Could revenge be carried
farther than in this instance? The institution itself of the inquisition
and the cruelty with which its members persecute those whom they suspect
of tenets different from their own, may well excite surprise. In their
eyes the tortures and the death of their fancied enemies are a mere
amusement. They burn some of their prisoners alive, render their
memories infamous, and prosecute their children and all the connections
of these unhappy sufferers; they deprive orphans of the inheritance of
their parents, dishonour families in every possible shape, and at length
have recourse to the auto da fe, [77:2] on which occasion, while the
miserable wretches are lingering in torments, the members of the
inquisition not only feast their eyes with this Infernal spectacle, but
regale themselves with their friends at the expense of their unhappy
victims. Such are the practises of the Inquisition.
When those Spanish Christians who amused themselves by hanging poor
wretches, thirteen in a row, in honour of the thirteen apostles, were
taunted with cruelty, they boldly affirmed that as God had not redeemed
with his blood the souls of the Indians, no difference should be made
between them and the lowest of beasts.
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