This the governor transmitted to the tribunal with the assurance of his deep regret and a request for a statement of its other receipts, in order that an accurate balance could be reached. Valera met this last demand by procuring from the receiver and his predecessor sworn statements that nothing had been received from confiscations, fines and penances, the truth of which may be doubted in view of the receiver’s previous complaint as to the use made of the sums in litigation with creditors of confiscated penitents—but he added that, if there had been receipts from these sources, they were especially appropriated to the secret and necessary expenses of the Inquisition, which was a manifest falsehood. Moreover, as the tribunal was a creditor of the treasury, and it appeared that there were no funds applicable to the discharge of the debt, it had a right to have a detailed statement of receipts and expenditures, to lay before the king, with a request for relief. What reply the governor made to this impudent demand, we have no means of knowing, but we may assume that the tribunal fared no better in the future. It had appealed, October 1, 1683, to the Suprema, setting forth its deplorable condition; as it was forbidden to use pressure, it was at the mercy of the officials and it asked that the treasurers of Santa Fe and Quito be instructed to remit directly to its receiver. For some reason this appeal was not considered by the Suprema until April 10, 1685, and then it was simply ordered to be filed away with the other papers.[837]
We may reasonably assume that much of the distress, thus movingly represented, was fictitious, to parry the demands of the Suprema for the contributions which it was accustomed to exact. Notwithstanding the recalcitrancy of the royal officials, the tribunal by diligent siege managed to extract an occasional payment and, though it unquestionably suffered heavily at the capture of Cartagena, in 1697, what with the prebends and the occasional fortunate capture of a wealthy penitent, it would seem not to have suffered from the lack of means. At least so the Suprema thought when, in a letter of June 15, 1705, it ordered the tribunal to be prompt in remitting the contribution demanded of it. Thus spurred, on February 27, 1706, it sent 6000 pesos, which it stated it had been obliged to borrow, as it had no resources save to pledge repayment out of the first moneys it should receive, and it expected to do this out of the estate of Don Juan de Zavaleta, the settlement of which was hourly expected. It went on to give a dolorous account of its condition. The capture of the city had left it in a miserable state—all the money in its coffers was taken and all its buildings and houses were damaged. Its chief means of support, it says, is the royal subvention, but for six years it had failed to receive any important assistance from this; arrearages due amount to more than 140,000 pesos and its applications to the treasury are met with enmity and ill-will. The suppressed canonries produce less than 5000 pesos a year; as for the houses, they have declined greatly in value; for more than ten years the galleons have ceased to visit the port and commerce has so decreased that the houses are generally untenanted and repairs consume most of the rentals received.[838]
In this sombre description there is doubtless a large element of truth. The kingdom of New Granada, though less than two centuries old, was already decaying and the Inquisition necessarily suffered with the rest of the community. Its poverty became so pressing that, in 1739, the houses held by it were sold on ground-rents. To add to its misfortunes, as we have seen, in 1741, during the bombardment by Admiral Vernon, a bomb dismantled the Inquisition so that it had to be torn down and it was not rebuilt until 1766. Still the tribunal managed to exist and when, in 1811, it was expelled from Cartagena, it had 4000 pesos in its coffer.[839]
When came the Revolution the Inquisition evidently had lost all claim on the respect of the people and was one of the early objects against which popular detestation was directed, rendering its career in those turbulent times different from that of its sister tribunals. Before Hidalgo raised the banner of revolt, in September, 1810, already in July insurrection had broken out in Santa Fe and, on August 13th, a revolutionary Junta was established in Cartagena, although complete independence of the Spanish crown was not yet contemplated. Matters remained for a year in this uncertain condition, during which the tribunal sought to ingratiate itself with the rising forces of Revolution by acquitting and discharging a patriotic priest, Juan A. Estévez sent to it by the Santa Fe Government to be imprisoned and punished for a sermon characterized as seditious; and it furthermore dismissed its commissioner, Doctor Lasso, who had started the prosecution—a service warmly recognized by the Supreme Junta in a manifesto of September 25, 1810.[840]
As in Spain, the Liberals were careful to proclaim their adhesion to the principle of intolerance. The Constitution of Cádiz in 1812 declared that the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman faith was the religion of the State and that no other worship, public or private, would be permitted, while the Articles of Federation of the Provinces of New Granada enumerated among their duties that of maintaining the Catholic religion in its purity and integrity.[841] Yet when the Revolution culminated for the time in Cartagena, November 11, 1811, by an armed rising of the people, one of the demands made on the Junta was that the Inquisition be suppressed and the inquisitors be handed their passports. The Junta was prompt in executing the popular wishes. The same day it issued a decree that all who did not favor independence should leave the country within eight days, and it summoned the various corporations to come forward and take the oath of independence.[842] The next day, notice was sent to the tribunal that its existence was incompatible with the new order of affairs, and that the inquisitors, with such officials as desired to follow them, must sail for Spain within fifteen days, while those who remained must forthwith take the oath; all papers were to be transferred to the bishops of the dioceses to which they referred and the property was to be made over to the public treasury. To this the inquisitors replied, on the following day, that the decision had been extorted by an armed mob and, as soon as popular agitation should subside, they expected to resume the august functions confided to them by Divine Providence. Insistence, however, brought compliance and, on November 28th, they announced their readiness to go, though not to Spain; the authorities took possession of all their property and the papers connected therewith, but it was not until December 17th that their passports were sent, and further delays postponed their departure until January 1, 1812, when they sailed for Santa Marta. There they erected their tribunal and remained for about a year, when the occupation of the place by the revolutionary forces caused their transfer to Puertobelo. When Santa Marta was regained by the royalists they returned there and soon afterwards they received news of the suppression of the Inquisition by the Córtes of Cádiz in February, 1813. This rendered their condition more precarious than ever. In a report of July 8, 1815, they state that on their ejection from Cartagena, they notified the various chapters to preserve the fruits of their prebends for them; those of Santiago de Cuba, Havana and Panamá came regularly, but were paid into the royal treasury; those of Puertobelo and Santo Domingo were held back through fear of pirates; that of Caracas by the revolution, so that they were in arrears of their salaries by five tercios and had been living on borrowed money.[843] If their salaries were but twenty months in arrears, in July, 1815, it indicates that the previous complaints of poverty had been exaggerated and it suggests that, in spite of the seizure of property, they had succeeded in carrying from Cartagena a fair supply of funds.
The triumph of the Spanish War of Independence and the restoration of Fernando VII in the Spring of 1814 changed the face of affairs. The whole power of the monarchy could be directed to the subjugation of the revolted colonies and, in 1815, a heavy force was sent, under Don Pablo Morillo, to effect that of New Granada. Although the Inquisition had been revived in Spain by royal decree of July 21, 1814, it was not until March 31, 1815, that the joyful news reached Santa Marta, where the inquisitors celebrated it with a solemn mass and Te Deum and the announcement that they resumed their duties, although, to keep up the semblance of a tribunal, they had appointed as fiscal the alcaide of the secret prison and as secretary the alcaide of the penitential prison. Morillo reached Santa Marta on July 24th and on August 15th he advanced to reduce Cartagena, accompanied by the senior inquisitor, José Oderiz, whom he appointed as teniente vicario general of his army. After a siege of a hundred days, in which the inhabitants were almost destroyed by famine and pestilence, Cartagena fell on December 6th and Oderiz at once took measures to seize prohibited books and resume his authority. The other inquisitor, Prudencio de Castro, deferred the transfer of the tribunal until May, 1816, awaiting the restoration of sanitary conditions in the unhappy city, and it could not fully commence operations until January 21, 1817, the date at which the two secretaries, who had remained behind, were reinstated in office, after undergoing the process of “purification,” to remove all taint of liberalism. Morillo himself had accepted the position of honorary alguazil.[844]
On April 29, 1818, there was a solemn publication of the Edict of Faith and of the Edict of Grace of the Suprema for heresies occasioned by the war. This was followed in the afternoon by a procession through the streets carrying the banner of the Inquisition; the standard-bearer was Colonel Jiminez, accompanied by the principal officers of the army, to whom the ceremonial was a farce, for we are told that they were nearly all Free-Masons.[845] It was not until near the end of the year, however, that the organization of the tribunal was completed, by the arrival of the new fiscal, José Antonio de Aguirrezabal. Although thus ready for business, it had little to do, in the disturbed condition of the land, and it was in no condition to render active service. As it reported, September 25, 1819, it was suffering acutely from poverty, without means to repair its building which threatened ruin; it was unable to imprison offenders because they could not be fed; the salaries were unpaid and the officials had no means of livelihood, for there were no charitable hands to solace their misery. In fact, its last case was that of Don Rafael Barragan of Santa Fe, for propositions. His accusation dated back to 1813; after infinite trouble he was thrown into the secret prison and, in September, 1818, his sentence was read in the audience chamber with closed doors; he abjured de levi and was absolved ad cautelam.[846]
The Revolution of 1820 in Spain revived the energies of the patriots who felt that they had little to fear from further efforts of subjugation. The suppression of the Inquisition by the royal decree of March 9, 1820, seems to have attracted little attention in New Granada and, if the tribunal continued to exist, it must have disappeared when Cartagena was captured by the revolutionists in October, 1821. Still, on September 3d of that year the Vice-president of the United States of Colombia, Doctor José María Castillo, deemed it necessary to issue a decree declaring the Inquisition abolished. No traces of it should be allowed to exist and therefore the authorities of Cundinamarca were ordered not to permit the commissioner in Santa Fe to exercise his office. In future no inquisitorial edicts should be published, no books should be suppressed except by the Government and no ecclesiastical authority should supervise their importation. As the commissioner at Santa Fe, Doctor Santiago Torres, had previously died in exile, the zeal of the vice-president was somewhat superfluous except in so far as the edict deprived the bishops of censorship.[847]
Shortly after this the Congress of the United States of Colombia adopted a law declaring the Inquisition extinguished forever and never to be re-established. All its properties were appropriated to the State. The bishops were restored to their ancient jurisdiction over matters of faith, but appeal from their decisions lay to the civil courts. This however applied exclusively to Catholics. Foreigners of other faiths were assured against molestation on account of religion, so long as they observed due respect to the national one, and finally the civil power assumed to regulate the external discipline of the Church, such as the prohibition of books and similar matters.[848] As the United States of Colombia then embraced the whole of the Spanish South American possessions, north of Peru, these liberal principles were effective over a wide expanse of territory and, when the victory of Ayacucho, December 10, 1824, finally destroyed the Spanish power in Peru and liberated the colonies, the last chance disappeared that the reactionary government of Spain might attempt to revive the Inquisition.
Many causes contributed to the decay of the Spanish colonies, but among them not the least was the impossibility of settled and orderly administration occasioned by the multiplicity of rival jurisdictions, inherited from the medieval conceptions of the relations of Church and State. There were the military represented by the viceroy, and the civil by the Audiencia; the spiritual, exercised by the bishops over the secular clergy; the numerous Regular Orders, exempt from the bishops and subjected each to its own provincial; the Cruzada, whose numerous officials owed obedience only to the Commissioner General or his representative, and finally the Inquisition which claimed supremacy over all, in a sphere of action the limits of which it defined practically at its pleasure. Of these the most disturbing element was the Inquisition, armed with the irresistible weapon of excommunication, by which it could paralyze its antagonists at will, and the arbitrary power of arrest, which inspired general terror. We have seen what manner of men it was that Spain habitually sent to the colonies to wield this irresponsible authority, the use which they made of it and, when their abuse of it became unbearable, how they were rewarded by transfer to better tribunals or to episcopal seats. The commissioners whom they distributed through the provinces aped their masters and carried oppression and discord to every corner of the land, while the ægis of protection was extended over every criminal who could claim any connection, however illusory or fraudulent, with the tribunals.