A. No recent case of this kind has occurred but, from some former ones, it is deduced that the Suprema was consulted.
Q. Have those who established themselves in Spain, in virtue of the royal order of 1791, complied with the formalities which it prescribes?
A. As no advice has been sent to this tribunal by the Junta del Comercio y Moneda, nor by the Intendente of the kingdom, it is inferred that no non-Catholic artists have established themselves, or else that the prescription to advise the tribunal has not been obeyed.
Q. Whether they (non-Catholic foreigners) contract marriage with Catholics and, in that case, what is the religion of the children?
A. But one case of such marriage is known—that of Juan Foch, a German of Lindau, who called himself a travelling merchant, with Bernarda María Pellicer of this city. This was in virtue of a papal brief, passed by the Council of Castile and with the royal exequatur, providing that he should allow his wife to remain a Catholic and his children to be brought up in the same faith, and she promising to persuade him to conversion. They were married privately, outside of the church and without banns or other public ceremonies. We learn from the Vicar of Los Santos Juanes, where they live, that they cause no scandal, comply with the obligations and that a boy has been baptized.
Q. Since the royal order, about how many non-Catholic strangers have established themselves, naming some of the principal ones and their nation or sect?
A. This could be answered only by examining the registers required to be kept by the captain-general and royal justicias. This tribunal can only have notice by denunciations, which has occurred only with Foch.
Q. How many autillos públicos have been held with strangers since 1759 when Carlos III ascended the throne? State the name, country, religion and principal offences.
A. Since 1759 there has been no autillo público for strangers.[1266]
This document has interest not only as showing the continued vigilance as to foreign heretics, but as indicating how thoroughly successful had been the policy of exclusion. The district of the tribunal embraced a long stretch of sea-coast, including such commercial cities as Valencia and Alicante, yet the non-Catholic stranger was still almost unknown, as he had been when the report of 1785 was made. Spain was a land to be shunned by all who were liable to be dealt with by the Inquisition, and it was left to its isolation. For those who ventured it, concealment of heresy was worse than its avowal. David Bonoran, a French Protestant, domiciled in Bilbao, succeeded in passing as a good Catholic. Becoming converted, he applied to the tribunal of Logroño to abjure his errors and be incorporated in the Church, when, in 1791, he was promptly prosecuted for having feigned Catholicism.[1267]