CHAPTER XXVI

THE MORISCOES

1492–1609

State of the Kingdom after the Conquest--Superiority of the Moors--Policy of the Crown--Introduction of the Holy Office--Administration of Talavera--His Popularity--He is superseded by Ximenes--The Two Great Spanish Cardinals--Their Opposite Characters--Influence on Their Age--Violence of Ximenes--He burns the Arabic Manuscripts--Insurrection of the Moriscoes--Rout in the Sierra Bermeja--Bigotry of Isabella--The Moors under Charles V.--Persecution by the Clergy and the Inquisition under Philip II.--War in the Alpujarras--Ibn-Ommeyah--Operations of Don John of Austria--Removal of the Moors of Granada--Death of Ibn-Ommeyah--Ibn-Abu becomes King--Siege of Galera--Atrocities of the Campaign--Fate of Ibn-Abu--Condition of the Moriscoes in Spain--They are Exiled by Philip III.--Their Sufferings--Effect of their Banishment upon the Prosperity of the Kingdom.

The close of the Reconquest left the Spanish monarchy in a condition of physical and financial collapse. The maintenance of a great army for ten years, with the resultant casualties of battle, exposure, and disease, had sensibly diminished the population. The treasury had long been depleted. The Queen had pawned her jewels to the bankers of Valencia and Barcelona. Wealthy subjects had been induced to advance funds to the government by methods equivalent to confiscation, and which held out but slender hopes of ultimate reimbursement. National credit was practically destroyed. The absence of the more industrious citizens in military service, the incorrigible idleness of those who remained, had impaired the pursuit of agriculture, upon which the resources of the kingdom depended. Had it not been for the taxes and extraordinary contributions levied upon the Jewish and Moslem tributaries, the war could not have been prosecuted to a successful conclusion. These two sects, which occupied an anomalous position in the body politic, numbered over two million. Although so inferior in numbers, they engrossed the trade and controlled the personal property of the Peninsula. The Jew, who practised with enormous profit the congenial but unpopular profession of usury, converted his gains into money and jewels. The Mudejar, who, after the Conquest, gave place to the Morisco, mindful of the Koranic precept which inculcates industry as a virtue and stigmatizes idleness as a crime, was the most laborious and successful of agriculturists, the most skilful of artisans. Representatives of these two classes directed the operations of the largest mercantile houses in the principal cities, and the commerce of the entire country was practically in their hands. Their prosperity was regarded with an evil eye by their Castilian masters, and the Moslem was especially the object of this animadversion. For generations the former had pursued the glorious but brutalizing calling of arms. With them, every occupation that implied or necessitated the performance of manual labor was considered undignified and degrading. Centuries of unremitting warfare had impressed upon the whole nation a military character, with its inevitable concomitants of pride, tyranny, and insolence; and these sentiments were intensified a hundred-fold by racial hatred and sectarian prejudice. From the earliest times the Moors had been regarded as interlopers, scarcely entitled to the ordinarily indisputable rights of conquest. The acquisition of their domain by Spanish prowess was always considered as the recovery of former inalienable possession, not as new territory wrested from an adversary by dint of superior strength and valor. The establishment of the Catholic faith was, in the opinion of adroit casuists, an additional argument in favor of their title, for it was held that the consecration of altars to Christianity conferred rights which could never be abrogated through occupation by infidels. With the inconsistency of ignorance, the Castilians asserted their title both by inheritance and prescription. They forgot that Spain had ever been the rich prize for which almost every warlike nation of the ancient world had contended. The Visigoths overran and ravaged it in the fifth century, and their occupancy, derived solely from conquest, lasted three hundred years. Then came the Saracens, whose domination, obtained in precisely the same manner, required about the same length of time for the conquest, but endured for more than twice as long. It was evident, therefore, to every mind not obscured by prejudice, that the title of the Moslems, even from the Spanish point of view, was better than that of their conquerors. In more than one respect, indeed, had the followers of Mohammed claims upon the country of their adoption as well as upon the gratitude and admiration of mankind. Their industry and enterprise had developed beyond all precedent the wonderful resources of the Peninsula. Its prosperity had never been so great, its people so happy, its sovereigns so renowned, as at the meridian of the Moslem power. In intellectual attainments, and the skilful adaptation of scientific principles to the practical affairs of life, the subjects of the khalifate far surpassed all their contemporaries. The civilization--if it is worthy of the name--which the Saracens overthrew was infinitely inferior to the one that they created. The Visigoths had scarcely emerged from barbarism. Their monarchs attempted to emulate, in their magnificence and luxury, the brilliant court of the Eastern Empire, and to supply, by the splendor and richness of the materials, the glaring deficiencies in skill and workmanship which characterized the productions of their artisans. They never discarded the savage customs engendered and perpetuated by ages of violence and injustice. Sedentary and industrial occupations were repugnant to the genius of a people whose national traditions from time immemorial had breathed a spirit of truculence and war. And yet, even in their chosen field, they at once demonstrated their inferiority to an enemy who had hardly completed his apprenticeship in arms.

After the Conquest, the insignificant number of Christians saved by the inaccessible fastnesses of the Asturias from Mohammedan subjection had little left but their swords and their independence. Their previous habits had unfitted them for labor. The ungenerous nature of the soil and the severity of the climate offered few inducements for tillage. They had, therefore, no resource but war by which to maintain their existence and repair their broken fortunes. Their children were reared in ignorance and under conditions favorable to the development of the highest degree of ferocity and fanaticism. They were taught to regard their enemies as monsters, unworthy of the name and attributes of humanity, and having nothing in common with the remainder of mankind but an erect form and the capacity of speech. In the course of time, greater familiarity with their adversaries insensibly produced a change of feeling, and many of these absurd and unjust prejudices were modified or entirely discarded. Numerous Mohammedan customs were adopted, especially by the nobility of Castile, whose inherent profligacy especially inclined them to the forbidden and unorthodox license of the seraglio. Moslem kings were not infrequently appointed arbiters of disputes between Christian princes of the blood. In arms, in manners, in costume, in amusements, the despised infidel furnished models to the proud and boorish descendants of Pelayus and his mountaineers. Even the language was contaminated. Thousands of terms familiar to the reader of the Koran were incorporated unchanged into its comprehensive vocabulary, and the noble and sonorous Castilian idiom remains to-day almost one-third Arabic. The system of warfare, the evolutions of cavalry, the adoption of lighter armor, all exhibited the effect of the pervading Moorish influence. Architects from Granada were employed by Castilian monarchs in the construction of palaces, and even by orthodox prelates in the ornamentation of cathedrals. It was the custom of many sovereigns in those turbulent times to intrust their safety to a body-guard of Saracen mercenaries, who could neither be intimidated nor corrupted. The honors paid to deceased Castilian royalty by the Moslems were not inferior to those with which the obsequies of the greatest emirs were celebrated. The court of Granada went into mourning for Ferdinand III., and a guard of Moorish nobles escorted his remains to the tomb. Henry IV. gave audience to ambassadors seated upon a divan and supported by cushions, in the traditional Saracen fashion. The tilt of reeds and the bull-fight, the exercises of the grand arena, which, requiring the greatest address and agility, were so popular with the Spanish chivalry, superseded the ruder and more dangerous exhibitions of the tournament. In innumerable examples, in every phase of the public and domestic life of the Christians, the influence of Mohammedan association was manifested. It is a curious fact, as already stated, that, in spite of this, the deep-seated prejudices of the two races, so far from being eradicated, were scarcely even perceptibly modified. Notwithstanding intermarriages, the formal and elaborate display of public courtesy, the frequency of appeals to royal arbitration, the adoption of official ceremonials by one people, the voluntary solicitation of protection by the other, all appearances of amity were fallacious, and a feeling of irreconcilable hostility constantly prevailed between the two races. Both reduced their prisoners to slavery, a condition which generally implied the most inhuman treatment. The captives taken by the Castilians were branded upon the forehead, a mark of degradation which could never be erased; the slaves of the Moslems were confined in damp and unwholesome dungeons, and compelled to labor daily in the construction of mosques and fortifications. It was no unusual occurrence, when a place had provoked the animosity of either by an obstinate resistance, for the entire population, irrespective of age or sex, to be ruthlessly put to the sword. In the heat of conflict, quarter was seldom expected. Despite the omnipresent and irrefutable evidences of superior knowledge, refinement, and culture, the arrogant and conceited Castilians always stigmatized their adversaries as barbarians. With them, implicit belief in and attachment to the Roman Catholic faith was the infallible touchstone of civilization. Whatever they did not understand they attributed to magic. The mysterious accents of the Arabic language, and the intricate manner in which its characters were combined in the inscriptions which adorned the public edifices, aroused in the minds of the ignorant suspicions of sorcery, with its accompaniments of talismans, amulets, charms, and incantations. The magnificent architectural works of Arab genius were attributed to infernal agency, as beyond the efforts of unaided human power; an opinion still entertained by the Spanish peasantry, who not only firmly believe that the Moslem palaces were constructed by evil spirits, but also ascribe the origin of the gigantic, and apparently eternal, monuments of classic antiquity to the hands of the devil himself.

Besides the inveterate prejudices arising from antagonistic faiths and protracted warfare, other circumstances intervened to preclude the fusion of the two races after the Conquest. The Spaniard, with characteristic pride, asserted the superiority and predominance of his race and origin, and the slightest suspicion of Moorish blood constituted a blemish which no political or military distinction was ever able to eradicate. The industry of the Mudejares, their frugality, their clannishness, the seclusion of their women, aroused unfavorable comment among a people whose prejudices associated these practices with the name of an hereditary and implacable enemy. It had long been a subject of universal complaint that the larger proportion of the wealth of the kingdom was possessed by these unpopular tributaries. The idle Castilian, whose ancestors had for twenty-three generations subsisted by rapine, could not regard with indifference the plodding industry that conferred upon a subjugated and misbelieving race those substantial benefits which he had always been taught to regard as the birthright of a Christian. It was also publicly stated, to the prejudice of the tributary Moors, that even when they renounced their faith they still adhered to their former laborious habits; that none of them ever entered convents or monasteries; and that their contributions to the Church were not of the value to be expected from the zeal and generosity of sincere proselytes. Their conversion did not bring with it that indulgence and those privileges to which their ghostly instructors assured them they would be entitled; it did not even confer immunity from insult. Until the reign of Henry II. the Mudejares were exempt from the inconvenience of wearing a distinctive mark indicative of their social condition, which, long before imposed upon the Jews, was justly considered a badge of ignominy. After that time, however, they were required to wear upon their caps and turbans a blue crescent “of the size of an orange,” which constantly brought upon them the affronts of children, and not infrequently the taunts and violence of a fanatical populace. In spite of the serious restrictions imposed upon the Mudejares, and the enormous contributions levied upon their industry, they continued to prosper, and at the time of the surrender of Granada they were the most valuable subjects of the Spanish Crown. Policy, based upon a sense of weakness, had long repressed the avarice and envy of the Castilian sovereigns in their relations with a class whose skill and labor were the principal sources of the opulence of the realm. The time had now come when all restraint could be cast aside without danger, and royal aggression, not only sanctioned but suggested and encouraged by ecclesiastical authority, could violate every obligation, human and divine, that had been entered into with a conquered people, whose principal crime was their prosperity, and whose independence had been voluntarily relinquished under solemn treaties which had absolutely guaranteed their personal safety and the unmolested exercise of their civil and religious rights and privileges. A most pernicious maxim, but one entirely consonant with the prevailing sentiments of the age, had been recently adopted, and declared by the highest ecclesiastical authority susceptible of unlimited application. This was that, the original conquest of the Peninsula by the Moors partaking of the nature of an usurpation, or rather of a theft obtained by violence, all treaties or engagements entered into with the descendants of the invaders were valid only so long as the Christians chose to observe them, as having been dictated by necessity and contracted with persons outside the pale of the law. The peculiar casuistry, which deduced from Biblical precedent and the exterminating wars of the Jews analogies whose application wrought such havoc among the conquered nations of Spain and the New World, found no difficulty in the acceptation of the broader, and consequently even more atrocious, principle that no faith whatever was to be kept with infidels. Ecclesiastical ingenuity has never invented more potent weapons for the attainment of absolutism than these two maxims, which, rigorously applied, demonstrated their temporary and apparent efficacy by the utter extermination of millions of nominal enemies of the Spanish monarchy.

By the union of Castile and Aragon and the Conquest of Granada national unity had been secured; it now remained to place the religious establishment of the kingdom upon the same advantageous footing. The Inquisition, an engine of tremendous power, whose operations were attended by the most gratifying results, had, for more than two centuries, been employed in subduing recalcitrant heretics, procuring conversions, and replenishing the exhausted coffers of Church and State. First introduced into Aragon from France, its efforts were mainly directed against the Jews, whose wealth had brought upon them a convenient suspicion of heresy. The main objects of the Inquisition were in reality secular and political. That hideous institution aimed at the establishment of unquestioned sovereignty by the instruments of persecution. Religious dogmas, while nominally of vital importance in its procedure, were but pretexts by which the clergy, and indirectly the orthodox monarch, profited in the acquirement and consolidation of irresponsible authority. The stifling of human thought, the suppression of every branch of knowledge, the prohibition of the exercise of private judgment, the infinite multiplication of offences against religion, the minute gradation of penances, many of them of barbarous and incredible severity, were all means to the accomplishment of one base and ignoble end. The theological aspect of the Inquisition has engrossed the attention of historians to the exclusion of its genuine but concealed objects. That the punishment of heresy was not the real mission of its tribunal is proved by the fact that its sentences were frequently suspended, commuted, or abrogated by the sovereign, conditional on the payment of money. The rich were the especial objects of its hostility; the denunciation of a wealthy person was equivalent to conviction; and if a Hebrew or a Moslem, he could hardly escape the extreme penalty. The mystery of its organization, its unexpected arrests, its secret procedure, its frightful dungeons, the fiendish cruelty of the tortures it inflicted, and the atrocities of its public exhibitions--which partook of the nature of religious festivals, and, with shocking inconsistency, were supposed to be devoted to popular recreation--struck terror into every community and every family.

The successful prosecution of heresy by the Inquisition, as well as the financial advantages it promised, and the increase of ecclesiastical and royal power which followed its establishment, appealed forcibly to the bigoted and arbitrary mind of the Spanish Queen. Not so, however, with Ferdinand, whose experience with that dread tribunal had caused him to regard its operations with disfavor, and who had rendered his orthodoxy liable to suspicion by intrusting to Jewish bankers the administration of the finances of the Crown of Aragon. His remonstrances were, however, unheeded by his obstinate and despotic consort. The Kingdom of Castile had always enjoyed an unquestioned preponderance of authority and prestige in the affairs of the Peninsula. The compact which consolidated the two great realms into one empire expressly conferred upon Isabella the exclusive control of all matters relating to ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The right of presentation to benefices--long asserted by Castilian princes as a royal prerogative, and whose exercise, denounced by the Papacy as an usurpation, had repeatedly brought upon them the censures of the Holy See--invested the Queen with a power of vast and indefinable extent over the members of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, who owed their offices to her generosity, and whose revenues were largely dispensed in accordance with her advice. Her policy and her apparent interest induced her, therefore, to consent to the introduction of the Holy Office; and its tribunal was established at Cordova, under the direction of Tomas de Torquemada, first Inquisitor-General of the kingdom, a name of awful prominence in the history of Spanish persecution.

The capitulation of Granada had been concluded with every indication of sincerity, and with the most solemn assurances with which it is possible to invest the provisions and confirm the faith of treaties. The unsuspecting Moslems did not long remain in ignorance of the duplicity of their conquerors. Excesses were publicly committed by licentious cavaliers, who, instead of undergoing the penalty of death adjudged for such offences, escaped with a gentle reprimand, and were even conspicuously distinguished by the favor of their royal mistress. The seclusion of domestic life, so jealously guarded by Mohammedan custom, was unceremoniously invaded upon the most frivolous pretexts by the rude and insolent soldiery. The mosques, whose possession had been especially guaranteed by the articles of the treaty, were one after another seized and consecrated to the Christian worship. For these flagrant breaches of trust, the stupid and remorseless bigotry of Isabella was largely responsible. The city had hardly passed into the hands of the conquerors, before the advisability of forcible conversion began to be seriously discussed, and the Queen listened with pleasure to suggestions of indiscriminate and compulsory baptism. The efforts of priestly avarice and intolerance, secure in the royal support, began to encroach more and more upon the acknowledged rights of these unfortunate victims of persecution, until a revolution broke out, which threatened the integrity of the newly acquired dominions, and required the entire resources of the kingdom to suppress it. The government of Granada had been left in the hands of three men, whose excellent qualifications, previous experience, and inborn sense of justice rendered them eminently qualified for the difficult task to which they had been assigned. The famous Count of Tendilla was appointed Captain-General of the province. The interests of the Church were committed to Hernando de Talavera, Archbishop of Granada, a prelate in whose mind fanaticism never attained predominance over the noble impulses which assert the dignity of human nature; and whose liberality, rare in his age and profession, never refused indulgence and compassion to those of different blood or hostile faith. To these two representatives of royal and ecclesiastical authority was added as an adviser, and an interpreter of the treaty of capitulation, which he himself had drafted, Hernando de Zafra, secretary of the Catholic sovereigns, a man of talent, intelligence, and spotless integrity, who enjoyed the confidence of his superiors, and who, while conspicuously devout, was far less tinctured with the prejudices of the time than his theological education and previous associations would seem to imply.

Under the administration of these three dignitaries, the territory of Granada once more assumed an appearance of prosperity. Their probity won the confidence of the Moors, which had been shaken by the arbitrary and indefensible proceedings following the surrender. The capital, fallen into neglect and decay during years of insurrection and war, was repaired; new streets were opened, sanitary regulations were enforced, the markets were again crowded with traders; the Vega, long the scene of desolation, began to blossom once more under the patient hands of the industrious laborer. While a high sense of honor and an unusual diplomatic tact obtained for the Count of Tendilla the respect of his dependents, it was upon the disposition of the Archbishop that the security of the government and the pacification of the Moslems principally depended. The first great difficulty was, in reality, not with the latter, but with the Christian colonists, who had received, in recompense for real or fictitious services, establishments in the city, and whose licentious conduct provoked the animosity of the vanquished, and rendered the streets unsafe at night for wayfarers of every description.

The conduct of the Archbishop was beyond all praise. He endeavored by every conceivable means to improve the condition of his diocese, to revive decaying industry, and to promote the friendly relations of the two races whose previous traditions made complete fusion impossible. He dispensed at all times the most unbounded and discerning charity. He caused public works to be inaugurated, by which the needy poor were provided with employment. His apostolic zeal never stooped to the violence of persecution; his appeals were made to reason alone; and his subordinates, for the effectual performance of their duties, were compelled to learn the Arabic language, in which he himself, although far advanced in years, became sufficiently proficient to employ it successfully for the noble purposes of religious instruction. From the printing-presses, established by his munificence, issued sumptuous volumes printed in Castilian and Arabic, whose perusal might not only arouse the interest of old believer and recent proselyte, but could not fail to alike confirm the faith and facilitate the intercourse of both Christian and Moslem. Under his direction schools were founded; rituals and works embodying the doctrines and discipline of the Church translated; and regular conferences organized, wherein, at stated intervals, the comparative merits of the Christian and Mohammedan creeds were publicly discussed by learned theologians of both religions.

This excellent prelate, whose virtues are the more conspicuous and admirable when contrasted with the generally dissolute character of the ecclesiastics of the Spanish court, voluntarily renounced the larger portion of the emoluments of his office, reserving only what was sufficient for his immediate necessities, and dispensing with the pomp which the dignitaries of the hierarchy were accustomed to assume in the exercise of their calling. Two hundred and fifty persons shared daily the hospitality of his table; his bounty was enjoyed alike by officials of the highest rank, by Moors of every degree, by pilgrims and travellers soliciting alms. In his visits to the sick and the unfortunate he permanently impaired his health. Recognizing the importance of a consistent example, he instituted extensive reforms among the clergy. Their luxury was repressed, their intemperate zeal restrained, the systematic observance of their duties compelled, and those vices which had long been the scandal of the pious were either entirely checked, or, driven from public view, were forced into seclusion for their indulgence. In every possible manner he attempted to relieve the oppressive burdens imposed upon his parishioners by the fiscal regulations. His notaries were forbidden to collect the fees, which formed an important part of the revenues of the archiepiscopal see. He interposed his authority to prevent illegal and oppressive exactions by the tax-collectors. In his sermons, and by the exertion of his authority, he discouraged the practice of professional mendicity, the scourge and the disgrace of both Catholic and Mussulman countries.

With the secular and the ecclesiastical power vested in the hands of such men as the Count of Tendilla and Hernando de Talavera, the greatest results could not fail of accomplishment. The manners of the Spaniards were insensibly reformed. Such was the public tranquillity, that a mere handful of soldiers sufficed for the garrison of the Alhambra and the guard of the captain-general. The pious and unselfish example of the Archbishop soon bore fruit. Great numbers of Moors voluntarily signified their desire to become Christians. In one day three thousand were baptized, not one of whom ever afterwards recanted. These conversions were not obtained through suggestions of temporal advantage or the influence of fear; nor were the proselytes admitted to communion without previous instruction in the doctrines they were expected to profess or the duties they would be required to perform. The affection and respect of the Moslems for their instructor and friend were unbounded. They called him the “Holy Faqui of the Christians.” The churches were found unable to accommodate the increasing numbers of converts, and altars and pulpits were erected in the three principal squares of the city; the nightly brawls excited by the turbulent soldiers of fortune, domiciled by the Conquest in the Moorish capital, became more and more infrequent; a sense of security began to prevail in the community; the relations of noble and vassal were modified, to the decided advantage of the latter; ancient prejudices, confirmed by the enmity of centuries, were softened; and the political union of the two peoples, which could only be effected by a just and conciliatory policy, and upon which, in fact, depended the future prosperity of the Peninsula, seemed at length to offer a flattering prospect of realization.

Under these favorable auspices, for the space of several years, order, tranquillity, and contentment reigned in Granada. The courteous and equitable, but firm, administration of the governor; the blameless life, the humble piety, the sympathetic interest of the Archbishop had awakened the love and compelled the obedience of the tributary Moslems, who compared with wonder and gratification the operation of a system of kindness and justice with the arbitrary and violent measures of the despotism to which they had heretofore always been accustomed. During that period many important and tragic events transpired. Al-Zagal, oppressed with years and calamities and broken in spirit, had gone into voluntary exile. Boabdil, by means of an ignoble and treacherous device, whose adoption was alike unworthy of a monarch and a Christian, had been deprived of the principality for which he had bartered his crown and forced to retire into Africa. Every important provision of the capitulation had been repeatedly violated, and only the tact of those who controlled the government of Granada had prevented the most serious consequences. The Jews, under circumstances of unspeakable cruelty, had been expelled from the kingdom. In the hierarchy changes had taken place which boded no good to the heretic and the suspected apostate. Cardinal Mendoza, Primate of Spain, had died, and Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros, a Franciscan friar and the confessor of the Queen, had been promoted to that exalted dignity, whose power and emoluments rivalled those of the crown. The life, the associations, the studies of this man had developed a mind whose feelings were in perfect accordance with the narrow and intolerant spirit of the age. Without indulgence for the inherent weakness of human nature, without patience to await the effect of the deliberate and rational methods of discussion which promote religious conviction, absolutely devoid of generosity, of tenderness, of sympathy, he regarded unquestioning obedience to the Church as the most imperative of all obligations and mortification of the flesh as the most meritorious of virtues. He had recently secured the appointment of Diego de Deza, one of his creatures, to the place of Inquisitor-General, which gave him absolute control of the operations of the Holy Office.

The characters of the two great churchmen who in succession dictated the policy of the crown, though widely different in many respects, in general faithfully represent the prevalent ideas and aspirations of every class of society in the kingdom. The aim of both was religious unity, which during the long crusade against the infidel had usurped the place and depreciated the worth of patriotism. Both governed the sovereign, and with the sovereign the monarchy. Both filled the highest ecclesiastical office in the Peninsula, an office second in dignity and power only to the Papacy. Both were zealous patrons of the Inquisition. One recommended the expulsion of the Jews. The other inaugurated the persecution of the Moriscoes. Both commanded armies. Both founded institutions of learning. Both were regarded at Rome as the most valuable servants of the Holy See. Here, however, all resemblance ends. Mendoza belonged to the haughtiest of the Castilian aristocracy; he traced his lineage in a direct line to Roman patricians on one side and to the Gothic Dukes of Cantabria on the other; the Cid was his ancestor, as were also the Lords of Biscay; the blood of royalty coursed in his veins; he was the cousin of Ferdinand and Isabella; he was nearly related to the princely house of Infantado, whose duke took precedence of all Spanish grandees; more than seventy titles of nobility were in his family, which was the first in the Peninsula and one of the most celebrated in Europe.

Ximenes sprang from the people. His ancestry, while respectable and deserving recognition as of the hidalgo class, was not noble. He renounced his baptismal name for that of the founder of his order, the Franciscans. He had no relatives, a fact which afterwards obtained for him the Regency.

The dignities of Mendoza were the most eminent in the hierarchy and the kingdom, and were all conferred before he had reached the meridian of life. He was Bishop of Calahorra and Siguenza, Archbishop of Seville and Toledo, Primate of Spain, a Prince of the Church, Patriarch of Alexandria, Legate of the Pope. He became Chancellor of Castile. He was appointed Captain-General under both Henry IV. and Isabella. He was most prominent in all the events of the civil and the Moorish wars. He won the battle of Olmedo for Juan II. He defeated the King of Portugal on the field of Toro. At twenty-four he was practically minister of state. At sixty-four he planned the last campaign before Granada as commander-in-chief of the besieging army. His hands raised upon the Tower of Comares the archiepiscopal cross of his diocese, the symbol of Christian supremacy and ecclesiastical power.

In habits, tastes, demeanor, and personal appearance a marked contrast existed between the two most famous prelates of the fifteenth century. Mendoza was epicurean, Ximenes ascetic. The table of the Great Cardinal was furnished with every luxury. His garments were of the finest quality, as befitted his rank. Jewels sparkled upon his fingers. His cleanliness excited the wonder and often the disapprobation of the pious, as savoring of heresy. None but youths of distinguished birth were admitted to his household. His morals partook of the laxity of the time. The ladies honored with his attentions were members of the aristocracy, daughters of noble houses, maids of honor to the Queen. His three sons were legitimatized by Pope Innocent VIII. in 1486 and by Isabella in 1487. Through their matrimonial connections, the blood of this famous ecclesiastical grandee has been mingled with that of many of the proudest families of Castile.

While the promotion of Mendoza to the highest offices of Church and State was due partly to his illustrious ancestry and partly to his eminent talents, that of Ximenes was derived entirely from his reputation for piety and wisdom. Honors were literally thrust upon him. With real or affected humility, he attempted to evade the search and disobey the commands of those who wished to raise him to absolute power. He loudly protested his unworthiness. He declared his preference for the duties and the seclusion of a private station. Even while at the height of his greatness, he never abandoned the habits of the monastery. He carried into the splendid archiepiscopal see of Toledo, the highest post in the ecclesiastical system of Europe, the practices of the penitent and the anchorite. Under his cardinal’s robes of scarlet and gold he wore constantly the cowl and knotted girdle of the Franciscan friars. A haircloth shirt, which was never changed, irritated his flesh. His diet was frugal to excess. “He only ate enough,” says his biographer, “to sustain the little life that penance had left him.” His food consisted principally of herbs, his only drink was water. His virtue was impregnable,--even St. Anthony himself might have envied him his constancy under temptation. To him was never imputed the reproach of frequent ablution, the stigma of the Moslem heretic. The constant use of a haircloth undergarment, while not conducive to personal purity, is readily productive of those physical conditions which, in the Middle Ages, were almost infallible signs of a good Christian.

The early life of Mendoza was passed amidst the atmosphere of the most dignified and punctilious court in Europe. His experience from boyhood fitted him for any service to which he might be assigned by the order of his king. He was thoroughly familiar with the arts of diplomacy. He had led his vassals in many a bloody encounter. With the skill of a successful general he had directed the movements of large bodies of troops in action. In every conflict he had fearlessly exposed himself to danger. He was indulgent to the faults of his ecclesiastical inferiors. For the glory of the Church he built and endowed the College of Valladolid. The Hospital of Santa Cruz at Toledo was a superb monument to his munificence. He expended great sums in charity. The debasing vice of bigotry was far from dominating his character.

The person of Mendoza was tall, erect, and commanding; his features handsome; his bearing that of a soldier and a gentleman; his manners affable and unaffected; in all respects he was the model of dignity, of gentleness, and of courtesy. His influence in the government was so great that he was everywhere known as “The Third King of Spain.” It was said of him as of Cæsar, “Quicquid volebat, valde volebat.”

Ximenes brought to the management of a great empire none of that familiarity with public affairs so essential to the statesman. His life had been bounded by the narrow horizon of the cloister. His reading had been confined to the homilies and polemics of the Fathers. At the assault of Oran, instead of leading his troops, he retired to pray in his tent. The university he established at Alcalá, as a rival to that of Salamanca, was far from realizing his hopes. His appearance disclosed his obscure lineage and his plebeian associations. His form was bent, his face emaciated, his manners shy and awkward. He possessed none of that winning grace which is the common birthright of his countrymen. In the administration of his office he was arbitrary and irascible. His obstinacy was only exceeded by the severity with which he enforced his decrees; his pursuit of heresy and monastic license, only by the vigor with which he encountered and crushed all opposition. His reputation for ability, for learning, for sanctity, for every attribute that evokes the admiring applause of mankind, far surpassed that of his predecessor among all ranks of his contemporaries.

Such were the two churchmen, both of whom had obtained the finest education afforded by their age and country; both founders of great colleges; both gifted with extraordinary talents; both clothed with despotic power; to whose agency is to be principally attributed the absolute annihilation of Jewish and Moslem science and literature in the Spanish Peninsula.

It is impossible for us at this distance of time to fully appreciate the enormous influence wielded by a prelate who dispensed the wealth and patronage of the ecclesiastical establishment of the Spanish monarchy. His capacity for good or evil was practically unlimited. He was the keeper of the royal conscience. The sentiments of every community, the decision of important questions of diplomacy, the adoption of measures vital to the permanence of national existence, the prosecution of war, the negotiation of peace, all depended upon the opinions and advice which emanated from the throne of the metropolitan see of Toledo. When to the prestige and revenues of the primacy were added the mysterious procedure and dreadful energy of the Inquisition, the formidable character of the power possessed by Ximenes may be conjectured. His will was law in every parish in the kingdom. Through the fears and mistaken devotion of a superstitious queen he was already the virtual ruler of Castile. His zeal was the more dangerous from the fact that it was sincere; no element of hypocrisy discredited the motives or impaired the supremacy of this uncompromising fanatic. The sweeping reforms he instituted among the clergy, and the rigor with which all disobedience was punished, awakened the resentment of every ecclesiastic whose lax morality or religious indifference had rendered him the object of official admonition or discipline. Those who appealed to the Pope were thrown into prison. Petitions for indulgence were treated with contempt. Remonstrances were chastised by suspension from functions and deprivation of benefices. The energy of his measures, the rudeness of his manners, the arbitrary, almost brutal, defiance of precedent and custom with which he treated his inferiors, his well-known control over the infamous tribunal whose public sacrifices in the name of religious unity had already terrorized the kingdom, his incorruptibility and self-mortification, invested the office of Ximenes with more than imperial authority. Isabella congratulated herself on her discernment. Her pious ambition was excited. In the hands of this active prelate the Moors of Granada might be speedily Christianized. The slow and pacific methods of Talavera had frequently aroused the displeasure and invoked the censures of the impatient Queen. Her partiality for the eccentric and determined churchman whose enforcement of long-neglected monastic regulations and whose condemnation of the luxurious habits of his subordinates had procured for him the open homage and secret execration of bishop and friar alike, whose inflexible decision, whose disregard of humanity and justice whenever he conceived the interests of the Church were involved, rendered him so offensively conspicuous, suggested him at once as a pre-eminently suitable instrument for the extermination of Moslem heresy and the rapid propagation of the Faith. He was, therefore, ordered to Granada, nominally as the adviser of Talavera in the work of spiritual regeneration, with the secret understanding, however, that his superior rank would exempt him from even the apparent exercise of official duties in a subordinate capacity. His first step, and one of which it is scarcely possible that Isabella could have been ignorant, was to procure a formal authorization from the Holy Office to investigate and punish the crime of heresy.

Armed with this document, and confident in the support of the Queen, Ximenes arrived at Granada in October, 1499. His conduct from the beginning was marked by unflinching audacity and resolution. The prestige of his dignity and the arrogance of his manners at once overawed the gentle Archbishop, who, renouncing the means which had achieved such great success, henceforth abandoned himself blindly to the merciless impulses of his distinguished superior. The latter was not long in profiting by the ascendency he had obtained. He claimed for himself supreme and dictatorial authority in matters not only ecclesiastical, but in questions often affecting the jurisdiction of the civil power. His first measures evinced none of the unrelenting severity of the inquisitor; they were corrupt, politic, conciliatory. The faquis and santons, whose influence with their countrymen was supposed to be the greatest and whose mercenary character had been notorious in the evil days preceding the surrender, were enlisted in the service of conversion by magnificent gifts of silken garments, jewels, and gold. With their zeal quickened by these potent arguments, the new missionaries had no difficulty in securing multitudes of proselytes. Their ardor was further stimulated by forcible representations of the inconveniences and trials which would inevitably be visited upon all who persisted in their adherence to error. Great emulation was excited by these extraordinary inducements to Mohammedan apostasy; each faqui reckoned with pride the number of converts he had conducted to the altar; the unprincipled populace welcomed, with feigned and interested enthusiasm, a religious compliance purchased with the mammon of unrighteousness; the Great Mosque of the Albaycin--in which quarter the Moors had, by a highly impolitic decree, been concentrated after the Conquest--was consecrated to Christianity, and within its precincts more than four thousand alleged penitents received the rite of baptism. This ceremony was effected without previous examination or instruction; and the candidates were equally ignorant of their duties and of the dreadful consequences involved in the sin of recantation. From that moment their moral responsibility was fixed. No excuse could be pleaded for the unconscious maintenance of heretical opinions or even for involuntary infractions of ecclesiastical discipline; the voice of the informer was ever ready to denounce, the hand of the inquisitor to punish.

This triumph of the Faith, while exceedingly gratifying, was proportionately expensive. The entire available revenues of the See of Toledo, amounting to seventy thousand ducats, were expended in its accomplishment. Even this great sum proved insufficient, and Ximenes was forced to pledge his private credit to appease the demands of the crowd of mercenary sycophants and spurious converts who claimed the reward of their abasement and dishonor. Among the sincere disciples of the Prophet, and there were many in Granada, the course of their perfidious brethren was regarded with unconcealed abhorrence. The more earnest and devout of these endeavored to counteract the growing inclination to religious defection by public exhortations and remonstrances. It was not in the imperious nature of the Primate to brook such opposition. The offending faquis were thrown into prison. History has not revealed the nature of the arguments employed to shake their constancy, but the persecuted Moslems were evidently not of the stuff of which martyrs and saints are made. One after another recanted and were baptized; many of their fellow-sectaries profited by their example; resistance was for the time effectually suppressed; and Ximenes pursued, without molestation, his favorite and inexorable method of wholesale conversion. To his narrow and arbitrary mind the employment of the most radical measures seemed to promise the greatest assurances of success. In the furtherance of this idea, and with a view to eradicating the apparent cause of the evil, he now planned what he considered a master-stroke of policy. Without previous notice, a diligent search was made of every house throughout the entire city, and every manuscript in the Arabic language which could be found was seized. The number thus secured amounted to nearly a million. Among them were not only superb copies of the Koran, but relics of the great Ommeyade body of literature, which had been the pride of the imperial court of Cordova, and had been cherished as priceless through many generations; the contents of the public libraries, whose preservation and increase had been the especial care of the enlightened Alhamares; treatises on history and science, which described the events and pictured the intellectual advancement of what had been the most learned and polished of nations; and the literary treasures of every scholar and philosopher in the capital. The works on chemistry, botany, astronomy, and medicine, subjects which had always engaged the diligent curiosity of the Spanish Arab, predominated. There, too, were doubtless to be found many translations of the classics, inheritances from the Grecian school of Alexandria,--henceforth forever lost,--which had found their way into the Peninsula from the distant banks of the Nile. These volumes exhibited in the beauty of their calligraphy and the magnificence of their adornment all the pomp, the pride, the luxury, of Saracen art. Beautiful arabesques in gold, silver, and many colors, embellished pages written with a delicacy and regularity which equalled that of the finest type. The bindings were of inlaid leather; some were embroidered; others were incrusted with tortoise-shell, mother-of-pearl, ivory, and jewels; the clasps were of solid gold. All of these inestimable stores of learning were heaped in one immense pile in the centre of the Plaza de la Babal-Rambla, set on fire, and consumed. The importance of this sacrifice to bigotry may be inferred from the fact that there was probably in the entire world no collection of equal extent and value as that destroyed by Ximenes in this historic square, where, in the time of the emirs, national festivals had been celebrated, and the emulation of distinguished warriors in the martial sports of the tournament excited by the presence of the beauty and the gallantry of the Moslem court; where the differences of Castilian princes had been settled by a chivalric appeal to arms; where cultured audiences had witnessed the friendly rivalry of Moorish poets and troubadours, and the reward of the victor had been bestowed by the hand of royalty, all little suspecting that on the scene of their pleasures would one day be exhibited such a melancholy spectacle.

The pecuniary loss entailed by this vandalism was of itself immense, but the destructive effect it produced upon society was incalculable. By it perished unique literary monuments which it was impossible to replace; it offered a premium upon ignorance, for through such deeds alone was the favor of the all-powerful sacerdotal order to be secured; it discouraged learning to such a degree that from that time forth no Moslem writer of distinction appeared to illustrate the annals or depict the manners of his race; and it annihilated in a single hour the precious accumulation of ages, from which the modern historian might have collected data relative to Moorish civilization elsewhere unattainable in the world of letters. The intellectual degradation resulting from this intolerant act of Ximenes was most deplorable. All knowledge was thereafter filtered through the narrow channels of ecclesiastical inspection and thoroughly cleansed of every suspicion of heresy; the missal and the breviary supplanted the works of Arabic annalists and philosophers; and the enduring results of this crime against learning and of its pernicious example are still apparent in the remarkably illiterate and fanatical character of the inhabitants of Granada. Three hundred volumes on the science of medicine were saved from the flames, for the library of the University of Alcalá; but no entreaties or remonstrances from his companions could move the ferocious bigot to exempt from the sacrifice volumes whose jewelled covers and clasps of gold represented in themselves a princely fortune.

The destruction of Arabic manuscripts was the first step towards the employment of violence. With characteristic energy, the Primate availed himself of the authority with which he had been armed by the Holy Office. Persons suspected of heresy were summarily seized, imprisoned, tortured; and those who for the moment escaped experienced all the indignities which could be inflicted by the hands of ecclesiastical malice strengthened by boundless power. These outrages, and the repeated violation of the rights granted in their treaty with the crown, aroused the populace to desperation; and the arrest of a widow, whose wealth had attracted the cupidity of the authorities, was the signal for a dangerous revolt. The gates of the Albaycin were closed and guarded. The streets were barricaded. The towers were occupied, and Ximenes, whom the indignant threats of the people openly devoted to death, was besieged by an armed multitude in his palace, from which perilous situation he was with difficulty released by the Count of Tendilla. The news of the insurrection called down upon the tyrannical prelate the wrath of his sovereigns, but the singular credit he enjoyed and the vast influence he was able to wield soon restored him to royal favor.

It was now resolved to carry matters to extremes, and the choice of baptism or death was offered to the Moors, whose rebellion, although provoked by the oppression of their masters, was declared to have caused a forfeiture of all their privileges. The disaffection spread rapidly to the provinces; the mountaineers of the Alpujarras and the adjacent rugged country, which were the resorts of bands of desperate outlaws who entertained intimate relations with the Barbary corsairs, became involved; and the Catholic monarchs, so far from the religious triumph which they had anticipated, saw themselves suddenly confronted by a war which promised to assume formidable proportions. Space will not permit a detailed description of the repeated insurrections and final subjugation of the Moriscoes, and only the more important events of that memorable struggle can be touched upon. The mountain ranges of Southern Spain were admirably adapted to the desultory tactics in which they excelled, and the prolongation of the struggle was the natural consequence of the difficulties of the ground, of the boldness and activity of the insurgents, of the incapacity of the Castilian commanders, and of the proverbial want of discipline and fatal recklessness of the Christian soldiery. The general disarmament of the Moors had deprived them of the greater part of their weapons, but this disadvantage was eventually repaired by the spoils of battle and by the enterprise of Aragonese and Castilian traders, who, undismayed by the prospect of detection and punishment, were always ready, for an extravagant compensation, to furnish the enemies of their king with arms of the most approved pattern and workmanship. The operations of the contending forces were prosecuted with a cruelty hitherto unknown, even in the bloody annals of the Peninsula; and the ultimate triumph of the Spaniards was signalized by acts of such merciless vengeance that the foreign soldiers of fortune, enlisted for plunder and long seasoned by bloodshed, were appalled by their dreadful atrocity. The massacre of the population of a place taken by storm was the rule and not the exception; the wounded remaining on fields of battle were exterminated; prisoners were subjected to horrible tortures; every crime suggested by the incentives of lust, rapine, and hereditary aversion was perpetrated; and the most desirable fate of a captive was to be consigned for life to the tyranny of an unfeeling master dominated by every vice, inaccessible to mercy, and unrestrained by any law either of God or man.

An army of nearly a hundred thousand men assembled, at the summons of the Spanish sovereigns, for the suppression of the insurrection, at Alhendin near Granada. Formidable in numbers alone, this great host was composed of materials very different from the soldiery that had achieved the Conquest. It was indifferently equipped, unorganized, and absolutely deficient in discipline. The flower of the Castilian youth, inspired by the discoveries of Columbus, had sought new scenes of adventure on the shores of mysterious lands beyond the ocean. Commercial pursuits had weakened the military spirit; a peace of many years had impaired the energy of the nation and incapacitated, for the exposure of a perilous service, a people who had been reared and nurtured amidst the din of arms. The blessings of internal tranquillity, almost forgotten in the conflict of centuries, had once more permitted the unmolested exercise of the mechanical arts and the practice of agricultural industry. The better class of citizens, in the full enjoyment of security, were loath to resume, for the sake of a religious principle, whose enforcement promised much danger and trifling advantage, the hazards of the uncertain game of war. The army was therefore mainly composed of the retainers and vassals of the nobility, whose duty required their presence, and an innumerable horde of penniless adventurers, who sought, in the excitements and vicissitudes of a campaign against the infidel, an opportunity for the improvement of their desperate fortunes. Aided by a smaller force operating from Almeria, the rebellion was, after some fighting and much cruel retaliation, put down; the insurgents, impelled by the promise of immunity or the menace of death, consented to embrace the Catholic faith; the ancient chroniclers relate with becoming pride that during a single day ten thousand proselytes were baptized in the Sierra de Filabres alone; and through material inducements, or from the contagion of example, the inhabitants of Baza and Guadix, of the Alpujarras, and of the mountain regions to the south as far as the sea, were reckoned among those who acknowledged the authority of the Church and accepted the doctrines of Christianity.

With the advent of the sixteenth century, a royal decree was promulgated, establishing at Granada the same civil jurisdiction which obtained in the other provincial capitals of the kingdom. The magistracy was nominally divided between the Spaniards and the Moors, but the equality was only apparent, and the preponderance of power virtually remained with the conquerors. Allured by the delusive prospect of a voice in the affairs of the government, and despairing of assistance from their brethren in Africa, whose good offices they had repeatedly but vainly solicited, the Moors of the Albaycin finally consented to baptism. They required, as a condition of their compliance, permission to wear their national costume and to use the Arabic language, privileges which were subsequently made pretexts for oppression. It was also agreed that the Holy Office should not be established at Granada for the space of forty years; a provision which ecclesiastical acumen readily evaded by placing that city under the jurisdiction of the Inquisitorial tribunal of Cordova.

Still dissatisfied with the slow progress made by her ministers in bringing the obdurate Moors within the pale of Christianity, Isabella a second time ordered Ximenes to Granada. Instructed by his prior experience, he conducted himself with more discretion than before; but his proselytes, driven into the Church by hundreds, without previous instruction, remained, like their predecessors, profoundly ignorant of its doctrines and of the responsibilities imposed upon them by their enforced conversion. This time the stay of the Primate was short; his ascetic habits had impaired a constitution never extremely robust; and a pulmonary affection of a serious character, whose symptoms were aggravated by unremitting excitement and toil, speedily developed. The available resources of medical science were unable to relieve his malady, and, abandoned as hopeless by regular practitioners, in the hour of his extremity he was induced to submit to the treatment of a venerable Moorish woman, who combined with Arabic science the mysterious and uncanny ceremonies of the witch and the empiric. Under her ministrations the distinguished sufferer improved with a rapidity which, under other conditions, would have been deemed miraculous; and he was soon able to leave the scene of his labors, owing his life to the skill of a member of that race which he had relentlessly persecuted,--after a career which, however short, had made a more profound and fatal impress upon the policy of the Spanish Crown than that of any other dignitary of his time, and which was destined subsequently to exert a powerful influence upon the political fate and the future civilization of Europe.

A sequence of calamities, traceable to royal perfidy and ecclesiastical usurpation, was now about to descend upon the Spanish monarchy. The apprehensions of the inhabitants of the Serrania of Ronda had been aroused by reports of the injustice and violence visited upon their countrymen of Granada. The Moorish citizens of the ancient capital and its environs were now all nominally Christians. The persuasive methods of Talavera and the severity of Ximenes had enrolled upon the registers of the Church more than seventy thousand proselytes. Under the circumstances, the professions of a vast majority of these were necessarily insincere. It was an example of the organization of hypocrisy upon a gigantic scale, where religious principle was subordinated to material interests, and an outward observance of superstitious rites was accepted as an equivalent of earnest devotion and genuine piety. These reputed converts had not, however, by any means abandoned the faith of their forefathers. They diligently celebrated its rites in secret. Their children were early, and with secrecy, instructed in the doctrines of Islam. In defiance of royal decrees, they practised many suspicious ceremonies not recognized even by orthodox Moslems, performed incantations, wore talismans and charms. A concealed system of communication was established between them and their brethren in the provinces; and each important event that took place in the city was known within a few hours to every inhabitant of the sierras. The Moors of the Serrania of Ronda did not receive the Gospel with the same docility as their kinsmen of the Alpujarras, whose doubts had been speedily removed by the cogent argument of a hundred thousand armed men. The missionaries, who tried to carry matters with a high hand, were maltreated and driven away. The mountaineers rose; the country was swept by bands of merciless brigands; the corsairs of Africa repaired in large numbers to the scene of booty and adventure; the passes were barricaded; and the region in the vicinity of Ronda assumed the appearance of a fortified camp. Offers of amnesty, conditional on baptism, were received with scorn. An army under Don Alonso de Aguilar, the Count of Cifuentes, and the Count of Ureña then entered the mountains. The Moors, evacuating their villages, slowly retired to the Sierra Bermeja, where they made a final stand. The impetuosity and want of discipline of the Christians lured them into a disadvantageous situation, whence there was no escape. After a day of fighting, they were surrounded in the darkness and routed with frightful slaughter. Don Alonso de Aguilar, Francisco Ramirez de Madrid, chief of ordnance of the Spanish army, and many other cavaliers, were killed; and the mountain slopes were strewn with the bodies of soldiers who had been butchered as they fled. The victory of the Sierra Bermeja was the only important one gained by the insurgents in the long course of the Morisco wars. It was productive of no substantial advantage; and its only permanent effect was to exasperate the Queen, who, now regarding herself as the injured party, devoted henceforth all her energy to the oppression of a heretic race whose existence she considered a blemish upon her piety and a scandal to her dominions.

The submission of the Moors, during the gradual subjugation of the Peninsula, had left large numbers in different conditions of life scattered through the provinces of the various kingdoms. A few had early apostatized; many were held in a state of servitude; but by far the larger portion enjoyed a nominal freedom, and purchased immunity from molestation by the payment of tribute. All who complied with the laws regulating their responsibilities to the government were allowed the peaceful exercise of their religious ceremonies. The principal wealth of the Castilian nobility consisted in the industry of these their intelligent and laborious dependents. On what are now known as the dehesas and despoblados--“pastures” and “deserts”--of Castile and Estremadura, the Moorish agriculturists produced from an ungrateful soil the wheat which supplied the population of the entire Peninsula. These invaluable tributaries of the Spanish Crown had never evinced the slightest concern for the fate of their fellow-sectaries contending for liberty and religion on the distant banks of the Genil. Not only had they failed to manifest their sympathy, but the extraordinary contributions for the prosecution of the war levied upon the products of their thrift largely contributed to the successful termination of a struggle in whose result they naturally must have felt a more than passing interest. Had their feelings been sufficiently ardent to have induced active and armed co-operation, the difficulties of the Reconquest must have been vastly increased. As it was, their apathetic and selfish conduct was far from securing them immunity from persecution. The malignant bigotry of the Queen, flinging to the winds every sentiment of justice, piety, and humanity, had now usurped over her better nature an imperious and undisputed dominion; and on the twelfth of February, 1502, she published an edict ordering the banishment of all the Moors of Leon and Castile. The extraordinary lack of political discernment disclosed by such a step affords painful evidence to what dishonorable and injurious expedients a mind of more than ordinary capacity may be impelled by the fury of religious passion. These objects of her animadversion were, as a class, her most faithful, obedient, and valuable subjects. They had always observed the laws with scrupulous fidelity. Those most prejudiced against their blood and their belief had never imputed to them the crimes of sacrilege, of conspiracy, of treason. Under their patient and skilful hands, the most unpromising regions, heretofore abandoned by native ignorance and sloth as totally unproductive, now blossomed with unsurpassed fertility. Their industry filled the granaries of the kingdom; there was no other available source of supply, and with their expulsion a famine was imminent; in the future, as was subsequently demonstrated, there were none competent or willing to take their place. The slaves of her powerful vassals, serfs who represented infinite blood and treasure expended in the service of the crown, were not originally exempted from the force of this sweeping decree, and the infringement of private rights resulting from the arbitrary confiscation of this property, without excuse or recompense, promised disastrous political complications. These considerations had, however, no weight in the mind of the obstinate Isabella. The fact that in the midst of a Christian population an infidel community was suffered to exist, especially after the Moslems of Granada had declared their adherence to the Faith, was repugnant to her intolerant nature, and a standing reproach to the religion she professed. In support of her policy, she coined the atrocious maxim, worthy of the ingenious casuistry of a Jesuit, “It is better to prevent than to punish; and it is right to punish the little for the crimes of the great.” The vicarious sufferings of the Castilian Arabs were now to atone for the offences of the rebels of Granada, with whom they had nothing in common but a similar origin and an inherited creed, and in whose behalf they had never exhibited the slightest indication of countenance or sympathy. The enforcement of this measure, whose inhuman provisions subjected the unhappy objects of its severity to the treatment due outlaws and criminals, was only partially observed. At the very beginning it was seen that, if carried out to the letter, a considerable part of the kingdom would become a barren and uninhabited solitude. The decree was therefore revoked. A compromise, by which the delicate scruples of the Queen were satisfied, was effected,--baptism was substituted for exile; the scenes of indiscriminate and wholesale aspersion were repeated; a large and industrious population bartered their religious convictions for safety, and, by the force of a royal proclamation, were transformed from a self-respecting body of colonists into a nation of hypocrites.

With the death of Isabella, which occurred at this time, the Moriscoes were relieved from the persecution of a vindictive and persevering enemy. The permanent elimination of her influence from the politics of the Peninsula did not, however, improve the condition of the recent victims of her fiery and unrelenting zeal. The system by which she governed; the infamous maxims which guided her conduct in the relations existing between sovereign and subject; the shameless violation of treaties; the audacious usurpations of the clergy; the prejudices engendered by years of oppression, were perpetuated by her successors, and adopted by their ministers as an essential part of the policy of the crown. The reverence with which her memory is regarded is to be attributed, not so much to the greatness of her abilities, eminent as they were, but to their misapplication; not to the military achievements of her armies, but to the sanguinary revenge they inflicted upon vanquished enemies; not to the blessings of a wise, a just, and a stable government,--the most substantial foundation upon which the fame of a monarch can be erected,--but to the inauguration of measures which eventually purged the kingdom of misbelievers, who were the source of its material wealth and of its commercial and agricultural prosperity. A princess who could deliberately repudiate the obligations of national honor can scarcely be regarded in the light of a public benefactor. The patroness of the Inquisition has but a slender claim to the admiration of posterity. The popularity of Isabella is based upon the fact that she was the representative of contemporaneous popular sentiment. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries no proceeding was so meritorious as the torture of heretics. All questions of political expediency were rigidly subordinated to the claims of what was universally regarded as a paramount religious duty. The progressive decadence of Spanish power dates from its very establishment, and is directly traceable to the incessant intervention of ecclesiastical authority in civil affairs, and to the awful consequences resulting from the unlimited application of the atrocious principle that national faith and public honor must be always sacrificed to the interests of the Roman Catholic religion.

The different aspects under which the same things appeared, during the sixteenth century, to people of a common nationality, living under the same laws and professing the same doctrines, are remarkable. During the bitter persecutions in Castile, the Aragonese Moslems retained their privileges unimpaired. Not only that, but while the spirit of fanaticism was driving the tributaries of Isabella by thousands to simulated conversion, Ferdinand issued a decree granting to the Moors of Valencia the enjoyment of their religious and social rights in perpetuity. On the one hand, therefore, was the most radical suppression of individual thought and action; on the other, a toleration worthy of the most enlightened statesmanship, and, it must be added, little to be anticipated under the circumstances. But the sagacity of Ferdinand never willingly countenanced the employment of force in matters of religion. His jealousy of power caused him to resent the encroachments of the priesthood; and he secretly discouraged the oppression of a race which he recognized as controlling the material resources upon whose maintenance depended the preservation of his dignity and prestige.

During the twelve years that intervened between the death of Isabella and that of Ferdinand, the Moors enjoyed comparative peace and immunity; and the advent of Charles V. brought at first no unfavorable changes in their political or social conditions. That prince was scarcely seated upon the throne which he had inherited, and by whose acceptance there devolved upon him responsibilities of the greatest moment and the government of a people of whose disposition and character he was profoundly ignorant, when serious internal disturbances began to menace his authority. In Castile, the Comuneros, a conspiracy of nobles and municipalities, arose to assert their ancient privileges, impaired by foreign influence; and, at the same time, the Valencian populace banded together under the name of Germania, or Brotherhood, to repress the growing insolence of the aristocracy. The encroachments of the latter had long been a serious grievance in the kingdom of Valencia. Its members, ever since the Conquest, had maintained an insulting deportment with their inferiors, which had exasperated the latter beyond all endurance. They borrowed money of wealthy merchants and repaid them with curses and ridicule. The establishment of a regency had weakened the administration of the laws; the nobles were not slow to observe the advantages which a virtual interregnum afforded the development of private ambition; and, in the assertion of obsolete feudal privileges, every wrong which avarice or hatred could suggest was inflicted upon the citizens of a rich and defenceless community. The Moors, who were the vassals of the Valencian nobles, were not infrequently the instruments of their malevolence, and shared with their masters the general obloquy which attached to their conduct. The organization of the Germania had an important and disastrous effect upon the fortunes of the former. Their lot was cast with their lords, and the predominance temporarily acquired by the rebels through the incapacity of the Viceroy proved fatal in the end to the liberties of the vassal. The popular cry of infidel was raised by the insurgents, who numbered many ecclesiastics in their ranks, and sixteen thousand Moslems submitted to the infliction of compulsory baptism. The Emperor, who seems to have inherited with his dominions a taste for persecution, was not satisfied while a single Mohammedan remained within the jurisdiction of the Spanish Crown. With great difficulty he extorted a bull from the Pope which absolved him from the oath he had taken to observe the ancient laws and treaties of the kingdom, and expressly authorizing the reduction to slavery of every Mussulman whose scruples or obstinacy might prevent him from renouncing the belief of his fathers. Secure of Papal sanction, Charles now issued a proclamation requiring the Moors, under mysterious but unspecified penalties, to become Christians within ten days. The latter, who did not manifest the submissive spirit of their brethren, maintained a sullen demeanor, and, disposing of their personal effects for whatever they could obtain, prepared to go into exile. The publicity of their intention, however, defeated it; the authorities forbade the sale of their property as well as their departure, and nothing remained for them but apostasy or armed resistance. The former alternative was embraced by far the greater number. With such a multitude individual aspersion was impossible; the water of regeneration was sprinkled over kneeling thousands with branches of hyssop, and more than one unrepentant infidel, who had submitted with secret disgust to an obnoxious ceremony, was heard to mutter, “Praise be to Allah! Not a drop defiled me!”

The rural communities of Valencia regarded the prospect of conversion with even more disfavor than did the inhabitants of the capital. The ecclesiastical commissioners sent to enforce the royal edicts were excluded from the dwellings of the peasantry, who refused to hear their exhortations. In some localities open violence was manifested; the Baron of Cortes, who had urged submission, was killed by his retainers, and his body left to be devoured by swine. Resistance to royal authority was soon followed by organized revolt, and the Sierra de Espadan became the seat of a formidable insurrection. Including the banditti who habitually infested the mountains, and the African freebooters who hailed every disturbance as a source of plunder and profit, the army of the rebels amounted to more than four thousand well-armed men. A farmer named Selim Carbaic was elected their general, whose natural abilities and the valor of whose followers maintained for months an unequal struggle with the combined resources of the monarchy. Overcome at last, two thousand of the insurgents with their leader perished in a single battle; and a general amnesty was declared, under the sole condition by which any Moslem was now permitted to retain life or liberty. The Moors of Catalonia and Aragon were tendered the same alternative. Without hesitation they preferred hypocrisy to martyrdom; and by the year 1526 there no longer remained within the limits of the Spanish Peninsula a single individual who dared to openly acknowledge his belief in the creed of Mohammed.

This flattering result having been finally accomplished, it was now considered advisable to reform the proselytes. In nearly all localities where the Moriscoes predominated they occupied an anomalous position, so far as their spiritual welfare was concerned, for they were practically living without any religion. They neglected to conform to the ordinances or to observe the canons of the Church whose pale they had entered under compulsion. The evasion of their duties was connived at by the priests, who, so long as their parishioners were quiet and regularly paid their contributions, closed their eyes to all formal irregularities, and never troubled themselves with the instructions which it was their office to impart. This indulgence was further secured by donatives that exempted unwilling sinners from penance, whose vexatious performance might always be commuted for a pecuniary consideration. In the sight of the clergy, spiritual duties were thus entirely obscured by the more palpable advantages to be derived from worldly benefits and the maintenance of their flocks in ignorance,--a policy which at the same time confirmed their authority and increased their revenues. But the Moriscoes, while they shunned the mass, could not with safety resort to any other source of religious consolation. They were more than suspected of practising the rites of Islam in secret; but the jealousy with which they guarded the privacy of their domestic life prevented the verification of this suspicion. In the eyes of devout Christians, who did not fail to notice and reprobate their shortcomings, they were regarded as something worse than Pagans. Although they possessed all the requisites of good citizenship, and their intercourse with their neighbors was marked by every evidence of honor and probity, these qualities were ignored when their religious consistency was called in question.

The visit of Charles V. to Granada in 1526 was made the occasion for a strenuous appeal for the reform of the Moriscoes. Petitions and remonstrances without number, reinforced with all the arts of sacerdotal eloquence, were presented to the Emperor, urging that radical measures be taken to correct an evil which was seriously affecting the credit and the discipline of the Church. A commission of thirteen members, most of them high ecclesiastical dignitaries, and presided over by Don Alonso Manrique, Grand Inquisitor of Spain, was therefore appointed, and began an investigation. There was no difficulty in anticipating the decision of such a tribunal. That its decrees might be properly executed, the Holy Office was brought from Jaen and formally established in one of the palaces of the city. Ten sessions sufficed to determine a question in which were involved matters of the greatest consequence to the welfare of the kingdom, the maintenance of national honor, and the justice and integrity of the crown. Every accusation against the Moriscoes was received and considered, but they were not permitted to be heard in their own defence. The determination of the commission was published in a royal edict, which prohibited the Moriscoes the use of their family names, their dress, their language; which compelled the exposure of the faces of their women to the insulting gaze of the loungers in the streets; which required the abandonment of the peculiar ceremonies employed in the slaughter of animals for food; which sanctioned by domiciliary visits invasion of the privacy of their homes; and forbade them to ever lose sight of the Inquisitorial palace, whose officials were directed to henceforth exercise careful supervision over their conduct, and to punish with their customary rigor all infractions of religious discipline.

The terror experienced by the victims of this atrocious decree, which not only violated the conditions upon which Spanish supremacy depended, but deliberately sacrificed every consideration of justice for which national honor had solemnly pledged its faith, can hardly be imagined. But the Moriscoes, whose experience with their spiritual advisers had taught them the efficacy of certain methods in averting impending evil, had recourse to an expedient which, on a smaller scale, had repeatedly proved successful. It was no secret that the royal treasury was empty; and it was suspected that the depressed condition of the national finances was largely responsible for the proselyting zeal so unexpectedly exerted against a peaceable and inoffensive class. In consideration of a “gift” of eight thousand ducats, the execution of the obnoxious decree was suspended, during the pleasure of the Emperor, as soon as it had been signed; but this indulgence, it was expressly declared, did not affect the jurisdiction of the Holy Office. The parasites who surrounded the throne demanded and received an equal amount for an influence they claimed to possess, but which was probably never exerted. Thus a monarch, who posed as the secular representative of Roman Catholicism, consented to sacrifice the religious interests of a large body of his subjects and to compromise the imperial dignity for a sum equivalent at the present day to nine hundred thousand dollars in gold. No event in Spanish history discloses more clearly than this the true motives which instigated the prosecution of heresy, or the extraordinary wealth of those who were the objects of official cupidity and public malevolence.

The Moors of Granada, who had heretofore been almost exempt from the exactions of inquisitorial tyranny, now experienced for the first time the dire powers of the Holy Office. One of the first acts of Isabella, after the Conquest, was the foundation of innumerable monasteries. The favorite sites of these establishments were the suburban palaces of the Moslem princes, it being considered a peculiarly meritorious achievement to erect on the ruins of a splendid villa, devoted to the pleasures of a votary of Islam, an abode for holy men, who, by a pious fiction, were supposed to employ their abundant leisure in praying for the salvation of heretics. In building these structures the baths were first demolished, on account of the scandal the sight of apartments devoted to ablution and luxury caused every good Christian, as well as for the reason that their use was always considered entirely superfluous in a monastic institution. As a result of the partiality exhibited by successive princes towards the monachal orders, the city swarmed with friars of every description. Their prejudices made them the bitter enemies of the Moriscoes, while their numbers and audacity rendered them both influential and formidable. The fact that the inferior officials of the Inquisition were principally recruited from their ranks augmented the terror which their insolence and rapacity inspired, and no familiar who wore the Dominican or Franciscan garb was ever known to incline to the side of mercy. To such hands was now committed the fate of the Moors of Granada. The compact with the Emperor, by which they had been confirmed for the time in the enjoyment of their customs, was broken. Their property was confiscated. They were subjected to the diabolical tortures adopted by the direst of tribunals for the production of testimony and the confession of guilt. In the famous Plaza de la Bab-al-Rambla, the scene of many knightly encounters and of the destruction of Moslem learning by Ximenes, the condemned underwent the final penance, the sacrifice of the auto-da-fé. The annoying restraints imposed upon them by priestly intolerance were the least oppressive of the many evils the Moriscoes were condemned to endure. In the frequent controversies which arose concerning the interpretation of imperial edicts and canonical decrees, the authority of the latter always prevailed. Every official, civil, religious, or military, asserted the privilege of magistracy, and claimed the right to compound an offence or to impose a penalty. In the art of extorting money, as in the direction of all matters pertaining to civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the servants of the Church displayed an extraordinary aptitude. The regular taxes imposed upon the Moriscoes, a grievous burden in themselves, were augmented a hundred-fold by impositions unauthorized by law, and which had no other foundation than the demands of official rapacity. The sums obtained from these enforced contributions were enormous. An idea may be formed of the probable amount they yielded when it is remembered that the legitimate tax paid annually by the silk markets of Almeria, Malaga, and Granada added more than a million dollars to the royal treasury. The irregular means employed were far more profitable in their results than those countenanced by legal authority; and there were few demands, however iniquitous, which a Morisco dared refuse when confronted with the menacing power of the Inquisition.

In Valencia also the Holy Office, supported by Papal sanction and imperial duplicity, found a rich and most fruitful field for its nefarious operations. It was in this kingdom, so remarkable for its natural advantages and the industry of its people, that the Spanish proverb, “Quien tiene Moro, tiene oro,” had its origin. The relation of vassalage which the Moors of that kingdom in general sustained to the nobility was far from sufficient to protect them against the effects of secular and ecclesiastical prejudice. The unquestioned orthodoxy of the lord, his generosity to the Church, the antiquity of his family, the prestige of his name, his services to the crown, were swept aside when the question of disciplining his retainers was involved. The slightest suspicion attaching to a Moslem was enough to invite the descent of a horde of familiars and alguazils, who never failed to discover evidences of irregularity sufficient to render their examination profitable. The visitations of these functionaries were doubly offensive by reason of the unfeeling and insolent manner in which they were conducted. They left no corner of a dwelling unsearched; they destroyed property, insulted women, and without color of right or pretence of concealment appropriated such jewels and trinkets as struck their fancy. Spies of the Holy Office swarmed in the Moorish quarter, ever alert for signs of heresy. For these outrages there was no possibility of redress, and the trembling victim gladly purchased, by the confiscation of his effects, temporary security from greater misfortunes, which, if his worldly possessions were sufficient to warrant further interference, he was certain sooner or later to undergo. The intolerable nature of these persecutions impelled thousands of Moriscoes to seek by flight the only available relief from oppression. The Holy Fathers of the Inquisition were horrified by the retaliatory measures adopted by the friends of those who, for the welfare of their souls, were subjected to the salutary restraints of ecclesiastical discipline. Every time that the Moors condemned by that tribunal expiated their heresies in an auto-da-fé, information was promptly sent to Barbary, and an equal number of Christian captives perished by fire.

The African corsairs, under the command of the relentless Barbarossa, at that time held the empire of the Mediterranean, and by their aid multitudes of Moriscoes succeeded in escaping to Morocco. In vain the nobles protested against a policy which depreciated the value of their estates, depopulated their villages, and daily deprived them of laborers whose services could not be dispensed with and whose loss could not be replaced; both royal power and popular sentiment sanctioned the course of the Church, and the material prosperity of a single province was not worthy of consideration when weighed with the perishing souls of thousands of suspected heretics. Pecuniary arguments were then employed, and after several years of negotiation the operations of the Holy Office were suspended upon the payment of a yearly donative of twenty-five hundred ducats. Once more free from the perils of Inquisitorial visitation and punishment, the Moriscoes at once relapsed into their former religious indifference; the clergy viewed with unconcern the unmistakable evidences of apostasy among their parishioners; the nobles welcomed with undisguised satisfaction the relief of their vassals, the increase of their revenues, and the indications of returning prosperity; while the inquisitors, whose treasury had been filled to overflowing with the gold wrung by fines and confiscations from the wealthiest subjects of the kingdom, sought in other quarters new material for the stake and the dungeon, to be condemned to present torture and eternal infamy in the name of an All-Merciful God.

The abdication of Charles V. brought a grateful respite to the harassed and suffering Moors. The mighty interests of an empire which extended over two worlds engrossed the attention of Philip II., and he had, at first, no time to devote to the persecution of a handful of alleged heretics lost in a corner of his vast dominions. The Roman Pontiff, who, perhaps influenced by motives of humanity, but certainly not absolutely free from political bias or resentment for the outrage inflicted by the Emperor upon the Holy See, had always discountenanced his oppression of the Moriscoes, now heartily co-operated with Philip in alleviating the misery of their condition. A brief issued from the Vatican in 1556 empowered confessors to absolve from the offence of heresy without penance, and deprived the Inquisition of the greater part of its jurisdiction and authority. The nature of the young King had not yet been corrupted by absolute power; nor were his actions now controlled by that morose and pitiless spirit subsequently developed by remorse, disease, and bigotry, which, added to the hereditary taint of insanity which afflicted his family, rendered him, during the greater portion of his life, one of the most unfeeling monsters that has ever disgraced a throne.

The beneficial effects of leniency upon the Moriscoes, as contrasted with the employment of violent measures, were soon disclosed. They conformed, with seeming alacrity, to the often vexatious regulations imposed upon their conduct. They wore the Spanish costume; they adopted, in all public transactions at least, the use of the Castilian language. Colleges were founded for their instruction by devout and enterprising prelates. Their children, male and female, were educated in the schools, and assumed the ecclesiastical habit of the various monastic orders within whose jurisdiction they were enrolled. From Morisco seminaries missionaries went forth to instruct and reconcile their doubting countrymen. In imitation of their patrons, they founded and supported religious brotherhoods. Their professions were apparently sincere; they began to perform their duties with scrupulous regularity; and it seemed as if at last the hitherto delusive hope of Moslem conversion was about to be realized. But the spirit of ferocious intolerance, ever predominant in the Spanish character, and which in the sixteenth century amounted to a frenzy, regarded with anything but complacency the indulgent consideration extended towards the unhappy objects of hereditary aversion. With this sentiment generally prevalent, fresh pretexts for encroachment were easily invented. In 1560 the assistance of the government was invoked by the Christians of Granada to restrain the purchase of slaves by the Moriscoes, who, it was stated, were in the habit of instructing their servants secretly in the doctrines of Islam and thereby multiplying the number of its adherents, to the scandal of the Church and the prejudice of the royal authority. No attempt was made to ascertain the truth or falsity of this accusation, and the Moriscoes were deprived, by royal decree, of the right of possessing slaves, a measure seriously affecting the rural and domestic economy of the entire population of Granada, which was dependent upon the cultivation of the soil by a multitude of negroes held by the Moorish farmers in servitude.

In addition to this virtual confiscation of property for no valid cause and without indemnity, the Moors were compelled to produce the arms whose possession had already been licensed, in order to have them stamped by the government, and thus contribute still further to the gratification of official greed. The penalty incurred for the possession of a weapon without permission was six years in the galleys; that for counterfeiting the royal stamp was death. The enforcement of these regulations, the first of which threatened to paralyze agricultural labor, the principal occupation of the Moriscoes and the main dependence of the revenues of the crown, exasperated beyond endurance those affected by their enactment. The loss of their slaves impoverished many. Some surrendered their arms and procured others clandestinely. Others enlisted in the organized bands of outlaws who, under the name of monfis, roamed through the sierras and levied at will contributions upon the wealthy Spaniards of the Vega. Many of these brigands, through the connivance of their sympathizers, entered the capital by night in force, bore away the wives and children of their enemies, and left in the squares and highways the mutilated corpse of every Christian they encountered. The numbers of the monfis increased with alarming rapidity. Their incursions began to resemble the operations of an organized army; preparations for an insurrection were secretly instituted, and the assistance of the rulers of Fez, Algiers, and Constantinople was earnestly solicited in behalf of those who represented themselves as persecuted Mohammedans, abandoned without any other resource to the tyranny of Christian avarice and power.

Untaught by experience and regardless of consequences, the officials of the various civil and ecclesiastical tribunals pursued their extortionate policy without pity or restraint. The competition existing between them, and the adverse claims involving contested jurisdiction and disputed plunder which constantly arose, often caused serious conflicts of authority, from which the representatives of the Church and the Inquisition generally emerged victorious. These quarrels between these two classes of oppressors embittered them both against their common victims, and dissension increased instead of alleviating the sufferings of the latter. To make their situation even more desperate, the decree of Charles V., promulgated in 1526, was now put in force by the King. The Moriscoes, unable longer to sustain the grievous exactions which they well understood were but preliminaries to the expulsion of their race, now rapidly matured their plans of rebellion. In the accomplishment of this they displayed extraordinary tact and shrewdness. A considerable estate had been granted to them in the neighborhood of Granada for the erection of a hospital. Under pretence of soliciting funds for its completion, trusty emissaries of revolt were despatched to every Moorish community of the kingdom. The collectors employed in this dangerous service visited in their journey one hundred and ten thousand families. The incorruptible faith of the Moors and their loyalty to their race were unprecedented; for among the multitudes intrusted with a secret for which a traitor would have received a fortune not a single individual abused the confidence of his countrymen. The entire sum obtained by this means is not known; it must, however, have been amply sufficient, for the contributions of those who were fit for military service alone amounted to forty-five thousand pieces of gold.

Messengers were next despatched to Africa to purchase arms. Secret and well-organized communication was perfected. The election of a leader now became imperative. In the old Moorish capital there lived a young man of amiable disposition and excellent mental capacity, but of prodigal and licentious habits, named Don Fernando de Valor, in whose veins coursed the blood of the famous Ommeyade dynasty of Cordova. A prince by birth, and enjoying the greatest popularity as a citizen, his prominence in the community had secured for him a place among the councillors who, under the constitution granted by the crown, assisted in the nominal government of the city. Although his dissolute manners and frivolous associations exempted him from the suspicion of the authorities, and his public observance of religious ceremonies stamped him as an orthodox believer, he had not forgotten the glorious traditions of his royal line, and in spite of his apparent sloth was active, brave, aspiring, and unscrupulous. In the house of a wealthy resident of the Albaycin, and within a stone’s throw of the inquisitorial palace, the chiefs of the conspiracy conferred upon this youth the perilous honor of leading a hopeless insurrection. With all the ceremonial of the ancient khalifate, he was invested with the royal insignia; his new subjects rendered him obeisance; he named the dignitaries of his court, and the assemblage invoked the blessing of heaven upon the Servant of Allah and the Representative of the Prophet, Muley Mohammed-Ibn-Ommeyah, King of Granada and Andalusia! The performance of this farcical ceremony neither inspired confidence nor awakened enthusiasm among the Moriscoes of the city. The character of the personage selected to re-establish the glories of Moslem dominion was too well known in Granada to arouse any other sentiments than those of ridicule and contempt. Intolerable as their condition was, the wealthy Moors hesitated to hazard their lives and property in support of a cause in whose success they had little faith; and the populace, while ever prone to riot, waited patiently for the signal from their superiors. For this reason, although several uprisings were projected, and even the hours of their accomplishment appointed, popular indecision and apathy rendered all designs abortive.

In the Alpujarras, where everything was already upon a hostile footing, the case was different, and the wild mountaineers hailed with enthusiasm the advent of a sovereign and the welcome prospect of war and depredation. The tempest of rebellion burst forth at once in every settlement of the sierras. The excesses committed by the insurgents are incredible in their atrocity and worthy of a race of savages. Their animosity was especially directed against the priests, whom they considered as the instigators and the instruments of their misfortunes. Some had their mouths stuffed with gunpowder and their heads blown to atoms. Others were compelled to sit before the altar while their former parishioners tore out the hairs of their heads and eyebrows one by one and then slashed them to death with knives and razors. Others, still, were subjected to ingenious tortures and barbarous mutilation; compelled to swallow their own eyes, which had been torn from the sockets; to be gradually dismembered; to have their tongues and hearts cut out and thrown to dogs. Hundreds of monks were seethed in boiling oil. Nuns were subjected to shocking indignities and then tortured to death. The glaring hypocrisy in which the Moriscoes had been living was disclosed by their conduct as soon as they believed themselves emancipated from the restraints under which they had chafed so long. They exulted in every form of sacrilege. Dressed in sacerdotal habiliments, they travestied the solemn ceremonies of the mass. They defiled and trampled upon the Host. The churches were filled with laughing, jeering crowds that polluted every portion of the sanctuary. Sacred images, donated by pious monarchs and blessed by famous prelates, were broken to pieces and burnt. Ecclesiastical hatred had, as an indispensable sign of regeneration, forced all Moslem converts to eat pork, a kind of food doubly offensive from inherited prejudice and Koranic prohibition. In retaliation for this annoying requirement, the insurgents, with mock solemnity, and invested with all the paraphernalia of Catholic worship, sacrificed hogs upon the Christian altars. Every form of violence, every outrage which newly-found freedom exasperated by the memory of long-continued injury could devise, was perpetrated by the enraged Moriscoes. So unbridled was their fury that even the common usages of war were constantly violated; prisoners taken in battle were put to death without mercy, and it was publicly declared that not a Christian should be left alive within the insurgent territory. This resolution, promulgated without his knowledge, was discountenanced by Ibn-Ommeyah, and he deposed the commanders who had by their arbitrary conduct and impolitic cruelty insulted the honor of his crown, but not until irreparable wrong had been committed.

The news of the insurrection, the exaggeration of its extent, and the horrors which followed in its train produced a general panic in Granada. All Christians who could do so took refuge in the Alhambra. The Moriscoes, in vain protesting their innocence, barricaded themselves in their houses, and such as imprudently ventured into the streets perished at the hands of the infuriated mob. The contest of jurisdiction which had so long existed between the civil and military authorities, each of whom claimed the supremacy, and neither of whom was willing to sacrifice his pretensions, even in the face of a cunning and dangerous enemy, added to the perplexities of the situation. Thoroughly acquainted with the discord of their masters, the Moriscoes, already elated by the exploits of their countrymen, of which they had early and accurate intelligence, began to manifest a suspicious activity. The prospect of war called to arms the turbulent and dissolute spirits of the kingdom. The feudal laws, which were still in force in the Peninsula, prevented, through the disputes of the nobles for precedence, that submission to authority requisite for successful operations. With these independent bands there was no question of patriotism; the national standard was merely a rallying point for pillage, and that commander was the most popular whose neglect of discipline afforded the greatest opportunities for unbounded license. These troops were commanded by the Marquis de Mondejar, Governor of Granada, and the Marquis de los Velez, both of whom were indebted rather to their names than to their qualifications for the prominence they enjoyed, for the one was without discretion and the other without experience.

In the campaign that ensued every consideration of military virtue, of pity, of humanity, was cast aside. The Christians fought with an energy dictated by fanaticism and rapacity, the Moors with all the reckless courage of despair. The Castilian officers, so far from restraining the excesses of the soldiery, encouraged them in order to increase their ferocity and render reconciliation impossible till all the available booty could be secured. The Moors of Granada paid dearly for the apathy with which they had received the overtures of their more daring countrymen. The lawless rabble of the Spanish camp, which recognized no restraint but that of superior force, was quartered upon the wealthy citizens of the Albaycin. It is notorious that even the plain-spoken old chroniclers of the time blushed to record the outrages inflicted by these savage volunteers, callous to every appeal of decency or honor. An extraordinary tax of six thousand ducats was imposed upon the Albaycin for the purpose of provisioning the army; and the Moorish farmers of the Vega were compelled under heavy penalties to furnish every day twenty thousand pounds of bread at a price arbitrarily fixed by the authorities. Thus the unhappy Moriscoes of the capital, too timorous to second an attempt to regain their independence, were forced to contribute to the discomfiture of their friends, to undergo unspeakable insults and frightful suffering, and in the end to sacrifice their property and in many instances their lives as the result of their distrust of a cause which lack of intelligent co-operation rendered hopeless from the very beginning. The activity of the Spanish generals, and the superiority in numbers of their troops, soon gained for them the advantage. The campaign resolved itself into a succession of skirmishes and marauding expeditions, whose monotony was occasionally relieved by promiscuous butchery. In consequence of a disturbance provoked by the insolent conduct of a Spanish soldier, thirteen hundred prisoners, of whom a thousand were women, were massacred at the Castle of Jubiles. The plans of the royal commanders were hampered by the insubordination of the soldiery; their insatiable greed placed the army in desperate situations, whence by good fortune alone it could be extricated, and the frequency of desertion seriously threatened the efficiency of a force unrestrained either by self-respect or military law. Driven from point to point, the army of Ibn-Ommeyah was finally beaten and dispersed. The Alpujarras were occupied by lines of fortified posts, which prevented the assembling of any considerable body of insurgents; the mountaineers of the adjacent sierras were gradually reduced to submission, and the insurrection was at last only represented by the fugitive prince and a handful of followers, whose fidelity was sorely tried by the tempting reward offered for the head of their sovereign.

The Moriscoes, terrified by the misfortunes which they had undergone, offered, for the sake of present security, to submit to any conditions that might be imposed,--to deportation, to exile, to confiscation, to the maintenance of the troops that might be detailed as their guards against future hostility. Different and irreconcilable opinions prevailed among the officials of the crown as to the policy to be adopted; one party advocated amnesty, another extermination. In the mean time, while their superiors were wrangling, the soldiers pursued without interruption the agreeable diversion of rapine. Although hostilities had ceased, small bands of military brigands roamed everywhere without control, robbing houses, destroying property, ravishing women. Inoffensive peasants, who had never borne arms, were seized, carried to Granada, and publicly sold as slaves in the markets of the city by these outlaws, with the knowledge and connivance of the authorities. The latter quarrelled over the division of the spoil and the questionable distinction acquired by conflagration and massacre. No faith was kept with the vanquished. Safe-conducts signed by the highest officials were not respected. No Morisco was exempt from molestation and violence; no house was secure from the intrusion of prowling and bloodthirsty ruffians. When a body of Christian troops passed through a Moorish community everything portable departed with it, the rest was burned. There was deliberate method in this wholesale destruction of property. The army desired nothing so little as peace. War had been profitable even beyond expectation. The booty already secured was immense, but the greater portion had as yet escaped the avarice of the conqueror. The general and the common soldier alike cast longing glances upon the wealth of the Albaycin; upon the productive estates of the Vega, still cultivated by Moorish industry; upon the untold wealth in gold and jewels known to be hoarded by the residents of Guadix, Baza, and Almeria. Leaving all else out of consideration, the Moriscoes themselves, who numbered more than half a million, if condemned to slavery, would realize a prodigious sum. These were the sinister motives which urged an indefinite prosecution of the war, and it was not long before the desired object was attained. The Moriscoes, driven to despair by the duplicity of their enemies whose violence they could not resist, again fled to the mountains and sought the standard of Ibn-Ommeyah. The Spanish mob of Granada, excited by rumors of conspiracy, at once massacred the defenceless Moorish occupants of the prisons to the number of several hundred. Their personal effects were appropriated by the governor; their lands were confiscated for the benefit of the crown; and their widows and orphans were reduced to beggary. A judgment of the court subsequently obtained confirmed this arbitrary act, stating that its decision was based upon the fact that, “while some of the prisoners were actually guilty, all were guilty in intention.” The affair was regarded as a suggestive warning, and in the future the insurgents did not receive or expect assistance from their friends in Granada.

Once more the flames of war were kindled in the sierras, and the scenes of indiscriminate butchery were resumed. The power of Ibn-Ommeyah, strengthened by thousands of desperate men fleeing from persecution, by the monfis, by the corsairs, and by numbers of savage adventurers from the northern coast of Africa, now became more formidable than ever. That power he exercised with ferocious severity. The discipline of his troops was improved. Marauding parties of Christians from the principal cities were surprised and cut to pieces. Prominent officials who had ventured to advocate surrender were promptly executed for treason. The discouraging and hitherto hopeless task of enlisting the sympathy and aid of the Mohammedan princes of Fez and Algiers was resumed, but with no better prospect of success than before.

Philip, fully informed of the incapacity and mutual distrust of those hitherto charged with the government of Granada, now determined to commit the subjection of the rebels to a general whose rank and talents would command the obedience and check the insubordination of the ill-disciplined bands composing the bulk of the Spanish army. Don John of Austria, his half-brother, the natural son of Charles V., a youth whose opportunities had as yet given little indication of the military genius he possessed, but in whom discerning eyes had already perceived the existence of those brilliant qualities subsequently displayed with such lustre at Lepanto, was assigned to the command.

The greatest enthusiasm was aroused by this appointment. Nobles and peasants alike, ambitious of serving under a prince of the blood, flocked by hundreds to the royal standard. The new commander, although inexperienced, perfected his arrangements with all the caution and skill of a veteran. The army was thoroughly reorganized. Disorder was checked. Outlaws and beggars were expelled from the camp. As far as the annoying feudal regulations would permit, discipline was enforced. Licensed brigandage, which had done so much to destroy the efficiency of the troops, was punished with impartial rigor. Under these improved conditions the army, which had hitherto resembled a disorderly mob, now assumed the appearance of a compact and formidable force. Meanwhile, the insurgents had not been idle. Instructed by experience and adversity, Ibn-Ommeyah introduced many necessary reforms into his civil and military administration; purchased arms in Africa; invited the presence of corsairs; procured supplies; and, dividing his territory into districts whose arrangement facilitated mutual support and defence, awaited with resolution and confidence the approach of the enemy. The first operations of the campaign were favorable to the Moriscoes, whose successes, while neither material nor decisive, nevertheless resulted in substantial additions to their ranks. Although able to bring several thousand men into the field, their want of artillery, ignorance of engineering science, and traditional dependence on partisan warfare made their victories worthless. The latter were obtained in skirmishes where but a few hundreds were engaged, the nature of the ground and the opportunities for surprise giving unperceived assailants the advantage.

Irritated by these reverses, a decisive step, long contemplated, and frequently from politic motives postponed, was now resolved upon by the government. The rumor of impending revolt was diligently circulated throughout Granada. As no evidence was subsequently disclosed to confirm this report, it was probably entirely fictitious, but it accomplished the object for which it was promulgated. A panic seized the excitable populace, and a universal demand arose for the expulsion of the Moriscoes. The authorities were quick to profit by the commotion and the fears which their own perfidy aroused; and, at a concerted signal, twenty thousand arquebusiers, with lighted fuses, occupied the approaches to the Albaycin. The Moriscoes, when ordered to assemble in their churches, anticipating a massacre, abandoned themselves to despair. It required all the influence of the municipal authorities, and the royal word of Don John of Austria himself that their lives would be spared, to reassure the terror-stricken prisoners. Crowded together in the aisles, they passed an agonizing and sleepless night. The next morning the males between the ages of ten and sixty years, with their hands bound behind them, were conducted outside the walls, where a decree of perpetual banishment was pronounced against them and their kindred. A few days of grace were accorded to these unfortunates to dispose of, or rather to sacrifice, their personal property; and then, divided into several companies, each escorted by a strong guard, they began their journey towards central Andalusia, Estremadura, and Castile, whither, for purposes of security, it had been decided to conduct them.

The exiles were about eleven thousand in number. They included the descendants of the wealthiest and noblest Moorish families of Granada, and, indeed, of the entire Peninsula. Many of them traced their ancestry back to the princely families of the khalifate, eminent alike for intellectual accomplishments and military renown. In their keeping were the ancient traditions of their race; the rare memorials of the Moslem conquest and domination; the remnants of Arabic literature which had escaped the destructive zeal of Ximenes and the exhaustive search of prying alguazils and inquisitors. Their houses still displayed the splendid decorations peculiar to the palmy days of the emirate; marble halls and alabaster fountains; hangings of embossed and gilded leather; stuccoes that in elegance of design and delicacy of execution equalled those of the Alhambra. In the Vega were many estates, cultivated by their dependents, which returned each year a large and profitable income. All of these landed possessions were unceremoniously appropriated by the Spaniards, and the personal effects sold by the exiles yielded scarcely a tithe of their value. Driven by force from their homes, and despoiled on every side, the Moriscoes pursued their sorrowful way. Reared in comfort and affluence and accustomed to luxury, they were ill-fitted for a long and toilsome journey. Few of the multitude that started arrived at their destination. The hardships incident to travel and exposure to the burning heat proved fatal to hundreds. Many expired from grief, from hunger, from disease. Others were wantonly killed by their guards, who plundered, without hesitancy or compunction, both the living and the dead. When this source of profit was exhausted, the strongest men and the most attractive women were sold as slaves. The condition of the few survivors who arrived at Seville was so deplorable that even the compassion of ecclesiastics, whose lives had been passed in the infliction of persecution and torture, was excited. The greater portion of the inhabitants, however, regarded these victims of tyranny with indifference or curiosity. The sufferings of tender youth, of decrepit age, of beauty in distress, awakened no sympathy; and if any feelings were exhibited by the throngs that lined the highways along which, under a scorching sun, the fainting exiles staggered, they were those of bitter enmity and of exultation at the misfortunes of heretics who had forfeited all title to humanity through the inherited blood of a despised and conquered race.

No beneficial consequences resulted from this measure, as cruel as it was unwise. The insurgents continued their depredations. Every straggler was killed; and no foraging party whose force was less than that of a regiment could hope to return. The Moriscoes by degrees became more daring, and it was no longer safe for individuals to venture beyond the limits of the camp. The encounters were all to the advantage of the rebels; and the great city of Almeria, by the merest accident, escaped falling into their hands. The latter, however, were not only unable to cope with the entire power of the Spanish monarchy, but were even unprovided with the means necessary for the retention of their paltry conquests. Even in a situation where unity was more than ever indispensable to self-preservation, the irrepressible tendency of the Arab mind to factional disturbance began to manifest itself. Nine centuries of national disaster had been insufficient to repress the tribal hatred and the thirst for private vengeance which had sapped the vitality and finally torn into fragments the realm of a vast and splendid empire. The Moor was incapable of profiting by experience. The law of reprisal, that accursed legacy of his Bedouin forefathers, had never been lost sight of, even amidst all the culture and all the wisdom of his civilization. It was the most powerful and effective weapon that his enemies possessed, and it was eternally used to his prejudice. To its aid the Reconquest was far more indebted than to the energy of Alfonso VI. or to the craft of Ferdinand the Catholic. It won more battles than all the conquering sovereigns from Pelayus to Isabella. No Castilian prince had ever failed to recognize its importance or to profit by its employment. And now, in the remote Alpujarras, the last resort of Moorish valor and ambition, it was again to be wielded with even more fatal and demoralizing effects than had ever marked its use since the troublous epoch which followed the decline of the Ommeyade supremacy.

The popularity of Ibn-Ommeyah had of late greatly suffered through the strictness of the discipline which he had inaugurated and the oppressive acts of his advisers, for the most part men of obscure lineage and grasping avarice. The soldiers, accustomed to the exercise of the greatest freedom in their conduct and in their treatment of the enemy, viewed with unconcealed disgust the restraints to which they were subjected. In the councillors of their king, the rich Moriscoes, who had forfeited their lives and expended their treasure in sustaining his pretensions, saw a band of robbers, who abused the opportunities of their positions for their own pecuniary benefit. Especially were those whose wealth made them conspicuous the objects of the selfish animadversion of these base-born officials. No person of eminence, whether civilian or military officer, was safe from the denunciation of informers. The experience of Ibn-Ommeyah, and his frequent escapes from premeditated treachery, had made him impulsive, vindictive, and cruel. Constantly exposed to danger, he was only too ready to listen to the voice of suspicion, and in the court of a despot the punishment follows swiftly upon the accusation. Besides the alienation of many of his principal adherents from the above-mentioned causes, Ibn-Ommeyah had recently gained for himself, by an egregious act of folly, the enmity of one of the most powerful tribes in the kingdom.

Among the most distinguished families of Granada was that of the Beni-Alguazil-al-Karimi, in which was vested, by hereditary right, the office of vizier of the district of Ujijar. Inherited rivalry, the pride of conscious merit, and the jealousy of power had made the Beni-Alguazil the enemies of the house of Ibn-Ommeyah. Their hostility, manifested upon more than one occasion, had aroused the apprehensions of the Moorish prince; and the assassination of Miguel de Rojas, the chief of the tribe, was, not without probability, attributed to his instigation. In consequence, the Beni-Alguazil, while unwilling to assist the Christian foe, maintained a suspicious and sullen demeanor, and, with the characteristic vindictiveness of the Arab, awaited patiently the moment of reprisal. With a perfidy natural to his character, and from the effects of which he was ultimately destined to perish, Ibn-Ommeyah had adopted the custom of promoting to favor and apparent confidence those whom he had already marked for destruction. Among those who shared this perilous honor was Diego Alguazil, a member of the rival clan, whose animosity had been soothed by the gifts and the consideration he received at the hands of his sovereign. In his harem was a lovely slave, the perfection of whose charms, imprudently disclosed by her master, aroused the curiosity and inflamed the desires of Ibn-Ommeyah. Considerations of policy or justice were of trifling moment where the ungovernable passions of the Moorish king were concerned; the slave was rudely appropriated without apology or compensation; and this arbitrary invasion of the rights of a subject raised up for Ibn-Ommeyah an implacable enemy. The ambition of the beautiful Zahrâ, who aspired to the position of Sultana, was disappointed by her continuance in an inferior rank, and, her hopes thus blasted, she found in her former master a pliant and serviceable instrument of revenge. The support of other malcontents, dissatisfied with the cruelty and arrogance of their king, was readily secured; the fears of the royal guard of six hundred Turks were excited by an ingenious, but discreditable, stratagem; and Ibn-Ommeyah, torn from the arms of his women and thrown into prison, perished miserably before morning at the hands of the executioner. His death seemed not entirely unjustifiable, for he proclaimed with his last breath his secret and unshaken belief in the Christian religion. The hypocrisy, which, for the sake of luxury and power, could feign attachment to a creed that upon the slightest pretext it was ready to betray, was not unworthily punished by the treachery of a slave. Ibn-Abu, a cousin of Ibn-Ommeyah, succeeded to the empty honors and dangerous responsibilities of a tottering throne. The treasures of the palace and the seraglio were divided among the conspirators. The guards, whose fidelity to the new administration was suspected, were disbanded; the unpopular officials, deprived of the power which they had abused and the wealth which they had accumulated by extortion and perfidy, were despoiled and exiled; and the new King, crowned at Lanjar with all the pomp which the limited resources that a fugitive court and an impoverished treasury could command, assumed, with an appearance of confidence, the direction of a government divided against itself and confronted with the combined and resistless power of the Spanish monarchy.

Ibn-Abu, when invested with the royal dignity, of whose precarious character he was perfectly aware, but whose acceptance he was afraid to refuse, was far past the prime of life. In the course of an eventful and romantic career, he had undergone many exciting and hazardous experiences. From his youth identified with the party hostile to the Christians, his fidelity to the Moslem cause had been severely tested on numerous occasions. Implicated with the monfis, he had submitted to torture and had been sent to the galleys rather than betray his comrades. Again, for refusing to disclose the hiding-place of his sovereign, he was subjected to a shocking and indescribable mutilation. His sufferings had confirmed his loyalty and intensified his hatred; the noble qualities with which he was endowed endeared him to his countrymen; but his indecision, his lack of energy, and his inability to profit by the means at his disposal in the presence of any sudden exigency unfitted him for the position of responsibility to which he had been so unexpectedly promoted. In spite of the disadvantages under which he labored, he, however, soon placed his forces upon a more effective footing, and his position was greatly strengthened by the discord of his enemies.

The reforms inaugurated by Don John of Austria proved impracticable when their full import became known to the soldiers and they began to experience the inconveniences attendant upon military restraint. Feudal customs also interfered with the enforcement of discipline; and the lords, fearful of a retrenchment of their own privileges, indulged their vassals in acts of rapine prejudicial to the well-being of the entire army. The quarrels and recriminations of the Marquis de Mondejar and the Marquis de los Velez, so far from being extinguished by the appointment of a commander-in-chief, became more aggravated and violent than ever. The power of the latter was hampered by contradictory orders from Madrid, and the prosecution of energetic measures was prevented by incessant and acrimonious disputes. As soon as the prospect of booty was diminished, the army was threatened with dissolution. Desertions were so common and their effect was so demoralizing that all reviews were abandoned, in order that the enemy might not become acquainted with the diminished numbers of their antagonists. Scores of officers were cashiered for peculation; but their successors, unintimidated by the penalty, followed, without hesitation, their disgraceful example. In the markets of the city, the government supplies were publicly exposed for sale by the commissaries. The camp was filled with spies. Not only had many Moriscoes enlisted with the object of betraying their comrades, but the Spaniards themselves constantly sold both official secrets and arms to the rebels. Entire garrisons mutinied because of the necessary precautions instituted by their commanders; and it was not unusual for parties organized for robbery to leave their posts in violation of the express orders of the general. Of these marauders few returned, but their fate failed to deter others; the love of plunder prevailed over every other incentive; and the safety of the troops was often jeopardized by the misconduct of unprincipled adventurers, whose insolence and insubordination even the highest authority seemed unable to restrain. These breaches of order and discipline were by no means confined to the ranks; every grade of the military was affected; and no less a personage than the Marquis de los Velez himself assumed the right to act independently of the commander-in-chief, and to disregard all orders from head-quarters unless they suited his convenience or promoted his interest.

The army of Ibn-Abu amounted to twelve thousand men, of whom four thousand were thoroughly drilled arquebusiers. This force, though for the most part well equipped, experienced in war, aided by the advantages of situation, and fighting for liberty on its own ground, was unable to accomplish any important result, even when engaged with a demoralized enemy. The achievements of the Moriscoes, limited to the blockade of a few fortresses and to marauding expeditions that harassed the cultivators of the Vega, are scarcely worthy of notice, still less of detailed narration. In the vicinity of Orgiba and Baza their troops appeared in force, but retired at once at the approach of the Christians. It was only by the practice of treacherous methods that the Moorish tactics ever prevailed. The want of stability and resolution which had proved fatal to the permanence of the Hispano-Arab empire survived in the final operations of the Morisco rebellion. The superior steadiness of the Spanish infantry invariably carried the day, even against overwhelming odds. The Moors were easily disheartened; after a trifling repulse it was impossible to rally them; and, even when protected by fortifications, they could not withstand the dogged pertinacity which was a prominent trait of the Castilian.

With the appearance of Don John of Austria in the field, hostilities were prosecuted with more rigor and with greater cruelty. The unimportant but bloody successes of the Moors had infused into the Spanish soldiery an even more pitiless spirit than before. The Austrian prince, at first disposed to leniency, soon became, through association and prejudice, as unfeeling as the meanest soldier in the ranks. The siege and assault of Galera, which was the turning-point of the war, exemplified, in a striking degree, the dominant principle which actuated the minds of those who directed the campaign. That town, situated upon an isolated rock, was one of the most strongly fortified places in Spain. In addition to its position, its facilities for defence were excellent. Its garrison was composed of three thousand veterans. Its supplies were ample, and the prudence of Ibn-Abu, who fully appreciated its value, had long before filled to overflowing its magazine and its arsenal. Two falconets, one of which had been captured from the Marquis de los Velez, defended the castle, an unusual advantage, for the Moriscoes were generally unprovided even with such insignificant artillery. A concealed gallery cut through the mountain, and extending below the bed of the river at its base, provided the inhabitants with water, whose existence, unknown to the enemy, made its destruction impossible. In addition to the garrison, the walls of Galera sheltered a population of five thousand, including residents and refugees.

Every precaution that skill and experience could suggest had been adopted to strengthen the defences of a place regarded as already impregnable. Barricades were erected at frequent intervals in the streets, and between them the houses were pierced with openings, to facilitate communication and afford means of retreat. The town, built in terraces upon the sloping rock, offered an ascending series of lines of resistance. Those ordinarily considered as non-combatants were animated by a spirit of determination equal, if not superior, to that of the garrison, and their presence promised to be an important aid rather than a drawback in the impending contest.

Twelve thousand men, commanded by Don John of Austria in person, invested Galera on the eighteenth day of January, 1570. The approaches to the town were defended with stubborn resolution. When forced behind the walls, it became evident that the position of the Moriscoes was so strong that ordinary methods of assault must prove useless. Mining was therefore resorted to; and a passage, terminating under the citadel, was cut with infinite trouble through the solid rock. As soon as it was completed, a storming party was detailed for the attack, and the explosion of forty-five barrels of gunpowder announced that the mine had been sprung. Little damage was done to the castle, however; the walls remained intact; and the Spaniards were driven back with heavy loss. Two other mines were opened and exploded, and three assaults were made simultaneously. One explosion effected some injury, but the ruins raised by the other counteracted it; the loss of the insurgents was trifling; and again the Spaniards sustained a bloody and serious repulse.

Another charge, in which the besiegers--infuriated by the fall of their general, who was struck by a bullet which his armor of proof fortunately deflected--succeeded in passing the ramparts, procured for them admission into the streets. Here they were met by scarcely less formidable obstacles, and their advance was, foot by foot, contested. Amidst these frightful scenes, the people of Galera vied in gallantry with the soldiers of the garrison. Old men fought bravely in the foremost line for the preservation of their homes. The wounded and dying received the grateful ministrations of delicate women, who fearlessly exposed themselves to fire in the discharge of the offices of mercy. Even children of tender years, undismayed by the smoke and din of battle, carried missiles to repel the enemy. The contest soon assumed the character of a hand-to-hand encounter. The barricaded streets, the battlemented houses--built of stone and with few openings--checked at each step the progress of the assailants. For nine hours with incessant fury the battle raged. At length the survivors were driven into an angle of the fortifications from whence there was no escape. Here, in the face of a relentless foe, the Moriscoes made their final stand, without the hope of clemency or the fear of death. Young girls died, scimetar in hand, with a resolution foreign to their age and sex. Fathers deliberately killed their wives and children, and then rushed forward to perish on the weapons of the Spaniards. Even the veterans of Italy, accustomed to the atrocities characteristic of the wars of the sixteenth century, were sickened by the frightful carnage. The population was almost annihilated. Of eight thousand persons who had composed it, fifteen hundred women and children alone survived the final assault, which, not inclusive of the losses of the besiegers, cost thirty-six hundred lives. The avarice of the victors had spared four hundred helpless captives, whom Don John of Austria, enraged at the casualties which his army had suffered, caused to be butchered in his presence. In this diabolical massacre the halberdiers of the royal guard took a conspicuous part, encouraged by the approving gestures of their commander, who regarded with pious complacency the extermination of these rebellious infidels.

The siege of Galera is memorable, not only on account of the gallantry of the defence, but also from the fact that it indicates the true beginning of the military career of the future hero of Lepanto. While in reality reflecting but little credit upon the reputation of that prince, the popularity he acquired by the achievement discloses the moral perversity of the public mind in that fanatical age. Not a word was uttered in censure of the savage vindictiveness directed against the aged and the helpless, a class whose condition appeals to the most generous impulses of mankind, but whose fate was universally applauded by bigots of every degree, as one step more towards the extirpation of heresy. A spirit of inherent deviltry seemed to distinguish for centuries the princes of the monarchy established by Ferdinand and Isabella. The progressive decadence of that monarchy from the day of its foundation--imperceptible at first, and concealing the incurable defects of the Castilian polity by the spurious glory of unprofitable wars and ruinous triumphs, and the genuine splendors of unparalleled discoveries, whose proceeds were employed for the oppression and debasement of countless millions of human beings--is one of the most significant and instructive events in the history of mankind.

The capture of Galera was a dearly purchased victory. The character of the resistance offered by its defenders did not afford a flattering prospect for the success of similar enterprises in the future. Many important strongholds, as difficult of approach, of equal strength, and of larger population, were still in the hands of the insurgents. The fate of the place, while a warning, served rather to confirm the obstinacy than to arouse the trepidation of the Moriscoes. Their dauntless courage had left hundreds of their enemies on the field. The bodies of Moor and Christian alike strewed the ramparts; and in the streets through which had surged the ever-advancing tide of battle had fallen many of the most distinguished nobles in the Spanish service. Realizing the difficulties he was liable to encounter, Don John made a demand upon the King for men and money. Reinforcements were easily obtained, but only through the clergy, who, as a rule, were always ready to profit by a crusade, but who generally regarded their spiritual aid as abundantly sufficient, and were never eager to furnish substantial contributions, could funds for the prosecution of the war be procured. This was accomplished by the establishment of religious brotherhoods in every diocese, whose members, by the purchase of indulgences, could thus perform a service of signal merit to the Church and, at the same time, secure absolution for their sins. The scheme proved remarkably successful; and larger sums were eventually collected than those yielded by the sale of similar concessions issued for this purpose directly from the Holy See.

Papal influence, at that time predominant in European politics, had, immediately after the storming of Galera, tendered to the Austrian prince, through Philip, the place of generalissimo of the Holy League against the Turks. The vast international interests which depended upon the proper exercise of this office could not be neglected or their protection deferred until after many months had been consumed in suppressing the revolt of a few thousand rebels. By that time the Ottoman fleet would have obtained the supremacy of the Mediterranean, and an innumerable horde of bloodthirsty fanatics have descended upon the continent of Europe. While military prestige was presumably essential to one accepting a position of such responsibility and power, the risks were too great and the field too narrow to seek it in a campaign of such doubtful results as that against the Moriscoes. Peremptory orders were sent Don John to hasten by diplomacy what it had been demonstrated would be both difficult and tedious to secure by arms. An attempt was therefore made to corrupt the fidelity of Fernando-al-Habaqui, the favorite councillor of Ibn-Abu, whose wisdom and discernment, like those of many statesmen of his time, were superior to his patriotism and integrity. In various interviews, nominally appointed for purposes relating to the exchange of prisoners, the co-operation of this influential personage was obtained; he was promised an unconditional pardon; and the lives of those who surrendered voluntarily were to be spared. As second in command, he was enabled to control a large extent of territory in the accomplishment of his treacherous design; all the detachments of Morisco troops outside the Alpujarras and within his jurisdiction were suddenly withdrawn; the dismayed inhabitants were abandoned to their fate; many of those taken were reduced to slavery or sent to the galleys; some succeeded in escaping to the mountains; and the entire district of the River Almanzora, thus driven to submission, yielded such a multitude of captives that the general, unable to feed or control them, was compelled to leave them unmolested until arrangements could be made for their final disposition. A royal decree recently promulgated had ordered the removal of all the Moriscoes of the lately conquered districts to Castile. This measure, nominally adopted for public security, had, in fact, its origin in more ignoble motives; in the country of the insurgents a considerable number of Moorish proprietors had succeeded, amidst the general confusion, in retaining their estates; and the effectual means of disposing of obnoxious neighbors by enforced migrations had demonstrated its value when the Moriscoes of the Albaycin had perished miserably on the highways. The unfortunate victims of state policy and religious persecution were surrounded and herded like cattle; their number is unrecorded, but it must have amounted to thousands; the few effects which they possessed they were generously permitted to sell for a trifle; and, shelterless and almost naked, they were distributed over the deserts of La Mancha, where the savage peasantry, considering them as intruders, inflicted upon these wretched exiles every outrage which malignity could devise or lawlessness execute. The presence of the Moriscoes in Castile, at that time a recent event, no doubt suggested to the fertile mind of Cervantes one of the most entertaining episodes in the crowning masterpiece of Spanish literature.

The remaining Morisco strongholds, contrary to general expectation, and discouraged by the treason of Al-Habaqui, were far from emulating the heroic example of Galera. Seron, Purchena, Tijola, all well-fortified towns, submitted without serious resistance. Negotiations, now authorized by Ibn-Abu, were still carried on with Al-Habaqui, whose treachery does not seem to have destroyed the harmony existing between himself and his sovereign. The impatience of Don John for the termination of hostilities induced him to publish a proclamation of partial and conditional amnesty. Its terms granted life to all, without distinction, who within twenty days should surrender; promised that men between the ages of fifteen and fifty, who within the specified time should deliver to the proper officials an arquebuse or a cross-bow, should not be sold as slaves; and required that the leaders of the revolt, and such as were unwilling to take advantage of the proclamation, should be given up as an indispensable preliminary to leniency towards those who submitted. The ambiguity which pervaded the document caused it to be regarded with suspicion, and the Moriscoes, who had learned by repeated experience the duplicity of their enemies, declined to accept conditions whose uncertainty offered such inducements to abuse and misconstruction, even if they had not been actually drawn up for that purpose.

Unable any longer to cope with his adversaries in the open field, Ibn-Abu adopted the more effective policy of guerilla warfare. His army, divided into strong detachments, was posted at advantageous points whence the operations of the enemy could be observed and communication easily maintained. In this way the invaders were placed at a great disadvantage. The Moors retired before their advance; the towns were evacuated; all property was removed or concealed; convoys were cut off; and the army of the Duke of Sesa, who commanded the Christians, was almost reduced to extremity by famine. It became absolutely necessary to establish a base of supplies, and the Marquis of Favara was despatched with a considerable force to Calahorra. The Spaniards reached their destination in safety; but their movements had not escaped the vigilance of the mountaineers; and their return march, conducted without the precautions adopted by every wise commander, encountered an ambuscade in the valley of Ravaha. Here the road, so constructed that four men could with difficulty move abreast, was blocked by loaded beasts of burden, purposely left there by the Moors; and the soldiers, tempted by the hope of plunder, broke into disorder to seize them. The measures of Ibn-Abu had been taken with consummate skill. The Spaniards, hopelessly entangled in the narrow defile and completely surrounded, were ruthlessly slaughtered. In former attacks the mountains had always resounded with the piercing war-cries of the assailants, but now not a sound, save the scattering reports of arquebuses and the whistling of arrows, broke the ominous stillness of the scene. The advance guard and the centre had been destroyed before the Marquis was even apprized of the presence of an enemy. He effected his escape only by superhuman exertion, and of the sixteen hundred soldiers who composed his command fourteen hundred atoned for the military crimes of official negligence and disregard of discipline. On the Moorish side not a man was killed, and less than twenty were wounded. History affords but few parallels to the battle of Ravaha when both the numbers engaged and the immunity of the victors are considered.

This disaster compelled a precipitate retreat, and, unmolested by the enemy, who had ample opportunities to intercept them, the Spaniards fell back upon Adra. Such was their desperate condition from hunger that the gardens and orchards in the neighborhood were stripped of everything edible, and the chronicles relate that not even a leaf remained. The capture of the insignificant fortress of Castil-de-Ferro, whose garrison numbered less than a hundred, was the only exploit which relieved the disastrous monotony of the Duke of Sesa’s campaign. The Alpujarras, although still occupied by the Moriscoes, were practically untenable. Every hostile army which had entered their defiles had marked with utter devastation an area of many square leagues. The fields were laid waste. The villages were burned. Information of the hidden magazines of the inhabitants was sold by their countrymen, and the stores destined for the winter were carried away or destroyed. At many points the peasantry had sought refuge in caves. It was a favorite diversion of the Spaniards to stifle these wretches with smoke, like so many wild animals in their burrows. The survivors were hunted like game through the mountains. On a single occasion, Don John received a most acceptable gift of four hundred heads and eleven hundred captives. It was a remarkable circumstance when any considerable body of insurgents were taken, for indiscriminate massacre was the rule of every campaign. It was considered a peculiarly pious and meritorious action to ransom prisoners and present them to the Inquisition. The fate for which these unfortunate victims were reserved made the most shocking enormities of open warfare seem trivial in comparison.

The relations of Al-Habaqui with the Christians were now generally known; his influence was constantly solicited by his countrymen; and his power became so great that even Ibn-Abu himself was compelled to pay court to his minister, and countenance proceedings of which he heartily disapproved to avoid incurring the hostility of a favorite in whom was practically vested the supreme authority. The latter considered that the time had at last arrived for the conclusion of his treasonable negotiations. With the countenance of Ibn-Abu, and accompanied by seventeen Moriscoes of rank, he met the commissioners of Don John at Andarax. Nothing came of the conference, but the secret understanding between the minister and the Spaniards was carried out as pre-arranged. An adroit substitution of a document embodying the concessions of the Spaniards for the one containing the demands of the Moriscoes completed the deception of the latter; the arrogance of the Castilians caused a withdrawal of the envoys; and Al-Habaqui, with a single companion, appeared before Don John and, in the name of Ibn-Abu, gave up his own scimetar and answered for the surrender of the insurgents. This farce had but little effect, and was speedily repudiated by the Morisco king. Then Al-Habaqui received eight hundred gold ducats from the Spanish general, with which to raise a company whose especial mission it was to bring in Ibn-Abu, dead or alive. The prominence of Al-Habaqui had turned his head. His imprudent boasts betrayed him; he was seized by the Turks, imprisoned, and strangled. The treaty he had negotiated at the sacrifice of every principle of honor and patriotism died with him. Ibn-Abu used every expedient to keep the execution of his treacherous minister from obtaining publicity. Still resolved on resistance, he hoped by temporizing with the enemy to procure better terms. His resources were by no means exhausted. Five thousand well-equipped veterans were under his command. He entertained hopes of assistance from Africa--that ignis fatuus of every Moslem revolution, which promised so much and always ended in nothing. In the mean time all was uncertainty in the Christian camp. Although a formal capitulation by an authorized functionary had been formally signed, no insurgents surrendered. The whereabouts of Al-Habaqui were unknown, and, while his death was unsuspected, his absence could not be explained. Under a safe-conduct an envoy was despatched to the Morisco king; he soon ascertained the truth and carried back a message of defiance. Preparations were at once made for a renewal of hostilities; the Spanish army, in three divisions, advanced upon the Alpujarras from as many different directions, and every effort was exerted to close the war by a vigorously prosecuted campaign. The situation of Ibn-Abu now became critical. The country in which he was compelled to operate had been stripped of everything that could sustain life. Much of it that a few years previously exhibited a high degree of cultivation had been transformed into a primeval solitude, where only the charred remnants of once flourishing settlements attested the former presence of man. His army was discouraged by the unrelenting pursuit of the enemy. As usual, the faithfully promised support from Africa proved a delusion.

The Moorish prince sent his brother, Mohammed-al-Galipa, an experienced captain, to direct the insurrection in the Serrania de Ronda. Betrayed by a Christian guide, who led him within the Spanish lines, he was killed, and his escort of two hundred picked soldiers destroyed. In Valencia, a conspiracy formed in collusion with the Moriscoes of the Alpujarras was detected before it had time to mature, and its instigators were punished with merciless cruelty. Encompassed by a numerous and powerful foe, Ibn-Abu recognized the impossibility of resistance and disbanded his army. A few of his adherents took refuge among their kindred in Barbary. The majority, however, unable to escape and disdaining submission, which implied a slavery worse than death or inquisitorial torture, remained with their sovereign. All were scattered through the mountains and found shelter in the caves of that region, which were known only to shepherds and to those whose haunts were in the wildest and most rugged parts of the sierra. The march of the Spaniards was accomplished amidst the silence of desolation. In the distance at times could be seen flying parties of scouts, but no resistance was encountered. Whatever had escaped the destructive progress of former expeditions was now annihilated. Soldiers wandering in quest of plunder occasionally stumbled upon an inhabited cavern; its inmates were driven out by fire, and the infliction of torture soon disclosed the location of others. In one of these the wife and daughters of Ibn-Abu were suffocated, while he, with two companions, escaped through a secret opening in the mountain. The insatiable thirst of blood and booty which urged on the invaders rendered protracted concealment impossible. With each new discovery, other places of refuge were successively revealed through the unsparing and diabolical torments devised by the Castilians. The women were spared and condemned to slavery. Male captives under twenty, as a rule, shared a similar fate; all over that age were put to death, some amidst prolonged and frightful sufferings. Rank, innocence, the helplessness of age, the touching infirmity of disease, important services previously rendered to the royal cause, the prospect of future loyalty which might result from clemency judiciously bestowed, considerations of public welfare, dependent upon the preservation of an industrious people, afforded no exemption from the inexorable decree of destruction, enforced with every circumstance of savage malignity. The tracking of fugitive Moriscoes was as exciting and far more profitable than the chase of wild beasts. It was no unusual occurrence for a party of these terrified wretches to be pursued for a distance of fifty miles. No obstacles were sufficient to deter the Spaniards in the tireless search for their prey; the more arduous the hardships undergone, the greater the enjoyment when the victims, vainly suppliant for mercy, were put to the sword or burned at the stake. This time no organized enemy was left in the Alpujarras to disturb in future the peace of the monarchy. More than ten thousand insurgents were murdered or enslaved in the space of a month. Wherever the soldiery could penetrate, every vestige of human life and artificial vegetation were alike swept away. The terraced slopes of the mountains, reclaimed by infinite toil to profitable culture, the once smiling and fertile valleys, were restored to their native wildness. No voice remained in that infinite solitude to dispute the dogmas of the Church or to offend the scruples of the orthodox by the celebration of the profane and detested rites of Islam.

In the Serrania de Ronda the rebels still continued active, but the ambition of rival chieftains aiming at supreme power frustrated each other’s plans and eventually caused the discomfiture of all. The reputation for valor which the mountaineers of Ronda had attained was national; military operations in that locality were not prosecuted with the same energy as elsewhere, but the irreconcilable spirit of faction, ever so fatal to the progress and stability of the Arab race, again interposed as a potent factor of disorganization. A sharp campaign directed by the Duke of Arcos scattered the forces of the rebels, and the Serrania de Ronda, while not actually conquered, no longer contained a force capable of even temporary resistance.

The war now substantially ended, it was announced by royal proclamation that every Morisco, without a single exception, should be forever expelled from the kingdom of Granada. The order was carried out to the letter, under the supervision of Don John of Austria. The number of the exiles was from fifty to a hundred thousand. Superior discipline and the personal attention of the prince prevented the horrors that had attended the banishment of the residents of the Albaycin. Some were sent to Seville and Murcia, others to Estremadura, La Mancha, and Navarre. The Castilian peasantry resented their appearance among good Christians and resisted the soldiers, whose presence alone prevented a massacre. As usual, the lands which the Moriscoes possessed were seized for the benefit of the crown; their personal property was sacrificed for much less than its value, and many hitherto accustomed to luxury, plundered of the little they had saved from Spanish rapacity, reached their new homes in a state of absolute destitution. The remote fastnesses of the Alpujarras still concealed a number of fugitives, who cherished the fallacious hope that amidst the rejoicings incident to victory they might remain unnoticed and forgotten. Among them was Ibn-Abu, whose followers, the infamous monfis, alike inaccessible to honor or pity, were ready for every act of treachery, and some of whom had already discussed the expediency of obtaining pardon by the sacrifice of the King. These homeless wanderers soon realized that they were still the objects of Spanish animosity. The establishment of regular garrisons and the disbanding of the rest of the army were coincident with the formation of bands of scouts, whose duty it was to scour the country and capture every Morisco that could be found. In order to stimulate their activity, a reward of twenty ducats was offered for each insurgent. The chase of Moriscoes now became a more lucrative diversion than ever. The wildest portion of the sierra was examined foot by foot. Large numbers of fugitives were taken, and the prisons soon became too small to contain the multitudes that crowded them to suffocation. The utmost diligence of the authorities was unequal to the task of providing quarters for the new-comers, even by the wholesale execution of the old. The most distinguished prisoners were hung. Others were tortured. Many were handed over to the Inquisition, which, while never unsupplied with victims, was glad of the opportunity to make a signal example of such troublesome heretics. The majority were condemned to the galleys, which, all things being taken into account, was perhaps the most severe punishment that a prisoner could undergo. To be considered a mere machine, almost without identity and destitute of feeling, chained for days to the oar, exposed alike to the burning sun and the tempest, subject to hourly laceration by the scourge of a brutal overseer; ill-fed and unprotected from the weapons of an enemy, no fate to which unfortunate humanity is liable would not seem preferable to the lot of the galley-slave. Finally, the available facilities of Granada proved totally inadequate for the disposition of captive Moriscoes; extraordinary powers were conferred upon the commanders of the fortresses and outposts; the scenes of carnage were transferred from the capital to every accessible point of the Alpujarras, and the objects of national hatred and intolerance daily paid by hundreds the extreme penalty of misfortune and defeat.

The capture or death of Ibn-Abu now alone was necessary for the full gratification of Christian vengeance. With trifling difficulty Gonzalo-al-Seniz, who enjoyed his confidence and had shared his tent, was persuaded to betray him. The rewards of treachery were definitely stipulated in advance, the principal inducements being a pension of a hundred thousand maravedis and a promise of amnesty. An attempt to take the unfortunate prince alive failed of success; he was killed in the struggle; of his faithful companions, some were cut to pieces, some implored the doubtful clemency of the Christians, and others, after many perilous adventures, succeeded in escaping to Africa. The body of the Morisco king, strapped like a bale of goods upon a beast of burden, was transported to Granada and deposited at the door of the municipal palace. Then preparations were made for a ceremony unparalleled in the history of civilized nations, and whose character shows to what a depth the base descendants of Castilian chivalry had fallen. Proclamation was issued for the celebration of a travesty of regal authority and the offer of a public insult to the dead. At the appointed time a vast multitude of people, attracted by the novelty of the spectacle from every corner of the city and for a distance of many leagues around, crowded the streets and squares of the picturesque old Moorish capital. The line of march led from the Plaza de la Bab-al-Rambla to the foot of the Alhambra hill, a route which in the glorious days of the emirs had been the scene of many a martial triumph. The procession was headed by the corpse of Ibn-Abu, held erect by a concealed wooden framework, which was fastened upon the back of a mule. To insure its preservation, the body had been opened, the viscera extracted, and the cavity filled with salt; it was dressed in the scarlet and gold habiliments of royalty; upon its head was the turban of the khalifs; the face was uncovered, and the pallid, ghastly features seemed, in their fixed and mournful expression, to gaze reproachfully upon the jeering throng. By the side of the mule walked the traitor Gonzalo-al-Seniz, bearing the splendid arms of the king he had betrayed, a cross-bow and a scimetar embossed and damascened with gold. In the rear marched a company of Moriscoes, exempted from the general proscription for participation in this ceremony, laden with the personal effects and the baggage of the Moslem prince. A numerous escort of arquebusiers enclosed the cortége, which was received with becoming pomp by the captain-general and all the military and civil functionaries of the kingdom. As Gonzalo-al-Seniz delivered to the Duke of Arcos the glittering weapons which he carried, he remarked in the figurative language of the Orient, “The shepherd could not bring the sheep alive, but he has brought the fleece.” In the presence of the assembled dignitaries of the realm the head of Ibn-Abu was cut off, and afterwards, placed in an iron cage, was fixed upon the battlements of the gate of Bab-al-Racha, which faced the Alpujarras. The trunk was abandoned to a mob of children, who amused themselves by hacking and disfiguring it until, wearied of this extraordinary pastime, they consumed it in a bonfire.

Such was the unworthy fate of the last of the imperial line of the Ommeyades. Eight hundred years before, Abd-al-Rahman, hunted like a wild animal through the Libyan Desert, had been summoned from a life of obscurity and danger to found a great and powerful empire. Although it rapidly reached its meridian, that empire required many centuries for its final overthrow. The proud dynasty of the Western Khalifate ended as it had begun, in proscription, in exile, in treachery, in violence. The causes which hastened its maturity also contributed largely to its decay. The aspirations of its sovereigns were, on the main, noble and generous. Their services to humanity were of incalculable value and of far-reaching effect. The fire and sword of tyranny and persecution could not efface the lasting impression made by the ideas they promulgated, the science they developed, the literature they created. These survived the tortures of the Inquisition, the anathemas of the Pope, the turmoil of revolution, the funeral pyres of Ximenes. It is a remarkable fact that while the Hispano-Arabs brought within the sphere of their influence and culture the most remote nations, their nearest neighbors were incapable of appreciating their attainments or profiting by their knowledge. The inveterate prejudice against every phase of Moorish life and manners entertained by the Spanish Christians was fatal to their intellectual development. They regarded the intruders as barbarians, as, indeed, the majority of their descendants do even to this day. They were brought in intimate contact with no other form of civilization, and, rather than adopt what their ignorance and fanaticism prompted them to detest and despise, they chose to rely on their own limited resources. In consequence, their mental and social condition, so far from improving, gradually retrograded. The Goths of the age of Roderick were more polished, more intelligent, actuated by better motives, capable of higher aspirations, susceptible to nobler impulses than the Spaniards governed by Charles and Philip. In their progress from the banks of the Vistula to the shores of the Mediterranean, they had encountered many nations long subject to the civilizing influence of Rome. Not a few of them had visited the Eternal City itself. Some had served in the armies of the decaying empire; all had been impressed by the grand and imposing monuments of its magnificence and power. In the court of the last of the Gothic kings were men not unfamiliar with the masterpieces of classic literature. Its publicists had framed a code of laws which is the foundation of every modern system of jurisprudence. In the mechanical arts Gothic skill and industry had made no inconsiderable progress. While feudalism had retarded the development of society, its privileges, contrary to the practice of subsequent times, had not as yet seriously encroached upon the dignity and prerogatives of the throne. The institution of councils under ecclesiastical influence was not entirely subservient to the interests of superstition, and often exercised a wholesome check upon the arbitrary designs of a tyrannical sovereign.

With the Spaniards of the sixteenth century, everything was subordinated to a single principle, the exaltation of the Church. Its servants were the chosen confidants of the monarch; its policy guided his movements, controlled his actions, furnished his ideas, inflamed his prejudices. Whatever was worthy of the name of learning the clergy monopolized and perverted. They diligently fostered the ignorance of the masses, until in all the continent of Europe there is not at the present time a more benighted class than the peasantry of the Spanish Peninsula. The treasures of the world were lavished with unparalleled prodigality upon religious institutions and edifices. A tithe of the wealth squandered upon these vast foundations, whose history is tainted with scandal, would have sufficed, under intelligent direction, to have transformed the entire country into a garden and to have rendered Spain one of the richest of nations. Ecclesiasticism promoted crime and idleness by making beggary respectable, and by countenancing the indiscriminate bestowal of alms as a cardinal virtue. The expulsion of the Jews and the Moriscoes were acts entirely consistent with the general scheme of its polity. They were indispensable for the realization of religious unity, to which every consideration of national welfare, public faith, and individual probity were unhesitatingly sacrificed. The atrocities which accompanied these violent and disastrous measures were regarded as peculiarly meritorious and most acceptable to an avenging God. Upon such insecure foundations was the splendid but unsubstantial fabric of Spanish greatness erected. A sad inheritance has descended to the progeny of those stern warriors who founded an empire on the wreck of civilization, the repudiation of treaties, and the obliteration of entire races from the face of the earth.

The war which had effected the conquest and enslavement of the Moriscoes lasted a little more than three years. No period of the same duration in the history of the Peninsula was fraught with more important consequences. The Spaniards lost by the casualties of battle, exposure, and disease sixty thousand men. The losses of the Moors were much greater; twenty thousand were killed with arms in their hands, but no account has survived of those who were massacred in cold blood. The expense involved in the destruction of the most useful element of the population appalled the corrupt and incompetent financiers of the kingdom. Extraordinary and unwise fiscal methods, devised to remedy the evil, only rendered it more aggravated and desperate. Repeated campaigns of desolation had turned the whole country into a waste. Not only was the material wealth annihilated, but the means of recuperation were forever removed. Under the iron hand of remorseless persecution, industry had vanished. In vain the government offered alluring inducements to immigrants and colonists,--fertile lands, moderate rents, nominal taxation. Few accepted these offers and still fewer remained. The provinces of the South continued a prey to the brigands of the mountains and the corsairs of Barbary. Life and property were notoriously insecure. Castilian pride and indolence were unequal to the patient drudgery which had made hill-side and valley blossom with teeming vegetation; and men whose chosen trade for ages had been war were wholly destitute of the agricultural experience and skill necessary to reproduce these marvellous effects. The royal demesnes, in 1592, yielded annually a sum equal to fifteen thousand dollars; during the closing years of Moslem rule, when the kingdom had been exhausted by incessant war and rebellion, the revenues from this source produced by territory of equal area and fertility had been more than ten times as great. Plundered, tortured, expatriated, the Moriscoes were still subjected to innumerable vexations; the curse of their race was ever upon them. But they were at last comparatively exempt from the odious imputation of heresy. After 1595 the most rigid inquisitorial vigilance was unable or unwilling to detect any heterodox opinions or breaches of ecclesiastical discipline among these unpromising proselytes. And yet it was notorious that they were ignorant of the doctrines of the Church, and that competent persons were not appointed to instruct them. Some zealots, indeed, maintained that they should not be permitted to communicate, and that the exposure of the Host in their churches was a desecration; others, on the other hand, refused absolution to such as would not acknowledge apostasy. Their confessions were often regarded as feigned, and the priests who received them did not hesitate to violate the obligations of their order by divulging privileged confidences to the magistrate. The Morisco could not change his residence without permission; he was not allowed the possession of arms; the approach within forty miles of the kingdom of Granada was punishable with death. Notwithstanding these severe regulations, many succeeded in evading the vigilance of the authorities. Some took refuge in Valencia, where the feudal lords still protected their brethren; others concealed themselves in the Alpujarras; many escaped to Africa. In their new homes they were generally treated with far more indulgence than in the old. Prelates and nobles who profited by their industry not infrequently interposed their influence to prevent persecution, interested officials connived at breaches of the law, and it was a common occurrence for the alguazil appointed to prevent the observance of the feast of Ramadhan to pass his time carousing with those whom it was his office to restrain. The condition of the Moriscoes was also rendered less intolerable by the secret employment of both civil and ecclesiastical dignitaries of high rank and extensive influence, at a regular salary, to guard their rights and frustrate the iniquitous designs of their enemies.

The once flourishing land of Granada was a desert, but the demands of orthodox Christianity at last were satisfied. The devout regarded with unconcealed complacency the fertile territory formerly rich in every variety of agricultural products, and now abandoned to sterility, but which was defiled no longer by the contaminating presence of the heretic and the infidel. But, while the Faith was vindicated by the expulsion of these objects of pious detestation, the secret of prosperity had departed with them. The imported colonists were unable, under new and unfamiliar conditions and heedless of the frugality and patience which insure success, to render their undertakings profitable; indeed, most of them could hardly exist. Their taxes had, in violation of contract and on account of the pressing exigencies of the state, been gradually increased; the demands of importunate creditors and tyrannical officials made them desperate; and these exactions, which exhausted the scanty returns of an ill-conducted cultivation, kept the unfortunate immigrants in a state of hopeless penury. They either abandoned their farms or were forcibly ejected, and in 1597 the royal estates were sold because it was found impossible to operate them at a profit.

While in Granada such discouraging conditions prevailed, those portions of the kingdom which had unwillingly received the banished Moriscoes experienced the beneficial results of their labors. The hitherto barren regions of La Mancha and Estremadura began to exhibit signs of unexampled fertility. The new settlers were peaceable, frugal, industrious. In Castile they were generally farmers; in Aragon, merchants; in Valencia, manufacturers. Not a few attained great distinction in the practice of medicine and surgery; and, like the Jews of former ages, they were frequently employed by the court and the family of the sovereign. The life of Philip III. when a child was saved by the skill of a Moorish physician, a service which was ill-requited by the deeds of his manhood. The exiles practically contributed the funds which supported the monarchy. The insatiable rapacity of adventurers had soon exhausted the available wealth of a magnificent colonial empire. Official corruption constantly drained the ordinary sources of revenue. In all financial difficulties taxation of the Moriscoes afforded an unfailing and profitable means of replenishing the treasury. Their burdens were first doubled, then quadrupled. Every species of imposition was practised upon them. Their debtors paid them in spurious coin, struck for their benefit. False jewels were pledged with them for loans. The chicanery of the law was employed to defraud them with impunity, while the most severe penalties were inflicted upon them for trifling breaches of trust. They were systematically swindled by cheats and usurers. In all possible ways they were made to feel the unmerited degradation of their caste and the utter hopelessness of relief. Yet under this weight of malevolence and injustice they prospered and preserved at least the appearance of equanimity. Nothing could, with truth, be alleged against their morals. They were nominally good Christians. They attended mass. They conformed to the customs of their rulers, wore their dress, participated in their festivals, spoke Castilian. Their regular and temperate lives and their buoyant spirits under misfortune promoted extraordinary longevity. It was by no means unusual to encounter individuals whose age had passed the limit of a century. Early marriages and polygamous unions caused the population to increase with amazing rapidity. The census taken regularly by the Moriscoes to ascertain the proportion of taxes to be levied upon them and to insure its equitable distribution demonstrated conclusively that this growth was in a progressive ratio that was phenomenal in its character. The enumeration made at Valencia in 1602 showed an increase of ten thousand in three years. Modern investigation has established the fact that a population existing under the most favorable economic conditions will double itself every twenty-five years. The Moriscoes were far exceeding that estimate, for their rate of increase was triple. This wonderful augmentation must have been coincident with the highest degree of prosperity, otherwise subsistence could not have been provided for the multitudes of children. This condition was not peculiar to Valencia: it was the same in Aragon, in Castile, in Estremadura, in Andalusia. The Moors who had failed to conquer their enemies by arms now threatened to overwhelm them by sheer force of numbers. The Spaniards, not being sufficiently civilized to take their census regularly or accurately, were ignorant of the numerical strength of their own population, as compared with that of their Moorish subjects; but it was evident that there was a tremendous preponderance in favor of the latter.

The officials became so alarmed that just before the death of Philip II. he was requested to prohibit any further enumeration of the Moriscoes, because it acquainted them with their power and must eventually prove prejudicial to the interests of the monarchy. Besides their menacing increase, which no supervision, however effective, could prevent, they possessed qualities that made them highly obnoxious to their masters. Their frugality and thrift, their shrewdness and enterprise, rendered competition with them impossible. There was no profitable occupation in which they did not excel. In agriculture they had no rivals. They monopolized every industrial employment; all of the most useful trades were under their control. They undersold the Castilian peasantry in their own markets. Even the most opulent, instructed by previous experience, sedulously avoided every exhibition of luxury; but the Moorish artisan had not lost the taste and dexterity of his ancestors, and the splendid products of the loom and the armory still commanded high prices in the metropolitan cities of Europe. It was known that the Moriscoes were wealthy, and popular opinion, as is invariably the case, delighted in exaggerating the value of their possessions. While they sold much, they consumed comparatively little and purchased even less. Although the offence of heresy could no longer be consistently imputed to them, specious considerations of public policy, as well as deference to ineradicable national prejudice, demanded their suppression. Their prosperity, secured at the expense of their neighbors, and a standing reproach to the idleness and incapacity of the latter, was the measure of Spanish decay. In the existing state of the public mind, and under the direction of the statesmen who controlled the actions of the King, a pretext could readily be found for the perpetration of any injustice. The Moriscoes of Valencia, the most numerous, wealthy, and influential body of their race, protected by the nobles, had always shown less alacrity in the observance of the duties of the Church than their brethren, and had thus rendered themselves liable to the suspicion of apostasy. It was declared that after a generation of espionage, prayer, and religious instruction they were still secret Mussulmans. This opinion, perhaps in some instances not without foundation, amounted to absolute certainty in the narrow mind of Don Juan de Ribera, Archbishop of Valencia, a prelate of vindictive temper, arbitrary disposition, limited abilities, and violent prejudices. He owed much of his reputation for piety to the fact that he had denounced to the Inquisition more than four thousand alleged Moorish apostates. Knowing his feelings towards them, the Moriscoes generally turned a deaf ear to his admonitions and threats, and thus further incurred his displeasure. The energy of Ribera was incessantly exerted for the ruin of these supposed heretics, either by exile or by extermination. With this end in view he addressed several memorials to Philip III., who had now ascended the throne, in which the objects of his wrath were accused of every crime against the civil and the moral law,--treason, murder, kidnapping, blasphemy, sacrilege. In these appeals the Moriscoes were called “the sponge that absorbed the riches of Spain.” He enforced his arguments by the extraordinary statement that the destruction of the Armada was a divine judgment for the indulgence exhibited towards these enemies of the Faith, and that Philip II. was aware of it, for he himself had informed him of that fact. The recent occurrence of earthquakes, tempests, and comets was also sagely attributed to the same cause. The Moriscoes were not ignorant of the designs which the Archbishop was prosecuting to their injury, and endeavored to obtain the assistance of France and England, both of which countries were then hostile to Spain. They offered King Henry IV. the services of a hundred thousand well-armed soldiers if he would invade the Peninsula. The Duke of Sully says they even signalized their willingness to embrace Protestantism in consideration of support, it being a form of worship not tainted with idolatry, like that of Rome. Negotiations were privately opened with the courts of Paris and London, and commissions were even appointed by the latter to verify the claims of the Moriscoes; but no conclusion was arrived at, and the plot was eventually betrayed by the very sovereigns whose honor was pledged to the maintenance of secrecy. An embassy was also sent to the Sultan of Turkey by the Moors, soliciting his aid and tendering him their allegiance. No plan which promised relief was neglected. The furious Ribera again urged upon the King the dangers that the toleration of such a numerous and perfidious people implied; he alleged their prosperity and their superior intelligence as crimes against the state; and as absolute extermination did not seem to be feasible, he suggested expulsion as of greater inconvenience, but of equal efficacy. Once more the nobles interposed in behalf of their vassals, and while the King was hesitating the Moriscoes endeavored to anticipate his decision by the formation of an extensive conspiracy. Again they were betrayed, this time by one of their own number. Public opinion, aroused by these occurrences, and further inflamed by ecclesiastical malice and by the pernicious influence of the Duke of Lerma, the all-powerful minister of Philip III., now imperatively demanded their banishment. This nobleman, of base antecedents and unprincipled character, and whose dominating passion was avarice, was Viceroy of Valencia. His brother was the Grand Inquisitor Their influence easily overweighed the remonstrances of the Pope, whose voice was raised on the side of mercy.

On the fourth of August, 1609, the royal decree which announced the fate of the Moriscoes of Valencia was signed at Segovia. No precaution which prudence could suggest was neglected to prevent disaster consequent upon its enforcement. Great bodies of troops were placed under arms. The frontiers of the kingdom were patrolled by cavalry. Seventy-seven ships of war, the largest in the navy, were assembled on the coast. In every town the garrison was doubled. Several thousand veterans disembarked from the fleet and were distributed at those points where the Morisco population was most numerous. Such preparations left no alternative but submission, and the Valencians, anticipating the final movement which would deliver the unhappy Moors into their hands, began to rob and persecute them without pity. Even after all had been arranged for the removal, the nobles urged Philip to revoke an order which must cause incalculable injury to his kingdom. The most solemn and binding guarantees were offered for the public safety and for the peaceable behavior of the Moriscoes. It was demonstrated that the manufacturing and agricultural interests of the entire monarchy were involved; that a population of a million souls, whose industry represented of itself a source of wealth which could not be replaced, would be practically exterminated; that the educational and religious foundations of the realm alone received from Moorish tributaries an annual sum exceeding a million doubloons of gold. It was also shown that the vassals of the Valencian nobles paid them each year four million ducats, nearly thirty-two million dollars. The alleged conspiracies were imputed to the malice of the monks, who invented them in the cloister; the heresies to ignorance of the clergy, too idle or too negligent to afford their parishioners instruction. The evil results of the iniquitous decree had already begun to manifest themselves. The cultivation of the soil had almost ceased. The markets were deserted. Commerce languished, and the Moriscoes, to avoid the insults of the populace to which they were now subjected, only appeared in the streets when impelled to do so by absolute necessity. The Archiepiscopal See of Valencia, which derived its revenues almost entirely from Morisco taxation, was threatened with bankruptcy, and Don Juan de Ribera, realizing when too late the disastrous consequences of the project he had so sedulously advocated, now in vain endeavored to stem the tide of public bigotry and official madness. While bewailing his unhappy condition to his clerical subordinates, he was heard to plaintively remark, “My brethren, hereafter we shall be compelled to live upon herbs and to mend our own shoes.”

Philip refused to reconsider his determination, and the nobility manifested their loyalty by the unflinching support of a measure running directly counter to their interests. On the twenty-second of September, 1609, the edict of expulsion was proclaimed by heralds throughout the kingdom of Valencia. It represented that by a special act of royal clemency “the heretics, apostates, traitors, criminals guilty of _lése-majesté_ human and divine,” were punished with exile rather than with death, to which the strict construction of the laws condemned them. It permitted the removal of such effects as could be carried, and as much of their harvests as was necessary for subsistence during their journey; all else was to be forfeited to their suzerains. They were forbidden to sell their lands or houses. Three days of preparation were granted; after that they were declared the legitimate prey of every assailant. Dire penalties were denounced against all who should conceal them or in any way assist in the evasion of the edict. Those who had intermarried with Christians could remain, if they desired; and six per cent. of the families were to be reserved by the lords, that the horticultural and mechanical dexterity which had enriched the country might not be absolutely extinguished. These subjects of interested clemency refused to accept this invidious concession, however, and hastened to join their countrymen beyond the sea.

The wretched Moriscoes received the tidings of their expatriation with almost the despair with which they would have listened to a sentence of death. Astonishment, arising from the suddenness of the notice and the inadequate time allotted them for preparation, was mingled with their dismay. The traditions of centuries, the souvenirs of national glory, the memory of their ancestors, contributed to endear them to their native land. There were centred the most cherished associations of a numerous and cultivated race. All around were the visible signs of thrift and opulence and their results, won by laborious exertion from the soil. The disfigured but still magnificent monuments of fallen dynasties recalled the departed glory of Arab genius and Moslem power. The loss of their wealth, the sacrifice of their possessions, portended the endurance of calamities for which they were ill-prepared, and of whose dreadful character their most gloomy apprehensions could convey no adequate conception. In every Moorish community appeared the signs of unutterable misery and woe. The shrieks of frenzied women pierced the air. Old men sobbed upon the hearthstones where had been passed the happy days of infancy and youth. Overcome with grief, life-long friends met in the streets without notice or salutation. Even little children, unable to comprehend, yet awed by the prevailing sorrow, ceased their play to mingle their tears with those of their parents.

As the disconsolate and sobbing multitude, urged on by the ferocious soldiery taught by their religion to regard these victims of national prejudice as the enemies of Christ, left their homes behind forever, their trials and sufferings increased with their progress. The government provided them with neither food, shelter, nor transportation. The difficulties of the march were aggravated by clouds of dust and by the pitiless heat of summer. Many were born on the highway. Great numbers fell from exhaustion. Some, in desperation, committed suicide. Every straggler was butchered by the armed rabble which, equally ravenous for plunder or blood, constantly hung on the flanks of the slowly moving column. Many were assassinated by Old Christians, men of Moorish ancestry, the conversion of whose forefathers dated before the Conquest, and who told their beads and muttered prayers after each murder, as if they had committed an action acceptable to God. The armed brigands who composed the escort vied with the mob in their atrocities. The men were openly killed, the women violated. Their property was appropriated by force. Some died of hunger. Parents, in their extremity, became so oblivious of the instincts of nature as to barter their children for a morsel of bread. When they embarked for Africa they fared even worse than they had done on land. On the sea the opportunities for outrage were multiplied, the means of escape and detection diminished. No pen can portray the horrors visited upon the unhappy Moriscoes, helpless in the midst of savage enemies who were insensible to pity, hardened by cruelty, and dominated by the furious lust of beauty and gold.

The decree was not received everywhere with the same submission as at the city of Valencia. There the exiles, overawed by the large military force, yielded without disturbance. Half-crazed by misfortune, they even feigned exultation, marched on board the ships dressed in holiday costume and headed by bands of music, and in token of delight gave themselves up to the most extravagant exhibitions of joy. Some kissed the shore, others plunged into the sea, others again quaffed the briny water as if it were a delicious beverage. Before embarking they sold much of their property, and articles of great elegance and beauty--curiously wrought vessels of gold and enamel, silken veils embroidered with silver, magnificent garments--were disposed of for a small fraction of their value. During these transactions, and in settlement of their passage to Africa, the Moriscoes succeeded in placing in circulation an immense amount of counterfeit money which they had obtained in Catalonia, thus literally paying the Spaniards in their own coin. The portable wealth of which the kingdom was deprived by their banishment cannot be estimated. It amounted, however, to many millions of ducats. Some of the exiles were known to possess a hundred thousand pieces of gold, an enormous fortune in those times. It was ascertained after their departure that their lords, in defiance of law, had purchased many of their estates, and had connived at the sale or concealment of a great amount of their personal property. Those who succeeded in reaching the cities were received with courteous hospitality, but the desert tribes showed scant mercy to the multitudes that fell into their hands.

Elsewhere in the kingdom the Moriscoes stubbornly resisted the decree of expatriation. The Sierra de Bernia and the Vale of Alahuar were the scene of the most serious disturbances, and at one time twenty thousand insurgents were in the field. Armed for the most part with clubs, their valor was ineffectual in the presence of veteran troops. The women alone were spared; the men were butchered; the brains of children were beaten out against the walls. The garrison of the castle of Pop, which for a few weeks defied the Spanish army, alone obtained advantageous terms. Of the one hundred and fifty thousand Moors exiled from Valencia, at least two-thirds perished. A large number had previously succumbed to persecution or had escaped, and including these the total number of victims of the inauguration of the insane policy of Philip III. was at least two hundred thousand. The continuance of that policy until its aim had been fully accomplished had already been determined on by the councillors of the King. The secrecy which concealed their design did not impose upon those who were the objects of it. They began by tens of thousands to emigrate quietly to Africa. Then the decree, which had been signed a month before, was published, with an attempt to give the impression that it had been provoked by a circumstance of which it was really the cause, namely, the agitation of the Moriscoes. The latter were peremptorily commanded to leave the kingdom within eight days. They were forbidden to take with them money, gold, jewels, bills of exchange, or merchandise. They were not permitted to dispose of their estates. In Catalonia their property was confiscated, “in satisfaction of debts which they might have owed to Christians,” and three days only were allowed them in which to prepare for departure. Their little children were to be left behind to the tender mercies of their oppressors, in order that their salvation might be assured. Those of the northern provinces were prohibited from moving southward; those of Andalusia were directed to emigrate by sea. Within the allotted time all were in motion. The embarkation of the exiles destined for Africa was effected without difficulty. But their brethren of Castile and Aragon were refused admission into France, by the direct order of Henry IV., to whose agency was largely attributable their deplorable condition. His opportune death somewhat relaxed official severity, and a great number entered Provence. Although they were peaceable and inoffensive, the French were anxious to be rid of their unwelcome guests. Free transportation was furnished them by the city of Marseilles, and they were distributed through Turkey, Italy, and Africa. So many died during the passage by sea that their dead bodies encumbered the beach, and the peasants refused for a long time to eat fish, declaring that it had the taste of human flesh. The progress of the unfortunates driven northward was marked by daily scenes of persecution and agony. The commissioners appointed to supervise the emigration connived at the evasion of the decree for their own profit. They extorted enormous sums for protection, which their duty required them to afford without compensation, and which, even after these impositions, was insolently denied. Those things which the ordinary dictates of humanity delight to bestow were sold to the hapless wanderers at fabulous prices. For the shade of the trees on the highway the grasping and unprincipled peasant exacted a rental; and the water dipped from the streams in the trembling hands of the sufferers commanded a higher price than that usually paid for the wine of the country. The little which the commissioners overlooked was seized by rapacious French officials, and the condition of the Moriscoes was still further aggravated by the absconding of those of their number to whom the common purse had been intrusted.

In the merciless proscription thus imposed upon an entire people, an insignificant number temporarily escaped. In the latter were included young children torn from their parents to be educated by the Church, and such persons “of good life and religion” as the clergy, through interested or generous motives, chose to recommend to royal indulgence. In 1611 the exemption enjoyed by these classes was removed; searching inquiry was instituted throughout the kingdom, and every individual of Moorish blood who could be discovered was inexorably condemned to banishment or slavery. By the persecution of the Moriscoes and the losses by war, assassination, voluntary emigration, and enforced exile, Spain was deprived of the services of more than a million of the most intelligent, laborious, and skilful subjects in Christendom. Those who were finally excluded were probably not more than half of the entire Moorish population. No statistics are accessible in our day from which an estimate can be formed of the vast number that perished by famine, by torture, by massacre. Their trials were not at an end even in Africa; they were pursued for sectarian differences, and some who were sincere Christians returned to Spain, where they were at once sentenced to the galleys. The skill and thrift of the Moriscoes, qualities which should have made them desirable, rendered them everywhere unpopular; they monopolized the trade of the Barbary coast, even driving out the Jews; in Algiers the populace rose against them, all were expelled, and large numbers were remorselessly butchered. Hatred of their oppressors induced many of hitherto peaceful occupations to embrace the trade of piracy, and the southern coast of the Peninsula had reason to long remember the exploits of the Morisco corsairs.

The ruthless barbarity, the blind and reckless folly of this measure, was followed by an everlasting curse of barrenness, ignorance, and penury. The sudden removal of enormous amounts of portable wealth deranged every kind of trade. The circulation of counterfeit money impaired public confidence. In Valencia four hundred and fifty villages were abandoned. The absence of the most industrious and prosperous class of its inhabitants was apparent in every community of Castile. Catalonia lost three-quarters of its population. The districts of Aragon rendered desolate by Moorish expulsion have never been repeopled. Agricultural science and mechanical skill disappeared. The hatred and disdain entertained by the Spaniards for the conquered race had never permitted them to profit by the experience and ingenuity of the latter. Intercourse with a Moor brought moral and social contamination. Still less could the admission of inferiority, which the adoption of his methods implied, be tolerated by the haughty, the vainglorious, the impecunious hidalgo.

The effects of the discouragement of all forms of art and industry consequent upon war and persecution had been felt long previous to the expulsion of the Moriscoes in every part of the Peninsula. For many years after the capture of Cordova by Ferdinand III., it was found necessary to bring provisions from the North, not only for the support of the army, but to rescue from famine the sparse and thriftless population of a province which under the Ommeyade khalifs maintained with ease the great capital, as well as twelve thousand villages and hamlets.

The decline in the number of inhabitants under Spanish rule indicates the utter stagnation of trade and agriculture. In 1492 the population of Castile was six and three-quarter million; in 1700 there were in the entire kingdom of Spain but six million souls--such had been the significant retrogression in two hundred years.

The combined revenues of the Spanish Crown at the close of the fifteenth century amounted to a sum equal to three hundred thousand dollars, about one-thousandth of the annual receipts of the imperial treasury at the death of Abd-al-Rahman III., seven hundred years before.

Fifty years after the banishment of the Moors, the combined population of the cities of Cordova, Seville, Toledo, Granada, had decreased by more than four-fifths; it is now about one-tenth of its amount during the Moslem domination. In 1788 there were fifteen hundred and eleven deserted towns in the Peninsula. Toledo, celebrated for its silken fabrics, in the latter part of the fifteenth century had sixty thousand looms; in 1651 it had five thousand; to-day it has none. The same industry was pursued with great success at Seville; in the seventeenth century the number of its looms had decreased from sixteen thousand to sixteen. All other branches of manufactures declined in the same proportion. Even a large part of the kingdom of Valencia, the garden of Europe, was for years an uninhabited wilderness. With the Moslem expulsion the knowledge of many arts, once the source of great profit, was hopelessly lost.

To the pious Spaniard all these sacrifices were as nothing when compared with the triumph of the Faith. The ports were unoccupied, the quays grass-grown, but the armies of the Cross had conquered. The manufactories had fallen into decay, the streets were silent, the highways were deserted except by the timorous traveller and the lurking robber, but not a Moslem or a Jewish heretic was to be encountered in His Most Catholic Majesty’s dominions. At the close of the seventeenth century, throughout the entire Peninsula, once the centre of learning in Europe, the resort of scholars of every land, the seat of the greatest educational institutions of the Middle Ages, not a single academy existed where instruction could be obtained in astronomy, natural philosophy, or any branch of mathematics. A hundred years later no one could be found who understood even the rudiments of chemistry. To-day, among the inhabitants of Spain, according to the published tables of statistics, only one person in every four can read. But what mattered the destruction of commerce, the decay of production, the dearth of intelligence, if the land was purged of false doctrines?, Was it not a source of national congratulation that ecclesiastical authority was once more paramount; that half of the able-bodied population, male and female, were devoted to monastic life; that magnificent religious foundations, such as the world had never before seen, arose on every side; that, though the royal treasury was bankrupt, the annual revenues of the Church amounted to nearly fifty-three million dollars? Surely these manifold divine blessings were not to be weighed with the transitory benefits derived from the labors of a mass of perverse and unregenerate heretics!

The results, both immediate and remote, of this crime against civilization thus proved fatal to Spain. Its principal sources of subsistence removed, the kingdom was desolated by famine. It became necessary to extend public aid to many noble families, once affluent, but now impoverished by the suicidal course of the crown. Popular sentiment, exasperated by distress, denounced in unsparing terms the authors of the national calamity. The Archbishop of Valencia, unable to endure the daily reproaches to which he was subjected, and overcome by the sufferings for which he was responsible, died of remorse. Silence and gloom occupied vast tracts formerly covered by exuberant vegetation. In the place of the farmer and the mechanic appeared the brigand and the outlaw. Deprived of protection, the open country was abandoned; the peasantry sought the security of fortified places, and all occupations whose pursuit implied exposure to the danger of violence were necessarily suspended. The conditions controlling every rank of society which were established in the Peninsula by the blind and savage prejudices of the seventeenth century are largely prevalent to-day. A dreadful retribution has followed a tragedy whose example happily no other nation has ventured to imitate; and which, from the hour of its occurrence, has afflicted with every misfortune to the last generation the people responsible for its hideous atrocities.