itors were merely his delegates acting under his instructions;
that no supreme inquisitorial council had ever been instituted by
papal brief, and that the general, being with the enemy (the French
troops), no Inquisition really existed. From these investigations the
Cortes had acquired a knowledge of the mode of procedure of the
tribunals, of their history, and of the opinion of them entertained by
the Cortes of the kingdom in early days. " ... We will now speak
frankly to you," continues the document, "for it is time that you
should know the naked truth, and that the veil be lifted with which
false politicians have covered their designs.

"Examining the instructions by which the provincial tribunals were
governed, it becomes clear at first sight that the soul of the
institution was inviolable secrecy. This covered all the proceedings
of the inquisitors, and made them the arbiters of the life and honor
of all Spaniards, without responsibility to anybody on earth. They
were men, and as such subject to the same errors and passions as the
rest of mankind, and it is inconceivable that the nation did not exact
responsibility since, in virtue of the temporal power that had been
delegated to them, they condemned to seclusion, imprisonment, torture,
and death. Thus the inquisitors exercised a power which the
Constitution denies to every authority in the land save the sacred
person of the king.

"Another notable circumstance made the power of the
Inquisitors-General still more unusual; this was that, without
consulting the king or the Supreme Pontiff, they dictated laws,
changed them, abolished them, or substituted them by others, so that
there was within the nation a judge, the Inquisitor-General, whose
powers transcended those of the sovereign.

"Here now how the Tribunal proceeded with the offenders. When an
accusation was made, the accused were taken to a secret prison without
being permitted to communicate with parents, children, relations, or
friends, till they were condemned or absolved. Their families were
denied the consolation of weeping with them over their misfortunes or
of assisting them in their defense. The accused was not only deprived
of the assistance of his relations and friends, but in no case was he
informed of the name of his accuser nor of the witnesses who declared
against him; and in order that he might not discover who they were,
they used to truncate the declarations and make them appear as coming