The inquisitors of Valencia prosecuted Fray Augustine Cabades, commander of the convent of the nuns of the order of Mercy, and professor of theology in that city; he abjured, and was then released from prison. When he had obtained his liberty, he demanded a revision of his judgment; the Supreme Council acknowledged the justice of his appeal, and the sentence was declared null and void.
Don Mariano Louis de Urquijo, prime-minister and secretary of state under Charles IV., was also an object for the persecutions of the holy office. His great strength of mind, and a careful education, raised him above the errors of his age. He made himself known in his early youth by a translation of the Death of Cæsar, a tragedy by Voltaire, which he published with a preliminary Essay on the Origin of the Spanish Theatre, and its Influence on Morals. This production, which only displays a generous wish to acquire fame, and the ardent genius of its young author, attracted the attention of the Inquisition. Private informations were taken concerning the religious opinions of the Chevalier de Urquijo, and the tribunal ascertained that he manifested great independence in his opinions, with a decided taste for philosophy, which the Inquisition called the doctrine of unbelievers. Everything consequently was prepared for his arrest, when the Count d'Aranda, then prime-minister, who discovered his merit (and had remarked his name in the list of distinguished youths destined to serve the state, belonging to the Count de Florida-Blanca his predecessor,) proposed to the king that he should be initiated into public affairs. Charles IV. appointed him to the office of first secretary of state in 1792.
The inquisitors changed their manner of proceeding when they saw the elevation of their intended victim. Their policy at this time led them to shew a deference towards the ministry which had not been observed in preceding ages. They converted the decree of imprisonment into another called the audience of charges, by which de Urquijo was required to appear privately before the Inquisition of the court whenever he was summoned. The sentence pronounced him to be only slightly suspected of partaking the errors of the unbelieving philosophers. He was absolved ad cautelam, and some spiritual penances were imposed on him which he might perform in private. The tribunal exacted his consent to the prohibition of his preliminary essay and the tragedy; but as a remarkable testimony of consideration, his name was not mentioned in the edict, either as the author or translator. The inquisitors, even of modern times, have rarely shewn themselves so moderate; but the fear of offending the Count d'Aranda (who abhorred the tribunal) was the real motive of their conduct.
Urquijo, at the age of thirty, became prime-minister, and in that quality exerted himself to extirpate abuses, and to destroy the errors which opposed the prosperity of his party and the progress of knowledge. He encouraged industry and the arts, and the public owes to him the immortal work of the Baron de Humboldt. Contrary to the custom of Spain, he allowed him to travel in America, and supported him with the zeal of a person passionately attached to the arts and sciences. With the assistance of his friend Admiral Mazarredo he raised the navy. He was the first in Europe who meditated the abolition of slavery; and at that time concluded a treaty with the Emperor of Morocco for the exchange of prisoners of war, which is still in force. In the year 1800, when fortune seemed everywhere to attend the French arms, and the government persecuted the august house of Bourbon, he had the glory of establishing a throne in Etruria for a prince of that family, who had married a daughter of Charles IV., and signed the treaty to that effect at St. Ildephonso with General Berthier, afterwards Prince of Wagram.
The death of Pius VI. gave him an opportunity of freeing Spain, to a certain degree, from its dependance on the Vatican. On the 5th September, 1799, he induced the king to sign a decree which restored to the bishops the powers which had been usurped by the Court of Rome, and delivered the people from an annual impost of several millions, produced by the sale of dispensations and other bulls and briefs.
The reform of the Inquisition ought to have followed this bold step. The minister wished to suppress the tribunal entirely, and apply its revenues to the establishment of useful and charitable institutions. He drew up the edict for that purpose, and presented it to Charles IV. for signature. Though Urquijo did not succeed in this attempt, he convinced the king of the necessity of reforming the tribunal.
Among the many wise regulations suggested to the king by Urquijo, was that published in the form of an ordinance in 1799, on the liberty and independence of all the books, papers and effects of the foreign consuls established in the sea-ports, and in the trading towns belonging to Spain. It was occasioned by an inconsiderate disturbance made by the commissioners of the holy office at Alicant, in the house of Don Leonard Stuck, consul for Holland, and at Barcelona, at the residence of the French consul.
Those happy dispositions of the Court of Spain vanished at the fall of the minister who had inspired them. The victim of an intrigue, he shared the fate of those great men who do not succeed in destroying the prejudices and errors which they oppose. Urquijo was confined, and kept in the strictest solitude, in the humid dungeons of the citadel of Pampluna, where he was unable to obtain books, ink, paper, fire, or light.
Ferdinand VII., on his accession to the throne, declared his treatment to have been unjust and arbitrary; and forgetting the persecutions he had suffered for eight years, he blessed, in Ferdinand, the sovereign who would make the necessary reforms, and had voluntarily put a period to his sufferings. He repaired to Vittoria, when that prince stopped there on his way to Bayonne, and used every means to prevent him from making that fatal journey. The letters he wrote on this subject to his friend, General Cuesta, contain an exact prophecy of all the miseries which have since overwhelmed Spain[78], and point out the means of avoiding them.
Urquijo refused to repair to Bayonne, although Napoleon sent him three orders to do so, until the renunciation and abdication of Charles IV., Ferdinand VII., and the princes of that house, had been made known. After the royal family had left the place, he went there, and endeavoured to persuade Napoleon to give up his plans.