There were other productive sources of income besides the confiscations. One of these which was especially profitable was the “quebrantamientos de escrituras de juego.” Gambling was almost universal and disgusted gamesters would frequently swear off under a penalty, attested by a notarial act; the pledge would inevitably be broken and the forfeit was usually contributed to the pious uses of the Inquisition. A statement of the deposits in the arca de tres llaves, or money-chest of the tribunal, from May 4, 1630, to August 31, 1634, shows 1449 pesos from fines, 4909 from donations and 35,829 from the quebrantamientos, or in all 42,187, representing an annual income of nearly nine thousand pesos from these sources alone.[627] When to this we add the confiscations, the prebends and the constantly increasing returns from accumulating investments, it will be seen that the tribunal was rapidly growing in wealth and how factitious were the pleas on which it maintained its grip on the royal subvention.
When, in 1631, the office of alguazil was made saleable considerable sums were collected from this source. In 1641 the position of alguazil mayor of Santiago de Chile—a purely ornamental office, unsalaried but with contingent privileges—was bid up to 6500 pesos.[628] As these commissions, however, were issued by the inquisitor-general it is probable that they were duly accounted for. Indeed, we have seen (p. 224) that the Suprema endeavored in this way to explain the remittances which it could not conceal.
Increasing wealth naturally led to multiplication of offices and generally careless expenditure. In 1674 the receiver or treasurer lamented that he had striven in vain to reduce the affairs of the tribunal to order. The revenues had fallen to 35,951 pesos and the expenses exceeded them. Still, he held that, in spite of the considerable remittances to the Suprema and the overgrown payroll, the income could be made to suffice if it were not for the expenditures of the inquisitors on their houses and their frequent elevation to bishoprics, after which they persisted in drawing their salaries.[629]
The investments of the tribunal were principally in censos—rent-charges on real estate. When these fell into arrears the property was put up and sold at auction, apparently still subject to the rent, the arrearages being collected from the purchase-money, and the numerous references to these transactions show that they were by no means infrequent. Still, the Inquisition assumed that it was an indulgent creditor. When, about 1705, several successive bad harvests had rendered the farmers unable to pay their rents, they petitioned the viceroy for a reduction of the principal. In transmitting this request to the king, the viceroy asked the opinion of the various tribunals, to which the Inquisition replied that the principal should remain intact as the deficient harvests were temporary and the land retained its value: that it was different in Chile, where the censos on urban property were reduced in principal after the earthquake which ruined the buildings. The tribunal therefore recommended a postponement of arrears and reduction of interest until the bad season should pass; this was what it had done with its debtors; it had not thrown them in prison or put up the farms at auction, even though the arrears were large, proceeding with benignity and equity and treating each case on its merits.[630]
Under a succession of venal and unprincipled inquisitors, the finances of the tribunal became involved in confusion and the magnitude of the amounts at stake shows how successful it had been in accumulation. In 1733 the two inquisitors were Gaspar Ibañez de Peralta and Christóbal Sánchez Calderon. The former was old and failing and the latter was engaged, under the name of his chaplain, in mercantile operations with the funds of the tribunal with such success that, in 1739, he remitted eighty thousand pesos to Spain and had purchased a valuable property near Lima. He also spent five thousand in decorating his house, and when the security of the temporary receiver Juan Estéban Peña expired he opposed its renewal, resulting in heavy loss when Peña became bankrupt. The new receiver, Manuel de Ilarduy speedily fell into default for more than two hundred and thirty thousand pesos and there were other deficiencies. In 1735 Diego de Unda was sent from Spain as fiscal with special orders to investigate the finances. In 1736 he reported that he found everything right except that when Calderon insisted that Ilarduy should render his accounts and deposit all funds in the chest and on the receiver’s refusal, had embargoed his property, Ibañez verbally suspended the embargo, so that when, on the next day, the embargo was renewed, it was found that large amounts of silver and merchandise had been removed and there only remained a little silver dish and some vessels in his oratory. Still Ilarduy was forced to pay fifty thousand pesos and furnish securities amounting to a hundred and ten thousand more.
It seemed impossible to secure honest officials. Unda had brought with him as secretary of the tribunal Ignacio de Irazábal, who was made auditor. He was detected in passing false accounts for Ilarduy and was dismissed, as likewise was another secretary, Gerónimo de la Torre. The struggle between Calderon and Ilarduy became mortal, and the amounts at stake must have been large for the latter sent emissaries to Spain with a hundred thousand pesos with which to bribe the Suprema to dismiss the inquisitor. He succeeded in having a visitador sent with full powers to investigate and punish, with results that we shall see hereafter. It is only necessary here to say that Calderon’s and Unda’s property was sequestrated, to be released in 1747 by orders of the Suprema. A new factor had appeared on the scene when, in 1737, Mateo de Amusquíbar came as fiscal, to be not long afterwards promoted to the inquisitorship. He formed an alliance with Ilarduy; they were both Biscayans and the Biscayan faction became supreme. Unda died, May 27, 1748, and Calderon was living in retirement on his plantation. The vacancy was filled, in 1751 by Diego Rodríguez Delgado who came with special orders to investigate the finances. He promptly reported that it was impossible to examine the accounts of the receiver, which were in a state too confused to admit of verification. He had learned that the cost of maintaining the prisoners did not amount to more than a thousand pesos per annum, while it was charged at four thousand. There were seventy thousand due on the rents of farms and fruits of prebends and, by the reduction of exorbitant salaries this amount when collected could readily be increased to a hundred thousand, more than enough to rebuild the inquisition and its chapel, which had lain in ruins since the earthquake of 1746. Under the preceding receiver, the confiscation of Pedro Uban, condemned in 1736, had amounted to more than sixty thousand pesos, but no trace could be found of the existence or the expenditure of this sum. No reform however was possible in view of the alliance between Amusquíbar and Ilarduy. No reform, in fact, followed, although after all the actors had passed away, Calderon’s property was seized to make good the deficit of Antonio Morante, an administrador whom he had appointed and kept in office without requiring security and, in 1773, a suit was in progress with the executor of his estate for over thirty thousand pesos, the outcome of which the records fail to inform us. Altogether, through these quarrels we obtain an inside view of venality and corruption which probably were not confined to this period. In 1751 we learn that Amusquíbar, on entering office in 1744, had remitted nineteen thousand pesos to the Suprema, since when nothing had been sent. The income had fallen to thirty thousand and there was little more than forty thousand in the chest.[631]
The inevitable results of dishonesty and disorder were heightened by external causes and, in 1777, we find the resources of the tribunal materially reduced. After the earthquake of 1746 the rate of interest on the censos had been lowered from five per cent. to three. There were few profitable confiscations to make good the deficit, the fruits of the prebends were falling off and their collection was becoming difficult. In 1777 that of Quito owed about ten thousand pesos, that of Trujillo eleven thousand, that of Arequipa, owing to the decline in prices was greatly diminished in value. Salaries were in arrears to the extent of twenty thousand pesos and the efforts of the receiver to make collections were fruitless. The houses of the inquisitors were unfinished and Inquisitor Lopez Grillo was obliged to rent one, at the distance of a block from the tribunal. In 1784 the earthquake in Cuzco caused a further decline in the canonries of la Paz, Arequipa and Cuzco; an urgent request was made for the suppression of the office of the third inquisitor, and authority was asked to sell property in order to pay salaries.[632] All this betokens real distress and yet, although the administration of affairs can scarce be thought to have improved in the following years, when, in 1813, the decree of suppression was received in Lima and the property of the tribunal was inventoried for the benefit of the royal treasury, there were found in its chests ready money to the amount of 68,834 pesos, 3¼ reales, besides 2400 pesos of jewels confiscated on Inquisitor Unda and 2500, the valuation of the furniture of the chapel. From the statement of the auditor it appeared that the capital of the censos and value of the plantations belonging to the tribunal amounted to 1,508,518 pesos. A portion of this, however, was not its property but was held in trust for special purposes. Of the money on hand, 47,433 pesos were funds of the tribunal, while 13,325 pesos, 2 reales appertained to the Colegio de Santa Cruz, founded by Mateo Pastor de Velasco and Bernardino Olave for female foundlings, and placed under the charge of the Inquisition, also 8076 pesos, 1¼ reales was the balance on hand of a foundation known as of Zelayeta and Nuñez de Santiago. The capital of the Colegio de Santa Cruz amounted to 394,502 pesos, 6½ reales; that of the other foundation is not stated but, assuming them together to be 500,000 pesos, it would leave about a million for the accumulations of the tribunal.[633]
The men who were at the head of the tribunal, whatever may have been their reputation at home, were not, as a rule, able to resist the demoralizing influences around them, intensified by the irresponsible autocratic power conferred by their position. The only effective control possible to the Suprema lay in the appointment of a visitador or inspector, clothed with superior authority, and this was an expedient rarely resorted to, especially as the inspector was exposed to the same temptations and was apt to yield to them. The Suprema was not kept in ignorance of the derelictions of its appointees, for the inquisitors rarely worked in harmony. Deadly quarrels arose between them and they abused each other without stint in their communications to headquarters, while their subordinates were equally free in exposing the malfeasance of their superiors. The publication of much of this secret correspondence and of complaints of aggrieved parties by Señor Medina thus gives us an exceptional opportunity to gain an insight into the interior life of a tribunal and into its use of the enormous power which it enjoyed.
We have seen that the second inquisitor, Bustamente, died at Panamá, and that Cerezuela was alone in opening the tribunal. The fiscal, Alcedo, and the notary, Arrieta, were quarrelling mortally with each other, and both were writing to the Suprema, criticizing Cerezuela’s inexperience and lack of self-assertion, and asking that the new inquisitor to be sent should be a man of greater force. Their wishes were gratified when Antonio Gutiérrez de Ulloa arrived, March 31, 1571. It was not long before his arbitrary and scandalous conduct aroused indignation, but those who dared to complain were made to suffer. Secret information, however, was conveyed to the Suprema and the viceroy, the Count del Villar, was unreserved in his communications to the king, representing that Ulloa kept spies in the viceregal palace, who carried off papers and documents and that he had indirectly farmed the quicksilver mines of Guancavelica, making large sums to the detriment of the royal interests. A cleric named Gaspar Zapata de Mendoza, as representative of the clergy of Peru, after several vain attempts, managed to escape to Brazil; he was captured by the French and carried to Dieppe, whence he made his way to Spain, but it was not until 1592 that he was able to present in Toledo a memorial to Inquisitor-general Quiroga in which the conduct of Ulloa was set forth in detail. His promiscuous amours with maids and married women were notorious; he publicly kept as a concubine Catalina Morejon, a married woman, who used her influence to dictate appointments and modify sentences until, after repeated efforts, Villar succeeded in banishing her. On one occasion a husband found him in bed with his wife; Ulloa threatened him as inquisitor and he slunk away; another husband was less timid, he killed the wife and chased the adulterer through the streets. He was in the habit of walking the streets at night dressed as a cavalier, brawling and fighting, and on one Holy Thursday he supped with a number of strumpets. He and the Dominican Provincial, Fray Francisco de Valderrama, each had as mistress a relative of the other; when the three years of the provincialate ended, Valderrama aspired to be prior of the Lima convent, but the new Provincial, Agustin Montes, refused to appoint him because he was a bastard, whereupon Ulloa went to the convent, thrust a dagger to the provincial’s breast and swore he would kill him, when Montes yielded. He was involved in perpetual contests with the judges and royal officials, whom he treated without ceremony or justice, interfering with their functions, of which a number of cases were given which, if not exaggerated, show that the land was at the mercy of the inquisitorial officials, who murdered, robbed and took women at their pleasure, and any who complained were fined or kept chained in prison. The limitations of the fuero enjoyed by the ministers of the Holy Office were disregarded and no one could obtain justice against them.[634]
Before this black catalogue of crime reached the Suprema, the complaints had shown that some interference was necessary, and it had sent as visitador Juan Ruiz de Prado, who reached Lima February 11, 1587. He had full authority to prosecute any members of the tribunal and to send them with the evidence to Spain for judgement, but those who anticipated relief were disappointed. As Villar writes, he took up his residence with Ulloa, and his officials were lodged with those of the tribunal, who made much of them. He made no secret that he came to take care of Ulloa’s honor, so that all complainants were frightened off. Villar had his special grievances which show how impossible was efficient government, when a power existed within the state superior to the state itself. News was received that two ships had sailed from England for the Pacific; two Englishmen, John Drake, cousin of the famous Sir Francis, and Richard Farrel, who had been wrecked in the River Plate, had been sent to the Inquisition, as was the fashion with heretic prisoners; the viceroy desired to examine them to learn, if possible, something about the threatened corsairs and he asked the inquisitors to send the men to him or, if that was not possible, to allow one of his officers to examine them, or again, if that was impossible, to examine them themselves and communicate to him what they could learn; Ulloa was willing but Prado refused, saying that he would communicate with the Suprema who could inform the king, thus postponing for a year the information wanted at the moment. Then there came an alarm about some English ships on the coast, and Villar ordered all who were liable to military service to be in readiness to defend Callao. Ulloa and Prado assumed that their officials and familiars would fulfil their duty by guarding the buildings of the Inquisition, and gave instructions not to obey the viceroy’s orders, who vainly pointed out to them that, in defending the city, their men would be defending the Inquisition. At the auto of 1587 they virtually took possession of the city, treated the viceroy as a private person subject to their orders, and grossly humiliated him, to all of which he submitted for the sake of peace. They meddled in everything, and with their unlimited power of excommunication and fines, no one dared to resist them. They summoned his secretaries before them and forced them to reveal everything, even of the most confidential character, and to produce official papers, of which they retained copies. They appointed royal officials as familiars, thus releasing them from all responsibility to the viceroy, to the courts and to their superiors. Villar declared himself helpless to remedy all this unless the king would interfere.[635]