aragossa have been avoided in spite
of all the precautions which were no doubt taken by the conspirators, at
that time very powerful by their riches and influence?

At the time of the greatest rigor against the Judaizing Christians, there
is a fact worthy of attention. Persons accused, or threatened with the
pursuit of the Inquisition, took every means to escape the action of that
tribunal: they left the soil of Spain and went to Rome. Would those
who imagine that Rome has always been the hot-bed of intolerance, the
firebrand of persecution, have imagined this? The number of causes
commenced by the Inquisition, and summoned from Spain to Rome, is
countless, during the first fifty years of the existence of that
tribunal; and it must be added that Rome always inclined to the side of
indulgence. I do not know that it would be possible to cite one accused
person who, by appealing to Rome, did not ameliorate his condition. The
history of the Inquisition at that time is full of contests between the
kings and popes; and we constantly find, on the part of the holy see,
a desire to restrain the Inquisition within the bounds of justice and
humanity. The line of conduct prescribed by the court of Rome was not
always followed as it ought to have been. Thus we see the popes compelled
to receive a multitude of appeals, and mitigate the lot that would have
befallen the appellants if their cause had been definitely decided in
Spain. We also see the Pope name the judge of appeal, at the solicitation
of the Catholic sovereigns, who desired that causes should be finally
decided in Spain: the first of these judges was Inigo Manrique,
Archbishop of Seville. Nevertheless, at the end of a short time, the same
Pope, in a bull of August 2, 1483, said that he had received new appeals,
made by a great number of the Spaniards of Seville, who had not dared to
address themselves to the judge of appeal for fear of being arrested.
Such was then the excitement of the public mind; such was at that time
the necessity of preventing injustice or measures of undue severity. The
Pope added that some of those who had had recourse to his justice had
already received the absolution of the apostolical penitentiary, and that
others were about to receive it; he afterward complained that indulgences
granted to divers accused persons had not been sufficiently respected
at Seville; in fine, after several other admonitions, he observed to
Ferdinand and Isabella that me