e burnt at Seville; for it was against that unfortunate
people that this inhuman persecution was devised, or at least first
used. That one year witnessed the martyrdom of 2000 persons, and the
infliction on 17,000 others of punishments only less than death itself.
During the administration of Thomas of Torquemada, which lasted eighteen
years, more than 10,000 persons perished at the stake, nearly 100,000
were, as the phrase went, reconciled.[2] The confiscation of property
which accompanied all this burning and imprisoning brought in enormous
sums into the coffers of the Inquisitors.

The Jews being burnt, converted, or expelled the country, the
Inquisition was turned upon the wretched Moriscoes, as the Moors under
Christian government were called, who were oppressed and persecuted in
the same way as the Jews, and finally driven from Spain.

But a more important conquest than these--more important, that is, to
the supremacy of the Roman See--was the undoubted conquest achieved by
the Inquisition over the reforming doctrines which in the sixteenth
century began to find their way into Spain from Germany and England.
Finding a congenial soil, the reformation began to spread in Spain with
wonderful rapidity. The divines sent by Charles V. into England were
themselves converted, and returned full of zeal for the Protestant
faith--"Their success," says Geddes,[3] "was such that had not a speedy
and full stop been put to their pious labours by the merciless
Inquisition, the whole kingdom of Spain had in all likelihood been
converted to the Protestant religion, in less time than any other
country had ever been before."[4] So untrue is it to say that
persecution always fails of its object! In Spain it has riveted the
fetters, which the weakness and superstition of the earlier kings of
Leon and Castile, together with the piety and misdirected enthusiasm of
Isabella, placed upon a proud and once peculiarly independent people.
Plunged in the depths of ignorance and imbecility, social, religious,
and political, Spain affords a melancholy but instructive spectacle to
the nations.

[1] The inquisitional code was drawn up in 1233, and introduced
into Spain, 1242. Prescott.

[2] Prescott, "Ferd. and Isab.," p. 146.

[3] Miscell. Tracts. Pref. to "Spanish Martyrs," pp. 1, ff.

[4] Geddes, Pref. to "Spanish Martyrs," p. 3, 4, quotes a
Romanist author, who says: "the number of converts was so great
that h