquisitors calmly went forward to gather in the gleanings from the ruined commerce and industry of the kingdom, to retain what they could for themselves and to account for as little as they might to their superiors. The process was long and complex and it was years before all the tangled skeins were ravelled out, and the clamorous creditors of the victims had their claims satisfied or rejected.
There were still some remnants of the hated Portuguese to be dealt with. After the auto, seven cases, which had been pending for three years or more, were suspended, followed, in 1639 and 1640, by others of reconciliation or suspension. In 1641 there was an auto, November 17th, in which three Judaizers were reconciled and seven others sentenced to confiscation and a hundred lashes apiece. There still remained of the “complicidad grande” Manuel Henríquez, who had been arrested in December, 1635, and had confessed under torture, after which he revoked, and several extravagances led to his being thought crazy, but in 1647 he was condemned to the stake. The tribunal however waited for other victims to justify the expense of an auto and, in 1656, he was still lingering in prison; he was not burnt until 1664 in company with the effigy of Murcia de Luna, the victim of torture. The Inquisition, in fact, had passed its apogee and had become inert as its wealth increased. In 1648 it reported that its only prisoner was Manuel Henríquez, who was awaiting the execution of his sentence.[726]
This was not because the Portuguese had been exterminated. They were still numerous, although the revolt of Portugal, in 1640, had rendered them, if not as yet foreigners, at least citizens whose loyalty might well be suspect. Political as well as religious motives may therefore be ascribed to the action of the Viceroy Pedro de Toledo, Marquis of Mancera, at the instance of the Audiencia, under impulsion of the tribunal, when, in 1646, he issued an edict that all Portuguese should present themselves with their arms and should leave the country. More than six thousand are said to have come forward and by payment of a large sum to have obtained a revocation of the measure—a venal transaction which formed the basis of one of the accusations brought against Mancera in theresidenciaor customary investigation at the close of his term of office.[727]
Either the tribunal had become too indolent for active work,or the Portuguese population had been cowed into sincere acceptance of Catholicism, for we hear little subsequently of Judaism. It was not that sensitiveness to Jewish observances had decreased, for in 1666 Juan Leon Cisneros was accused of buying scaleless fish on Fridays and of not sending his children to school on the Sabbath, for which suspicious actions he was sentenced to abjuration.[728]From that time there is a long interval and even the ferocious recrudescence of persecution in Spain, during the first third of the eighteenth century, awoke but a feeble echo in Peru.
The next two cases that present themselves are highly significant of inquisitorial methods. About 1720 Alvaro Rodríguez was prosecuted for Judaism but died in prison and his case was never concluded. Still his sequestrated property, amounting to fourteen thousand pesos, was remitted to the Suprema, although the Inquisition had no claim on it, for he had left no relatives in Peru and Philip V had ordered the seizure of all Portuguese property as a measure of retaliation in the relations between the two countries. The other case was that of Don Teodoro Candioti, a Levantine Christian, who had married in Lima. He was arrested, probably somewhat before 1722, on suspicion of Judaism arising from his keeping the day before Christmas as a fast, according to the custom of his country. He had also said that St. Moses was a great saint and as such was venerated in his land. There was some talk of his being circumcised, but this was unfounded. He died in prison, May 19, 1726, making a most Christian end and saying that salvation was to be had by keeping the law of God, through the grace of Jesus Christ. His body was thrust into one of the graves of the tribunal but the Suprema ordered, November 24, 1728, that his bones should be secretly transferred and buried with Christian rites in the parish church and that an entry be made in the parish register of his burial as of the day of his death, without stating that he had died in prison, and further that a certificate of no disability be given to his widow and children, including capacity to holdoffices in the Inquisition. Evidently the falsification of church records was a matter of course when the injustice of the Inquisition was to be concealed. The tribunal itself had still less scruple. It replied, August 26, 1729, that it had already, on December 23, 1727, reported the translation of the remains to the church of the Dominican college of St. Thomas; another exhumation seemed unnecessary, but it had had the required entry made in the parish register. The widow had presented the genealogies of her two sons, Don Antonio and Don Juan Candioti, asking that they be made familiars and, as the viceroy was much interested in the family, the request had been granted.[729]This case brings before us one of the deplorable results of the system of secrecy; a husband and father disappears into the prison; he dies, and his family only learn his fate after seven years of suspense.
A more flagrant case was that of Doña Ana de Castro, a married woman of good social position but of dubious character, as she was reported to have sold her favors to one of the viceroys and to many of the rich colonial nobles. Accused of Judaism, she persistently denied; when, in 1731, her case was reported to the Suprema, she had been voted to relaxation with preliminary torture, to which the Suprema replied, February 4, 1732, that if the torture and efforts of the theologians did not bring repentance, the sentence was to be executed, but, if she confessed and gave signs of repentance, she was to be reconciled. She was held until the solemn public auto of December 23, 1736, when she was relaxed to the secular arm as a Judaizing Jew, convicted, negative and pertinacious. On her way to the brasero she is said to have shed tears, but the alguazil mayor paid no attention to them and she was duly burnt—probably without preliminary strangulation. All, apparently, was in accordance with routine procedure but, when the records came to be investigated in the visitation of Arenaza, Amusquíbar reported that the day before the auto she sought two audiences; no record was made of whatoccurred, but there could be no doubt that she confessed more than enough to entitle her to reconciliation; even if she did not entirely satisfy the evidence, what more could be expected of a poor woman in such agitation of mind and ignorant of the trap laid for her by Calderon, who acted as fiscal? The printed official account of the auto rather superfluously recites how she was notified of her sentence at ten o’clock of December 21st, after which two theologians, relieved every hour until 6A.M.of December 23d, labored vainly to induce her to confess and to return to the faith. Amusquíbar, on the contrary, states that there was no record that she was notified of the sentence; that the book of votes did not contain such a sentence and that, even if there was one, it was invalid in consequence of the absence of the Ordinary; moreover that, in spite of her confessions, no new consulta de fe was summoned to consider them. Altogether, if Amusquíbar is to be believed, it was a cold-blooded judicial murder contrived, like the burning of Ulloa in effigy, for the purpose of rendering more impressive the spectacle of the auto de fe. In the same auto there was a reconciliation in effigy of Pedro Núñez de la Haba, a Judaizer of Valdivia, who had escaped from prison after his case was finished. If recaptured he was to be confined in the castle of Chagre, until he could be sent to the penitential prison of Seville, and was to have two hundred lashes for his flight. A smallauto particularfollowed, November 11, 1737, in which Juan Antonio Pereyra, a Portuguese, was sentenced to abjurede vehementi, two hundred lashes, ten years of presidio at Valdivia and half confiscation.[730]
These are the only cases of Judaism recorded at this period and if the number is so scanty this must be attributed to the lack of Judaizers and not to indifference of the tribunal. How ready it was to prosecute is exhibited in the next case, that of Don Juan de Loyola y Haro, a scion of the family of St. Ignatius and an elderly gentleman of high consideration. He was arrested, July9, 1743, on a charge of Judaism based on the flimsiest testimony of a negro slave. Other evidence was gathered, but with it the commissioner of Ica wrote that the current belief regarded it as a conspiracy on the part of his slaves, and that this had been confessed by one of the witnesses when dying. In spite of this his trial continued, nor was he released when, in February, 1745, the four false witnesses were arrested. He fell sick; in July he was transferred to a convent, where he died, December 27th of the same year, and was secretly buried in the chapel of S. María Magdalena. Evidently his family were kept in ignorance until an auto was held October 19, 1749, when the witnesses were punished and a great parade was made of the equity of the tribunal. His effigy was carried in procession, bearing in one hand a palm-branch and in the other a gold baton symbolical of his military rank as maestre de campo. His acquittal was read, empowering his brothers to carry the effigy around the town on a white horse, to exhume the remains and bury them where he had indicated on his death-bed, and certificates were granted to them that his imprisonment inflicted no disabilities on his kindred. On the next day the procession of the white horse took place with much pomp and circumstance. The Suprema, on reviewing the report, pronounced the whole proceedings to be vicious from the start and destitute of all the safeguards provided against injustice.[731]It is perhaps worth noting that most of it occurred after Calderon and Unda had been superseded by Arenaza and Amusquíbar. With this the formal persecution of Judaism in Peru comes to an end, except that, in 1774, the tribunal wrote to the Suprema that the only cases then pending were thirteen for Judaizing, but that they had no basis.[732]
With regard to the general character of the punishments inflicted it may be remarked that they vary capriciously, in accordance doubtless with the temper of the inquisitors, whose discretion had few limits. In the earlier days there would seemto be a tendency to greater rigor than that customary in Spain. In the auto of 1578 the sentences, as a rule, are exceedingly severe.[733]When Judaism came to be conspicuous, the penalties which we have seen inflicted were very similar to those imposed for the same offence by the home tribunals. As the galleys went out of fashion and were replaced by forced labor in the presidios, the principal destination to which culprits were sent was Valdivia, though occasionally they were assigned to Callao, Chagre or other ports where fortifications were under construction. Scourging, as in Spain, was a favorite resort, without distinction of sex. We have seen how ruthlessly it was employed in the great auto of 1639 and this continued as long as the tribunal was active. In the auto of 1736 there were sixteen sentences of two hundred lashes, half of them on women, for bigamy, sorcery and other similar offences. In that of 1737 there were only nine penitents, five of them being women; all of them were sentenced to two hundred lashes apiece, but this was remitted in the case of one of the men.[734]In addition to the suffering, there was the severest of humiliations for those sensitive to shame. The so-called penitents were marched in procession through the streets, naked from the waist up, with insignia or inscriptions denoting their offences, while the executioner plied the lash. The assembled mob was in the habit of manifesting its piety by stoning the poor wretches, to repress which the tribunal occasionally issued a proclamation, such as we have seen in 1639. Similarly, before the auto of October 19, 1749, it forbade the throwing of stones, apples, oranges or other missiles at the penitents, under pain of a hundred pesos for Spaniards and ten pesos with four days of prison for others.[735]Although there are frequent sentences to imprisonment for longer or shorter terms, there is no allusion anywhere to acasa de la misericordiaorde la penitencia, as it was called in Spain, in which the penitents could perform their penance.Occasional instances in which they are ordered to be shipped to the home country renders it probable that this was the usual recourse in such cases. Exile was a frequent penalty, sometimes to a designated place, but more frequently from certain cities or districts, where the culprit had committed offences; when this happened to be his native home, where his trade or profession was established, it might be a most severe infliction, depriving him of his means of livelihood; when the culprit was a vagrant or an old sorceress it mattered little.
The inexplicable inconsistency in the adjudgement of penalties, when gauged by any rational standard, can best be understood by the contrast in a few cases. The tenderness displayed towards the abuse of the confessional has already been alluded to. The same is seen in some of the sentences for crimes of a still more serious character. Thus in the auto of July 12, 1733, Sebastiana de Figueroa, a mestiza aged 60, for sorceries including adoration of the demon and causing sickness and deaths, offences for which in a secular tribunal she would have been executed without mercy, yet escaped with abjurationde vehementi, half confiscation, two hundred lashes (which were remitted) and four years of exile to a designated place.[736]In the auto of 1736, María Josepha Canga, a free negress, who had made her husband insane with sorceries and herbs, so as to have freedom for adultery, merely abjuredde levi, with four years’ service in the hospital of San Bartolomé. In the same auto, Juan González de Ribera, a mestizo, had gone to the Indians, adopted their ways, professed their religion and, worst of all, had induced several Spaniards to do the same, in addition to which he had taken three wives. He was thus a dogmatizer and was condemned as a bigamist, idolater, sorcerer and diviner, and yet he merely abjuredde vehementiand had three years hard labor on an island off Callao.[737]
With this ill-judged mercy may be contrasted the case of François Moyen, a Frenchman of varied talents and wide culture,skilled as an artist and musician, whose evil fortune threw him upon the tender mercies of Amusquíbar. Born in 1720, he led a somewhat adventurous life; that he was a believing Catholic is seen in a vow of pilgrimage to Compostela, made during danger in a voyage—a vow which he duly performed in 1739, during a residence in Lisbon. In 1746 he sailed from there to Rio de Janeiro, with the Count de las Torres, who had important business in Chile. At Buenos Ayres they parted, the count hastening across the Pampas, while Moyen tarried there for awhile, his vivacity and his accomplishments rendering him a general favorite. During his stay he again manifested his devoutness by performing the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius. About the middle of 1748, at the request of the count, who had gone to Lima, he started to rejoin him by way of Potosí, in company of a band of traders. With light-hearted carelessness, he talked freely, in the confidence of the road and the bivouac; as a Frenchman of the Gallican school and accustomed to the freedom of speech in Paris, he said much that he had better have left unsaid, with a singular imprudence in view of his acquaintance with the methods of the Portuguese Inquisition, his criticism of which formed one of the counts in his indictment.
He became an object of suspicion to his companions, especially to a Gallego named José Antonio Soto. Potosí was reached March 27, 1749, where a considerable stay was made, during which Moyen expended four pesos in masses. Two days after arrival, Soto denounced him to the commissioner José de Ligaraza Beaumont y Navarra, who secretly summoned the other travellers and muleteers, and gathered testimony swelling thesumariato some two hundred pages. It was loose and thoughtless talk capable in the hands of the inquisitorial theologians of deductions most damaging—predestination in its most absolute form, polygamy justifiable, marriage not a sacrament; masses, prayers and indulgences were useless to souls in purgatory; limbo and purgatory were doubtful; the pope was not the head of the Church and had no power to bind or to loose; councils were superior to popes;it was wrong to condemn people for lack of knowledge of the son of a carpenter, and much more of the same kind. The ingenuity of the calificadores, in fact, injected heresy into the simplest remarks. When he reproved a muleteer for abusing a mule and said that it was a creature of God, this was held to prove that he was a Manichean. One brilliant night, looking at the stars, he observed that their multitude was superfluous, thus assuming that God had erred in creation, which was heretical blasphemy, constituting him an heretical blasphemer. A criticism of the luxury of the clergy, with a reference to the poverty of the Apostles, showed him to be a Wickliffite.
Commissioner Ligaraza assembled a consulta, which voted for the arrest of so dangerous a heretic. It was executed May 14th and he was imprisoned in chains. At first he was keptincomunicado, but subsequently visitors were admitted who provoked him to risky discussions and then gave evidence against him, in which, among other matters, a debate on the Eucharist told heavily against him. He became an epileptic and suffered frightfully from his chains and the cold climate. The commissioner had no funds for his maintenance; he endeavored to support himself by painting, but this was insufficient and his only solace, his violin, was taken and sold, reducing him to such despair that he attempted suicide. The commissioner was in no haste and did not report the arrest until June 9th nor transmit the evidence until December. On May 9, 11 and 12, 1750, the tribunal extracted from it forty-four heretical propositions and ordered Moyen’s transfer to Lima.
This journey, which commenced July 12th, consumed two years. Moyen’s health had been wrecked in his confinement and his epileptic fits recurred almost daily. Several times he nearly died; at Chuquito he received the viaticum. It was not until April, 1751, that Cuzco was reached, when he chanced to interest a lawyer named Tomas de Lecaros, who entered security for him and carried him to Arequipa, in vain search for improvement. There he met an English hatter named William—a good Catholicwho attended mass daily—who counselled hypocrisy and silence about religious matters in a land where there was an Inquisition. Moyen chanced to mention this in his examinations; the Englishman was arrested and ruined.
On the return to Cuzco; a halt was made at Urcos, eight leagues distant. Amusquíbar, on September 14, 1751, called for his appearance within two months; the commissioner of Cuzco sent his notary, when Moyen drew a dagger and attempted resistance but was overpowered. Some three months later Fray Juan de San Miguel wrote to the tribunal that Moyen was hardened in his heresies and scattered them freely around Cuzco. That place was left, January 29, 1752, fortunately prior to the reception of an order from Amusquíbar to forward him in chains. March 26th he was delivered to the tribunal, broken and prematurely old with the sufferings of these three preliminary years of his trial.
Proceedings dragged on with the customary delays. The accusation, presented October 13th, represented him as a formal and pertinacious heretic and a follower of the sects of Luther, Calvin, Jansen, Quesnel, Manichee and Mahomet, besides being strongly suspect of Judaism. Discussion over these articles lasted until May 18, 1753, when he professed profound repentance for having discussed religious matters and begged for mercy. During the prolonged delays which ensued his sufferings in the prison were severe—in themselves an excessive punishment for reckless speech. Besides his continual epileptic fits, his feet were eaten up by chigoes; his chains chafed his ankles into sores, which threatened gangrene of one leg, and when, to avert this, on November 13th, the alcaide was directed to remove one of the shackles, the other was left on. In spite of this he made several attempts to escape—once by endeavoring to set fire to the door of his cell with the candle allowed to him at night, whereupon he was deprived of it. Again he succeeded in reaching the house of the Count of las Torres, only to be remanded, and on a third effort his plans were betrayed by a prisoner in an adjoining cell.
Two years were consumed in sending the evidence to Potosífor ratification and awaiting its return, although at first it had been ratifiedad perpetuam. It was not received until April, 1755, and then its publication was delayed until September 3d. After this followed the customary examinations on the evidence, which were prolonged until March 14, 1758—a delay largely caused by Moyen’s constant epileptic attacks. His counsel did not present the defence until November 8, 1759, and then the consulta de fe was not assembled until January 15, 1761. It considered the case until February 14th, when the definitive vote was taken, under a protest that torture was not ordered in view of the weakened condition of the accused. The sentence finally was published in the auto of the following April 5th. It condemned him to abjurede vehementi, to ten years’ forced labor in an African presidio (Oran, Ceuta or Melilla), or in the penitential prison of Seville, as the inquisitor-general might prefer, and to two hundred lashes, which were commuted to vergüenza in consideration of his infirmities. The humiliating parade of the vergüenza through the streets of Lima was duly performed the next day; on the 11th he was shipped in irons by the galleon San Juan Bautista, reaching Cádiz in November; in December he was sent to Seville to which the African presidio was commuted. No consideration seems to have been given to the sufferings of the thirteen years of imprisonment since his arrest, nor to the wreck of a joyous and promising life for a few inconsiderate utterances.
Amusquíbar sought to justify the excessive delays of the trial by the quarrels in which he was involved, by his own sickness and that of the accused, but the Suprema did not accept these excuses and replied that the ten years intervening between the receipt of the prisoner and the sentence was an excessive delay and grave omission of the tribunal.[738]There was in all this no special malignity; it was simply the habitual application of the system with callous indifference as to the results to the accused.
Not the least important function of the Inquisition was the censorship of the press. Although in Spain this was reserved to the Suprema, and the tribunals could only refer to it books which they regarded as suspect, distance rendered independent action necessary in the colonies. From an early period the Lima tribunal examined books and prohibited such as it saw fit. The importation of printed matter was also, as in Spain, subject to its supervision. The original instructions, borne by Cerezuela, enjoined special watchfulness by the commissioners at the seaports, to prevent the introduction of all works that were on the Index. To insure this, at first no books were admitted except through Callao, and the commissioner at Panamá was required to keep a close watch on everything destined for that point. Nothing could be shipped from there without his licence, nor could any package be opened except in his presence. The same vigilance was exercised at Callao, and all books were sent to Fray Juan de Almaraz, Prior of San Agustin, for examination. As the settlement and commerce of Buenos Ayres developed, similar precautions were observed there. There was always a haunting dread of the efforts attributed to the Protestants to smuggle heretic books into the land. In 1605 there was a scare of this kind, based on rumors that ships from Lisbon manned by Flemings were bringing such works in casks purporting to contain wine or salt, and special orders were issued to the commissioner to be doubly watchful.[739]As in Spain, this system was a serious impediment to trade, and led not infrequently to collisions with the secular authorities. It required that all ships on arrival should be visited by the commissioner before any passenger or merchandise was landed, and that the latter, when brought on shore, should be opened in his presence and be minutely inspected.
Even so high an ecclesiastical dignitary as the Archbishop of Lima was not exempt from the censorship of the tribunal. We have seen how Amusquíbar used this power for the humiliation of Archbishop Barroeta, nor was this the only instance. Juan deAlmoguera, who was archbishop from 1674 to 1676, while yet Bishop of Arequipa, had been strongly impressed with the dissolute lives of the priests among the Indians and, in 1671, he published in Madrid a series of Instructions, which the inquisitors held to be not only defamatory to the priests, but to contain propositions adverse to the Holy See. The archbishop defended himself by asserting that his doctrines were approved by the most learned men of Peru, and that the facts which he cited were perfectly true, for which he appealed to the testimony of the inquisitors themselves. They admitted this, but nevertheless they caused the edict of prohibition to be published everywhere.[740]
The reformatory legislation of Carlos III, from 1762 to 1768, limiting the unrestricted control of the Inquisition over the prohibition of books, was long in reaching Peru. In 1773 Viceroy Amat y Yunient says that although he had not yet received the cédula of 1768 officially through the Council of Indies, yet he defines its provisions as a guide. It put in force the ConstitutionSollicita ac providaof Benedict XIV, entitling authors to be heard in defence of their books; it prevented the prohibition of booksad interimuntil a final decision was reached; where expurgations were ordered they were to be made known so that owners could delete the objectionable passages, and all edicts were to be submitted to the viceroy before publication.[741]The demand for literature must have been greater than would be anticipated, for, in 1772, there was a discussion between the viceroy and the tribunal over the proceedings in opening and examining 165 cases of books.[742]
At this period the censorship was exercised largely through the civil authorities. February 28, 1787, the Viceroy Count de Croix reported to the king the execution of his orders of 1785 in the suppression and burning of certain books, the seizure of all copies that could be traced to the possession of booksellers or of individuals, and the issue of an edict prohibiting the printing of anythingwithout a licence, even the University not being permitted to publish the eulogies and addresses customary on the arrival of a viceroy, or the Latin orations with which the studies were annually opened. The Inquisition is only alluded to in connection with the examination of importations, none being delivered from the custom-house without preliminary inspection by the commissioner of the tribunal, in connection with an appointee of the government.[743]As in Spain, this censorship extended over morals as well as over religion and politics. In 1796, Antonio Ortiz, the commissioner at Buenos Ayres, was much exercised over certain wall-papers received from Barcelona. Some of them had mythological figures, such as Hercules, Venus and the like, which he considered intolerable. There was another one representing the globe adorned with flowers and presided over by Cupid with a lighted torch, as though to burn it with his impure fires, all of which he was impelled to cut up into small pieces.[744]As we have seen in Mexico, even ill-advised symbols of devotion were prohibited. When, at the suppression in 1813, the building of the Inquisition was entered, Stevenson describes seeing there among the mass of prohibited books, a quantity of cotton handkerchiefs on which was printed a figure of Religion with a chalice in one hand and a cross in the other—a device which the manufacturer had fondly believed would render them popular, without reflecting upon the desecration inseparable from their use.[745]
From this time the principal work of the tribunal was in the enforcement of the prohibition of literature regarded as dangerous to State or Church. Camilo Henríquez, priest of the Padres Crucíferos de la Buena Muerte, was a prominent object of persecution. In 1809 he was denounced for reading prohibited books; his cell was searched without success, but the accuser insisted and on a more minute investigation his mattress was found to be stuffed with the dangerous material. He was arrested and, in 1810, was banished to Quito, but instead of obeying he joined theinsurgents of Chile and distinguished himself by supporting the revolution inLa Aurora, the periodical which he founded. Under the Restoration, the tribunal had little real work to do except to issue edicts prohibiting European periodicals, political pamphlets and other productions in which it could discover opinions inimical to the established order in politics and religion.[746]
In the turbulent atmosphere of the early nineteenth century, the authority of the Inquisition naturally declined, especially as the character of the inquisitors was so unfitted to inspire respect. Its suppression by the decree of the Córtes of Cádiz, February 22, 1813, was evidently seen in advance to be inevitable and was fatal to its influence. Shortly before that decree was received Stevenson relates that he was summoned before the tribunal, in consequence of a discussion in a coffee-house with a Fray Bustamante, respecting the image of the Madonna of the Rosary. If we may believe his story of the audience, he treated the inquisitors with slender reverence and escaped with an admonition to avoid religious disputes, and to bear in mind that in the dominions of his Catholic Majesty all men were subject to the Inquisition.[747]When the decree of suppression was published, he had an opportunity of accompanying the first party that entered the building, so long an object of universal dread. The prison cells were all open and empty; he describes them as small but not uncomfortable. In the audience-chamber, back of the judges’ dais, there hung on high a life-sized image of Christ; its head was so arranged as to be movable by a person secreted behind, on a signal from the inquisitor, producing a profound impression on the awestruck culprit, who was denying his guilt. From his description of the torture-room it would seem that the tortures employed, though cruel enough, were less severe than those formerly in use—thecordelesandjarras de agua, themancuerda, thetrampazoand thegarrucha. There was a rack on which the arms and legs could be stretched; a kind of pillory for scourging with scourges,some of which were of wire chains with sharp points; “tormentors” of netted wire with points, arranged to fit the wrists or waists, the legs or arms, and thumb-screws—a grisly collection, but less likely to endanger life and limb than the older atrocities. The crowd which found admittance carried off some of these as mementos and also some of the records, but the archbishop the next day published an excommunication against all who should not return what they had taken, and most of the documents were restored.[748]
We have seen that the money found in the chest was taken by the authorities and this of course was retained, but the salaries of the officials were continued. The suspension was short-lived, ending with the decree of July 21, 1814, re-establishing the Inquisition, when the three inquisitors, Abarca, Zalduegui and Sobrino, resumed their places, but the old awful authority could not be revived. They complained bitterly of the viceroy, who showed himself, they said, hostile to the re-establishment. He delayed issuing the decree, treated them with discourtesy and refused to refund the money. They depicted the deplorable condition of the tribunal, destitute of means to pay salaries in arrears, or even to make arrests that had been resolved upon prior to the suppression, while the buildings were dirty and out of repair.[749]We can readily imagine that the progress of the War of Independence left little leisure or disposition on the part of the authorities to listen to their complaints. How completely decadent was their authority, is seen in a letter from the Suprema ordering them to summon an Englishman named John Robinson and point out to him that he had been admitted to residence on condition of not talking about religion, or dogmatizing against Catholicism, and they were moreover to seek an interview with the viceroy, to ask his aid in restraining the man and to report the result.[750]Times had changed since François Moyen was so inhumanly persecuted for his loquacity.
Still, they were not without some remnants of authority. The University of Lima had sent an address to the Córtes of Cádiz, congratulating it on the decree of suppression. This was an offence not to be overlooked and, April 7, 1815, the Suprema sent an order to dismiss all the signers of the paper who held office under the tribunal. Accordingly, on October 29th, Fray Josef Recalde was summoned to surrender his vestment and badge as a calificador. To this he replied, November 3d, with a supplication not to expose him to such a dishonor; the paper had been presented to him for signature by the beadle of the University, saying that it was an act of obedience to the Córtes and he, being busy, had signed it without reading it, as he was accustomed to do with the numerous papers requiring his signature. On this Inquisitor-fiscal Sobrino reported that Recalde only intensified his offence, and he proceeded to accuse the University of misleading youth and allowing them to read prohibited books, while Recalde’s statement only showed how recklessly its members joined in anything resolved upon by the leaders. Both papers were forwarded, December 13th, to the Suprema for its judgement, but whether Recalde was reinstated does not appear from the documents at hand.[751]
The officials continued to draw their salaries, but there is little trace of their activity. The latest indication I have met of their performance of duty is a letter from the Suprema, July 11, 1817, to the tribunal of Logroño, asking for information to guide the tribunal of Lima in a case of alleged bigamy on the part of Don Fernando Díaz, then a resident of Cuzco.[752]In that same year a “voluntary” subscription in aid of the government was organized, to which the contribution of Inquisitor-fiscal Sobrino was niggardly, leading to his being reprimanded from Madrid.[753]In 1819 the tribunal was reorganized. The senior inquisitor Abarca was dead and Zalduegui was dean; he and Sobrino were jubilated on one-quarter of their salaries and the tribunal consisted of Cristóvalde Ortegon as senior, Anselmo Pérez de la Canal as junior and José Mariano de Larrea as fiscal.
Their term of office was short. The final decree of suppression, March 9, 1820, was long in reaching Peru, where it was not promulgated until September 9th, with orders to communicate it to all the archbishops of the district and to take the necessary steps for assuming possession of the property. This was done decently and in order. On September 18th Viceroy Pezuela ordered the intendant of the province, in concert with the two regidores of Lima, to proceed in accordance with the decree of February 22, 1813, to occupy the property, including its patronage and pious foundations, and to make an exact inventory. This was followed, September 20th, with instructions that at 8.30A.M.of Friday, September 22d, possession should be taken, and the ex-dean was notified to be ready in order that it should be executed with promptitude. At nine o’clock on Saturday the intendant and the regidores met in the Inquisition and made an inventory of all property found there. In pursuance of Article 10 of the decree of 1813, the commission of three, on September 28th, issued an order calling on the ex-receiver-general, Carlos Lizon, for an authentic list of all the officials with their salaries, so that the latter might be paid. This was superfluous; from time immemorial the custom had been to pay all salaries in advance, in instalments of four months. The inquisitors had providently taken care of themselves and their subordinates and, on August 29th and September 1st, had issued orders on Receiver Lizon for thetercio adelantado, commencing September 1st, so that he was able to exhibit the corresponding receipts, amounting to 9472 pesos and a fraction, indicating on annual pay-roll of 28,417 pesos.
That the inventory only showed a few items of volumes of records is testimony of the completeness with which everything had been appropriated. Although the work of the tribunal had shrunk almost to nothingness, all the offices had been kept filled and the roster was as complete as it had been in the period of thegreatest activity.[754]It is presumable that, as in Mexico, they went to Spain and were provided for there.
The total amount of work accomplished is estimated by Medina as three thousand cases tried, but this is probably too liberal an allowance. His exhaustive researches have resulted only in an enumeration of 1474 cases.
These consist of—
The offences prosecuted were
For the 250 years of existence, the estimate of a total of 3000 cases would make 12 per annum, or 1 per month, but in the first 20 years of the tribunal the cases amounted to 1265, which would reduce the average of the other 230 years to about 7½, and it would be safe to assume for the last century an average of not more than 3 or 4 a year.[755]
For this slender result, to say nothing of the large expenditure, the colony was kept in a constant state of disquiet, the orderly course of government was well-nigh impossible, intellectual, commercial and industrial development were impeded, universal distrust of one’s neighbor was commanded by ordinary prudence, and the population lived with the sense of evil ever impending over the head of every one. That there was any real danger to the faith in Peru is absurd. Possibly the tribunal may have been of some service in repressing the prevalence of bigamy among laymen and of solicitation among the clergy, but the fact that these two offences remained to the last so prominent in its calendar would show that it accomplished little. As regards sorcery and superstitions, which pervaded all classes, in the mixed population of Europeans, Indians, negroes and half-breeds, with an accumulation of superstitious beliefs drawn from so many sources, the number of cases is surprisingly small, especially as the exemption of Indians from inquisitorial jurisdiction seems to have been disregarded in this offence. In the repression of the practices which were regarded as implying pact with the demon the Inquisition may be said to have virtually accomplished nothing. It would be difficult to find, in the annals of human misgovernment, a parallel case in which so little was accomplished at so great a cost as by the Inquisition under Spanish institutions.