With the peace of 1630 the provisions of 1604 were revived but hardly a year passed in which some Englishman was not thrown in prison and prosecuted on one pretext or another, as Roderick Jones, in 1640, for saying that God alone is to be prayed to, and Edward Bland, in 1642, for having a Bible in his house.[338] In spite of this the flourishing wine-trade of the islands brought many English and Hollanders as residents, and there was even an English company established at Tenerife, where, in 1654, the tribunal reported that there were more than fifteen hundred Protestants domiciled, who were prevented from infecting the people by its incessant vigilance. The captains-general usually sought to protect them, and the influence of their ambassadors in Madrid was invoked on occasion, but, when one fell sick, the Inquisition sought to isolate him from his family and friends and put him in charge of theologians to convert him, giving rise to unseemly contests in which it was not always successful. To remedy this the tribunal, September 18, 1654, asked of the Suprema power to insist that when one of the rich Protestant residents fell sick, his compatriots should be excluded and entrance should alone be permitted to learned Catholics who might wean him from his errors.[339] We should probably do no injustice to the motives of the tribunal in assuming that this was dictated rather by the expectation of pious bequests than by zeal for death-bed conversions.
Foreigners sometimes sought to avert trouble by pretending Catholicism and thus placed themselves in the power of the tribunal, which was constantly on the watch for them. In 1654, for instance, Fray Luis de Betancor was summoned and interrogated as to his knowledge of such cases, to which he replied that, some twelve years before, Evan Pugh, an English surgeon, had come to Adeje to cure Doña Isabel de Ponte, and sometimes went out to hunt with her brother Juan Bautista de Ponte. He remembered that one day, when he had finished celebrating mass, he was told that Pugh had stood at the church-door with his hat in his hand, and it was currently said that he confessed to Fray Juan de Medina. Similarly, in 1674, we find the Hollander Pieter Groney testifying that when he sailed from the Texel in 1671 Juan de Rada was a fellow-passenger, who told him he was a Protestant and as such joined in the services during the voyage, but, when the ship was visited on arrival he swore that he was a Catholic and had since then acted exteriorly as a Catholic, though, when they lived together for a couple of months, he ate meat freely on fast days and he regarded him as a Protestant rather than as a Catholic.[340] What was the outcome in these cases cannot be told, but the investigations illustrate the careful watchfulness of the tribunal and the dangers incurred by residence within its jurisdiction. Even his official position did not protect from prosecution Edmund Smith, the British consul at Tenerife, when he was accused, in 1699, of maltreating converts to Catholicism and of persuading and threatening those inclined to it, even, it was said, shipping them away when other measures failed.[341]
In the 18th century, while foreign vessels were closely watched and a vigilant eye was kept on resident Protestants, they were no longer molested with investigations and denunciations. If, in 1728, Philip V ordered the expulsion of all foreigners, it was not on religious grounds, but to put an end to frauds on the revenue. None, however, were expelled, although some professed conversion to save themselves from annoyance.[342] A similar impulse seems to have impelled Dr. James Brown, a physician of Tenerife, who wrote, in March, 1770, to the tribunal, from the Augustinian convent of La Laguna, in which he had sought asylum from the captain-general, who was seeking to seize him and send him to England. To secure its protection he asserted his desire to abjure his errors and to be received into the Catholic Church, but in this he failed for, on July 14, he was ordered to leave the islands within forty days.[343]
The intellectual activity of the Canaries was not such as to call for much vigilance of censorship, at least during the earlier period. The visitas de navíos, or examination of ships arriving, for heretics and heretic books, was performed after a fashion, but the tribunal was inadequately equipped for the duty. One of the charges against Inquisitor Fúnez, in 1577, was his sending the gaoler to perform it, to which he replied that he had done so but once and that on occasions he had sent the fiscal or the secretary; it was not his business and he had no one to whom to depute it.[344]
Towards the middle of the seventeenth century there was some little activity with regard to the foreign Protestants, who were assumed to be subject to the rules of the Index. The prosecution of Edward Bland, in 1642, for possessing a Bible, seems to have attracted attention to this and, on July 5, 1645, the tribunal ordered its commissioner at Orotava to take the alguazil, notary and two familiars and visit the houses of the English heretics, secretly, without disturbance and with much discretion, asking them to exhibit all the books they possessed, examining all their chests and packages, making an inventory of all books and their authors, and making them swear before the notary as to their having licences to hold them; also whether they had been examined by the Inquisition and, if so, at what time and by what officials. If there were works by prohibited authors, or such as had not been seen by the Inquisition, they were to be deposited with a suitable person, sending a report to the tribunal, with lists of the books, and awaiting its action. If portraits or busts of heresiarchs were found they were to be seized and deposited with the books.
Under these elaborate instructions the search was duly made and the reports, if truthful, would indicate that literature and art were not extensively cultivated by the English traders. Nothing dangerous was found, though of course, as regards English books, the investigators had to accept the word of the owners. In one house they describe, as hanging on the walls of a room, very ugly half-length portraits of a strange collection of worthies—Homer, Apelles, Philo Judæus, Aristotle, Seneca, Pliny, two of Gustavus Adolphus and one without a name. It is perhaps significant that nowhere was there a Bible, a prayer-book or a work of devotion. The houses of two Portuguese traders were similarly inspected, where were found pictures of saints and of damsels with exuberant charms; also of Barbarossa and of some other pirates.[345] Possibly supervision of this kind may have continued for, on June 7, 1663, Richard Guild was summoned to the tribunal to describe six English books and four pamphlets, found in possession of Edward Baker, when among them there proved to be several controversial works as to Presbyterianism and the Independents. So, in 1670, Captain Joseph Pinero, a Portuguese, who was building a ship, was denounced for the more dangerous offence of having some Jewish books, but diligent search failed to discover them.[346]
Books, however, were not the only objects of censorial animadversion. In 1671 some plates and jars with figures of Christ, the Virgin and the saints, sold by Juan Martin Salazar of Ycod, were apparently deemed irreverent, as subordinating the divine to the commonplace of daily life, and Fray Lucas Estebes was ordered to go to his shop, with alguazil and notary, and break the stock on hand, at the same time ascertaining the name of the seller and of all purchasers. Soon after this, in 1677, an edict was issued ordering the surrender of some snuff-boxes, brought by an English vessel, which were adorned with two heads—one with a tiara and the legend Æcclesia perversa tenet jaciem diaboli, and the other of a philosopher and the motto Stulti sapientes aliquando.[347]
In the latter half of the eighteenth century there seems to be more intellectual activity and desire to seek forbidden sources of knowledge, for we begin to hear of licences to read prohibited books. A register of them, commencing in 1766, shows that when obtained from the inquisitor-general they had to be submitted to the tribunal for its endorsement, but it could exercise the discretion of suspending and protesting, as in the case of one granted, in 1786, by Pius VI and endorsed by Inquisitor-general Rubin de Cevallos, to Fray Antonio Ramond, on which the tribunal reports that he ought not to have it, as he is of a turbulent spirit and disorderly life. Licences generally made exception of certain specified books and authors, but sometimes they were granted without limitation. When the holder of a licence died, it was, as a rule, to be returned to the tribunal.[348]
At this period the main activity of the tribunal was in its function of censorship. It did not content itself with awaiting orders but assumed to investigate for itself; nothing escaped its vigilance, and we are told that the monthly lists which it forwarded to the Suprema of the books denounced or suppressed are surprising as coming from a province so small and so uncultured. In fact, in 1781 it expressed its grief that great and small, men and women, were abandoning themselves to reading, especially French books.[349] To do it justice it labored strenuously to discourage culture and to perpetuate obscurantism.
Yet the visitas de navíos, as described in a letter of August 23, 1787, were less obstructive to commerce than the practice in Spain. When a vessel cast anchor, after the visit of the health officer, the captain landed and, in company with the consul of his nation, went to the military governor, and then to the Inquisition where, under oath, he declared his nationality, his port of departure and what passengers and cargo he brought. When the vessel was discharging, the secretary of the tribunal superintended the process and noted whatever he deemed objectionable, whence it often happened that matters adverse to religion were seized.[350]