They never admit any objection to be made by the accused against Witnesses the most notoriously unworthy of being heard and most uncapable of deposing against him The number of these Witnesses is ofttimes reduced to five they comprehend in the number of these Witnesses the pretended Complices who depose only in time of torture and who can save their lives no otherwise than by confessing that which they never did And in this number of seven the pretended guilty person is comprehended who confessing in torture the Crime which he never committed is reputed a Witness against himself Oftentimes also this number of seven is reduced to none because it is composed only of pretended Complices who are truly innocent of the Crime which they impose upon them and whom the Inquisition renders truly Criminal in forcing them either by threats of fire or by torture to accuse the innocent to save their own lives For to understand well this Mystery we are to know that among the ruines which the Inquisition hath right to take cognizance of there are some which may be committed in that manner that one alone is guilty as Blasphemy Impiety c. There are others which cannot be committed without having at least one Complice as Sodomy And lastly there are others which cannot be committed without having diverse Complices as to have assisted at the Iewish Sabbath or to have partaken in those Superstitious Assemblies which the Converted Idolaters have so much difficulty to quit and which they treat as Magick and Sorcery because they are held to discover secret things or for to know future Events by methods which do not naturally lead to such knowledge It is particularly in respect and upon occasion of these Crimes which cannot be committed but with one or more Complices that the proceedings of the Holy Office are more strange and more extraordinary The Jews having been driven out of Spain by Ferdinand King of Arragon and Isabelle Queen of Castile his Wife they fled into Portugal where they were received upon condition of embracing Christianity which they did at least in appearance But as the name of Iew is odious throughout the whole World they always distinguished the Christian Families from the Families of the converted Jews and they at this day call those who are descended from them in any degree whatsoever Christams novos that is to say New Christians And because in process of time some have contracted alliance with the Ancient Christians they upbraid it continually to their Successors that they are partly New Christians which the Portugueze express by saying tem parte de Christam novo Insomuch that although their Grandfathers or Great Grandfathers were Christians these unhappy persons shall never be able to obtain admission into the number of Christams Velhos or Ancient Christians And as the Families which are descended thus directly or in part from these Iews are distinctly known in Portugal where they make the object of the hatred and horrour of others they are forced to unite themselves more strictly together to render to each other that mutual assistance which they cannot hope for from others And it is this very union which augmenteth the contempt and hatred of them and which is the ordinary cause of their misfortunes CHAP. XIV Of the Iujustice which is committed by the Inquisition in respect of Persons accused of Iudaism FOR to illustrate this matter well I will suppose that a new Christian but who nevertheless is very sincerely and truly a Christian desâ—ended from these unfortunate Families is arrested by order of the Holy Office and that he is accused not only by seven Witnesses but by fifty if you will. This man who is assured of his own innocence which he hopeth will be undoubtedly acknowledged maketh no scruple to give to his Judge an exact declaration of all his Goods which he believeth will be faithfully restored to him Nevertheless these Gentlemen no sooner get them into their Hands but they sell them publickly as being well assured that they shall never restore any thing Some months being passed this Man is called to Audience for to ask him if he knows why he is put in Prison to which he fails not to answer that he knoweth no reason He is then exhorted to consider seriously and to tell them since this is the only means speedily to recover his Liberty after which he is remitted to his Lodgings He is again brought to Audience some time after and is asked diverse times in the same manner without drawing any other answer from him But at last the time of the Lauto Dafe approaching the Promotor presents himself and declares to him that he is accused by a good number of unexceptionable Witnesses to have Judaized which consisteth in observing the Ceremonies of the Mosaick Law as not to eat Swines Flesh an Hare or Fish without Scales to have assembled with others and solemnized the Sabbath day to have eaten the Paschal Lamb and so in the rest He is then conjured by the Bowels of the Mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ for these are the proper terms which they affect to use in this Holy House voluntarily to confess his Crimes since this is the only means which remain for him to save his Lifeâ— and that the Holy Office seeketh all possible means not to suffer him to destroy himself This innocent Man perfiâ—teth in denying what is charged on him and hereupon he is condemned as a Negative Convicted Person that is to say one who is convicted but will not confess his Crime to be delivered up to the Secular Arm to be punished according to the Laws that is for to be burnt Yet they never discontinue to exhort him to accuse himself and provided that he do it before the Eve of his being led forth to Execution he may yet avoid death But if he persist to protest his innocence maugre all Exhortations Sollicitations and even Torture it self which are used to oblige him to accuse himself at last they signifie to him the Decree of his Execution on the Friday which immediately precedeth the Sunday of his being carried forth This signification is made in presence of a Serjeant of the Secular Justice who casteth a Cord upon the Hands of the pretended Guilty Person in token that he taketh possession of him after that the Ecclesiastical Justice hath abandoned him after that a Confessor is brought in who never leaveth the condemned Person either Night or Day who never ceaseth to press him particularly and exhort him to confess that whereof he is accused that he may thereby save his Life An innocent Man must needs then find himself in a great perplexity If he continueth to deny till Sunday he is cruelly put to death the same day and if he accuseth himself he becometh infamous and miserable for his whole Life Nevertheless if the Exhortations of his Confessor and the fear of the punishment induce him to confess Crimes which he never committed he must desire to
me till her life was in a desperate condition I found her in a very violent Fever and although she was at the point of falling into a Phrenzy the Indian Physician far from thinking of letting her Blood had covered her head with Pepper which I caused first to be taken off and undertaking the Cure succeeded very well insomuch as my Patient recovered in a few days a perfect health From that time this Lady seeking occasions of demonstrating her gratitude loaded me with Presents and desiring that I would lodge nearer her she had given me an House over against her own This was the same day which I before mentioned wherein she had given me this House and I departed from this so generous a Lady to return in the evening to my own Lodgings when the Criminal Judge of the Town called in Portugueze Ouvidor de Crime came upon me and commanded me to follow him into Prison whither I was carried without being able to obtain of him by what order he did this till I was shut up in Prison How great soever my suprize was when the Judge arrested me yet as I was conscious of my own innocence but above all because I imagined that I was seized upon some slight occasion I hoped with sufficient probability that Manual Hurtado who had always professed much friendship towards me would not permit that I should stay so much as one night in Prison But when he who carried me thither told me that it was by order of the Inquisition my astonishment was so great that I remained for some time immovable at last having a little recollected my self I desired to speak with the Commissary but to heighten my misfortune they told me that he had parted that very day for Goa so that there remained to me no other comfort that the hope which every one gave me that I should be very shortly set at liberty because the justice of the H. Office was not only equitable but inclined very much to mercy especially towards those who acknowledged their fault betimes without being a long while sollicited to do it All these fine words hindred not my unhappiness from becoming very sensible to me and the sight of my friends who failed not to come and comfort me far from comforting served only more extremely to afflict me by the comparison which I made of their condition to my own As I had no Enemies but hidden one they easily mixed themselves among my best friends The Governour and the Black Frier who desired nothing so much as my removal knew admirably well how to dissemble their hatred and their jealousie the first in sending to me the Officer of his house to assure me of the sorrow which he conceived from my misfortune and to offer all possible assistance to me the other in coming to the Grate to shed some false tears which joy rather than compassion drew from him CHAP. V. Description of the Prison I writ to the Inquisitors who returned me no answer Extreme misery of the Prisoners THe Prison of Daman is lower than the River which is near to it which makes it moist and unhealthy and it wanted but little that it was not overflowed some years since by a hole which the Prisoners had made under the Wall for to escape thereby The Walls are very thick The Prison consists in two large low Rooms and one upperone The Men are in the lower the Women in the upper Room Of the two lower Rooms the greater is about 40 foot long and 15 broad and the other two thirds of this extension We were in this space of ground about 40 Prisoners and there was no other place to satisfie the ordinary necessities of nature but that We made water in the middle of this Room where the collection of these waters made a kind of Sea and the Women had no better conveinience in their stage there being this only difference between them and us that their waters ran from their high room through the Planks into ours where all those different waters mixed together For the other excrements our only convenience was a large Basket which was scarce emptied above once a week whereby an innumerable swarm of Worms were bred which covered the pavement and came even upon our Beds While I staid in this Prison the care which I took to have it cleansed rendred it a little less horrible but altho I often caused even 50 Pitchers of Urine to be cast out in one day yet the stink ceased not to be very great Scarce was I shut up in this sad dwelling but making a serious reflexion upon my unhappiness I easily discovered the cause and resolved to forget nothing which might contribute to my enlargement My friends continually told me That my best and readiest way to recover my liberty was to confess voluntarily and at large what I thought had procured my ruin Being willing then to make use of their advice I writ to Goa to the Grand Inquisitor who is called in Portugueze Inquisidor mor I ingeniously declared to him in my Letter all which I believed I could have been accused of and desired him to consider that if I had failed it was rather through levity and imprudence than malice My Letter was delivered faithfully but against my hope and the desire of my friends they returned no answer to me but suffered me to languish in this stinking and obscure Prison in the company of diverse Negroes who as well as I were arrested by Order of the H. Office. The charitable care which Dona Francisca took of me all the time that I stay'd Prisoner at Daman rendred my Captivity a little more supportable This generous Lady contented not her self to send me what was necessary but I received every day from her wherewith to nourish abundantly and delicately four persons She her self took the trouble of dressing my meat and always sent along with the Slave who brought the meat some of her Grand-Children who might see me receive it fearing leâ—t any one should suborn her Domesticks or the Jaylor to poison me And altho she could not come in person to comfort me in the Prison she took care that her Husband her Children and her Sons-in-Law should come every day It was not so with the other Prisoners there is no regulated subsistance for them at Daman the Magistrates leave them to the Charity of whosoever have a mind to relieve them And as there were in the whole Town but two persons who sent them Meat duly twice a Week the greatest part of the Prisoners receiving nothing upon other days were reduced to so deplorable a misery that this contributed not a little to imagine mine the greater I gave all that I could spare from my own subsâ—â—tance yet there were some of those unhappy persons who were separated from us but by a Wall who were forced by hunger to live upon their own Excrements Upon this occasion I learned that some years before about Fifty Malabar
and of the Church and the Salve Regina lastly he finished as at the first time by exhorting me through the Bowels of the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to confess without delay which being read in my presence and signed by me I was remitted to my Chamber From the first moment that I had been in this Prison I had been always melancholy and never ceased to shed tears but at my return from this second Audience I entirely abandoned my self to all grief seeing that they exacted of me the things which appeared impossible to me since my memory suggested to me nothing of that which they desired I should confess I endeavoured then to end my life by Hunger I received indeed the meat which they brought to me because I could not refuse it without exposing my self to receive Bastinadoes from the Guards who take great care to observe when the Plates are returned to them whether the Prisoners have eaten enough to sustain Nature But my despair suggested to me means of eluding their diligence I passed whole days without eating any thing and that they might not perceive it I cast into the Basin part of what they gave me This course of diet was the cause that I was entirely deprived of sleep and my whole employment consisted in mortifying my Body and shedding tears However I omitted not in this time of my Affliction to reflect upon the errours of my past life and to acknowledge that it was by a just Judgment of God that I had fallen into that depth of misery and unhappiness I proceeded also so far as to believe that he intended perhaps to make use of this mean to call me to himself and convert me Having a little fortified my self by such meditations I Implored with my whole heart the assistance of the Blessed Virgin who is no less the consolation of the afflicted than the Asylum and refuge of Sinners and from whom I have so visibly experienced protection as well during my imprisonment as upon other occasions of my life that I could not omit to render this publick testimony of it At last after I had made a more exact or a more happy examination of all which I had said or done during my stay at Daman I called to miâ—d what I had advanced concerning the Inquisition and its Integrity I immediately desired Audience which yet was not granted to me till the sixteenth of March following I doubted not but in appearing before my Judge to terminate all my Affair and that upon my Confession which I intended to make they would immediately restore me to perfect Liberty but then when I thought my hopes at the point of being compleated I saw my self at once depriv'd of all these sweet hopes because having confessed all which I had to say touching the Inquisition they told me that this was not that which they expected of me and I having nothing else to say was immediately remitted without so much as their vouchsaâ—ing to write down my Confession CHAP. XX. How Despair induced me to attempt my Life I Am now come to the most unhappy time of my Captivity for how severe soever it had hitherto been I had at least the comfort of having suffered with some patience and even of having endeavoured to make a good use of my Sufferings for the Faith obligeth us to believe that the greatest Evils are so many Advantages to those who make good use of them I ought not therefore to look upon this as an unhappy time any more than that wherein I committed faults which I cannot but consider as very great and which I pretend not to justifie or even to excuse by the cruelty of those who required of me impossible things on pain of burning since they carry not along with them so great extremity as may justifie despair which is the greatest and worst of all Evils I was once resolved not to speak of in this place the despair which seized me nor the endeavours of destroying my own life to which I was induced by it but it was believed it would be important to give this account since it cannot be denied that the unjust severities of the Inquisition give at least occasion to many to fall into the same condition And that it concerneth the Publick to make known not only the evil of the unjust actions considered in themselves but also the horrible evils which are the too ordinary consequences of them For if persons who have Learning and Education who are instructed in their duties and who never forsake the considerations of Faith fall into such Extremities what may not be feared from so many ignorant persons without Education the greatest part of them new Converts from Paganism where they have almost all their life looked on Despair as an Act of Generosity I confess that the ill success of my last Audience which I had believed would be so favourable for me was an insupportable blow to me and that thenceforth accounting Liberty to be an happiness to which I could no longer pretend I abandoned my self so far to Melancholy and Despair that I wanted but little of entirely losing my Reason I had not forgot that it is forbidden to a man to destroy himself and I had no design to destroy my self eternally but I desired to live no longer and the extreme desire which I had to dye troubled me so far that I invented a mean in the midst of my Despair which might effectually procure my Death and a natural Death since I could not resolve to lay violent hands upon my self and I imagined that God would pardon me if I procured it slowly and by the means of others I feigned then to be sick and to have a Fever they immediately brought to me a Pandite or a Gentile Physician who made no scruple to be convinced from the motion of my Blood within my Pulse which he took for a true Fever and ordered me to be let Blood which was reiterated for five days together and as my intentention in using this Remedy was very different from that of my Physician who laboured to recover my health while I thought of nothing but ending this miserable and unhappy life As soon as every one was retired and my door was shut I untied the Fillet and suffered so much blood to run out as might fill a Cup containing at least 18 Ounces I reiterated these cruel evacuations as often as I was blooded and withal eating almost no food it is not hard to judge that I was reduced to extreme weakness The Alcaide who obsâ—rved so considerable a change in my Body could not sufficiently wonder at the ill condition wherein I was which admitted scarce any hope of recovery The Pandite was in the same astonishment which obliged them to advertise the Inquisitor who proposed to me to be Confessed As I did not believe my self to be in a condition of escaping Death I began to resent what I had done and being unwilling to destroy
above all for the ill intention which I had in speaking all these things For which Crimes I was declared Excommunicate and for reparation thereof my Goods were confiscated to the Kings account and my self banished from the Indies and condemned to serve in the Galleys of Portugal five years and moreover to perform other Penances which should be enjoyned to me in particular by the Inquisitors Of all these punishments the most insupportable to me was to see my self in an indispensable necessity of quitting the Indies where I had resolved to Travel a yet much longer time This sorrow nevertheless was not so great but that it was much allayed by the hope of seeing my self shortly out of the hands of the Holy Office. My Confession of Faith being made I returned to my place and received advantage from the advice which my Guard had given me of not refusing my Bread for the Ceremony continuing all the day there was no person who did not that day Dine in the Church CHAP. XXVIII They Absolve us from Excommunication and deliver those to the Secular Power who were to be burned What was observed upon this Occasion AFter they had ended to read the Process of all those to whom they extended their Mercy in saving their lives the Inquisitor left his seat to put on his albe and stole and being accompanied with about 20 Priests who had every one a Wand in his Hand he came into the middle of the Church where after he had made diverse Prayers we were Absolved from the Excommunication which they pretended we had incurred by means of a blow which the Priest gave to every one of us upon his Habit. I cannot forbear to relate here a thing which will shew to what degree the Portugueze Superstition proceeds in all things which have any relation to the Inquisition which is that during the Procession and the whole time of our stay in the Church he who served me as a Godfather would never answer to me although I had spoken to him diverse times and that he even refused to give a little Powder of Tobacco which I had desired of him so much did he fear to be involved in the Censure wherewith he supposed me bound But as soon as I was Absolved he embraced me gave me Tobacco and told me that he then acknowledged me for his Brother since the Church had Absolved me This Ceremony being ended and the Inquisitor returned to his place they brought out one after the other those unhappy Victims who were to be Sacrificed by the Holy Inquisition There were a man a Woman and the representation of four dead men with the little Chests wherein their Bones were inclosed The Man and Woman were Indian Blacks and Christians accused of Magick and condemned as relapsed Of the four Statues two represented also two men held for convicted of Magick and the two others two men who had been New Christians and were accused to have Judaized of which the one had died in Prison the other in his own House and had been buried long since in his Parish but being accused of Judaism after his Death as he had left very considerable Riches they took care to pluck him out of his Grave and take away his Bones to burn them at the Act of Faith after they had formed a Process again him We may see hereby that the Holy Office is not contented to attribute to it self the Infallibility of Jesus Christ but that they would also as well as he exercise their authority upon the Living and the Dead The several Processes of these unfortunate Persons were read which were all ended with these words That the Inquisition could not shew any mercy to them because of their relapse and their impenitence and that finding themselves indispensably obliged to punish them according to the rigour of the Laws they delivered them to the Secular Arm and Justice whom they earnestly desired to use Clemency and Mercy towards these miserable wretches and that if they would impose upon them the punishment of Death it might be at least without effusion of blood At the last words of the Inpuisitors a Serjeant of the Secular Justice approached and took possession of those infortunate persons after they had received a light blow upon the breast from the hand of the Alcaide of the Holy Office in token that they were abandoned by him See the great kindness of the Inquisition to interceed thus for guilty persons The extreme condescendance of the Magistrates to choose rather in complaisance to the Inquisition to content himself to burn these Criminals to the very marrow of their Bones than to use the power which he hath of shedding their blood Thus was ended in respect of us the famous Ceremony of the Auto dafe or Act of Faith and while these miserable wretches were led along the bank of the River where the Viceroy and his Court were assembled and where the Piles upon which they were to be Sacrificed were prepared the day before we were led back to the Inquisition by our Godfathers without observing any oder Although I was not present at the Execution of these persons thus abandoned by the Holy Office nevertheless as I was fully instructed by persons who have ofttimes seen the like Executions I will here relate in few words the Ceremony which was there observed As soon as the condemned persons are arrived at the place where the Secular Judges are assembled they ask them in what Religion they will dye without informing themselves in the least of their Processes which they suppose to have been perfectly well managed and the persons most justly condemned since no doubt is to be made of the Infallibility of the Inquisition As soon as they have answered to this one Question the Executioner seizeth them and tieth them to Posts upon the Pile where they are first strangled if they dye Christians and burnt alive if they persist in Judaism or Heresie which happens so seldom that scarce one example is to be seen in four Acts of Faith although there are very few in which are not burned a good number of Persons The day after the execution the Images of those who are put to death are brought into the Churches of the Dominicans their Head only is presented to the Life placed upon kindled Fire-brands at the bottom is put their name that of their Father and their Country the quality of their Crimes for which they were condemned with the years the month and the day of the Execution If the Person who was to be burnt had twice relapsed into the same Crime they put these words at the bottom of the Portraict Morreo quimodo por herese relapso which signifieth that he was burned for a relapsed Heretick If having been accused but once he persevereth in his error they put Por herese contumas for an obstinate Heretick but as this case is very rare so there are very few of these Portraicts Lastly if having been thus