III.
The anonymous letter accused Don Pedro Campos de Ayala of assassinating the Biscayan, and stealing a thousand ounces, which served for the basis of the great fortune he acquired in Potosi.
What proofs did the informer supply? We are unable to say.
Don Pedro being duly installed in the Stone Jug, the Mayor appeared to take his declaration; and the accused replied as follows:
'Mr. Mayor, I plead not guilty when he who accuses me is God himself. Only to Him under the seal of confession did I reveal my crime. Your worship will of course represent human justice in the case against me, but I shall institute a suit against God.'
As will be seen, the distinctions of the culprit were somewhat casuistical, but he found an advocate (the marvel would have been had he not) prepared to undertake the case against God. Forensic resource is mighty prolific.
For the reason that the Royal Council sought to wrap the case in the deepest mystery, all its details were devoured with avidity, and it became the greatest scandal of the time.
The Inquisition, which was hand and glove with the Jesuits, sought diligently for opportunities, and resolved to have a finger in the pie.
The Archbishop, the Viceroy, and the most ingrained aristocrat of Lima society took the side of the Company of Jesus. Although the accused sustained his integrity, he presented no other proof than his own word, that a Jesuit was the author of the anonymous denunciation and the revealer of the secret of the confessional, instigated thereto by the revocation of the will.
On his part the nephew of the Biscayan claimed the fortune of the murderer of his uncle, while the trustees of the various hospitals and convents defended the validity of the second will.
All the sucking lawyers spent their Latin in the case, and the air was filled with strange notions and extravagant opinions.
Meanwhile the scandal spread; nor will we venture to say to what lengths it might have gone, had not His Majesty Don Philip V declared that it would be for the public convenience, and the decorum of the Church as well as for the morality of his dominions, that the case should be heard before his great Council of the Indies in Spain.
The consequence was that Don Pedro Campos de Ayala marched to Spain under orders, in company with the voluminous case.
And as was natural, there followed with him not a few of those who were favourably mentioned in the will, and who went to Court to look after their rights.
Peace was re-established in our City of Kings, and the Inquisition had its attention and time distracted by making preparation to burn Madam Castro, and the statue and bones of the Jesuit Ulloa.
What was the sentence, or the turn which the sagacious Philip V gave to the case? We do not know; but we are allowed to suppose that the King hit upon some conciliatory expedient which brought peace to all the litigants, and it is possible that the culprit ate a little blessed bread, or shared in some royal indulgence.
Does the original case still exist in Spain? It is very likely that it has been eaten of moths, and hence the pretext and origin of a phrase which with us has become so popular.
It is said of a certain notary who much troubled the Royal Council in the matter of a will and its codicils, that when the custodian of such things at last produced something which looked like the original, he said, 'Here it is, but the moths have sadly eaten it.'
'Just our luck, my dear sir,' said an interested one, who was none other than the Marquis of Castelfuerte. And ever since, when a thing has disappeared we say 'No doubt the moths have eaten it.'
So much for the lawsuit against God, which only a Spaniard could have conceived and a Peruvian satirist report.
When a commercial father sees his eldest son, on whom he has lavished much care and money that he might learn mathematics and such an amount of classics as will stand him in good stead at the fashionable training grounds of the world's gladiators, and the boy is seen to forsake figures and take to poetry, to prefer the gay science to that which would enable him to master the money article of the Times, that father will feel as great a pang as when a giant dies.
The same feeling may actuate many a Peruvian bondholder when he is told that the Peruvians are beginning to cultivate literature. Many city men will disregard the thing altogether, or disdain to take notice of it. Many will treat it with resentment and contempt. What right have people who are in debt to busy themselves in writing books, in amusing themselves when they should be at work, and in writing poetry when they should be making money. And yet the cultivation of literature for its own sake by any people ought not only to be viewed with favour, it should be carefully watched, to see if it be a real national growth or only a momentary effort which cannot last. If it be the former, we shall see it in an improvement of public morals and manners; in the quickening of the national conscience and chastening the public taste, in an elevation of character and in fresh dignity being imparted to the common things and duties of everyday life.
Peru possesses a history as well as a country. The one remains to be written, and the other to be described by a Peruvian genius who shall do for Peru and Peruvian history what Sir Walter Scott did for his native land and its records.
It is now high time that Peru produced her popular historian. One who can fire the intellect of his countrymen while he provides them with an elevating pastime, who can point out the way they should or should not go by showing them the ways they have hitherto travelled. If the work has been delayed, it is because the people have too long retained the spirit of the former times to make it possible for them to profit by any explanation of the past. Monarchists yet, because they have never known better, they have not been taught to hate the hateful kings who ruled them in selfishness and kept them in ignorance, while they have not learned to love with devotion and intelligence the freedom they possess but know not how to use.
When books are found in hands till then only accustomed to carry muskets, and the pen is handled by those who have hitherto only believed in the power of the sword, we may rest assured that an important change has set in, a silent revolution has begun, which will make all other revolutions very difficult if not impossible.
