Two years after the intrigue intended to ruin the Prince of Peace, another event which took place at Alicant ought to have been sufficient to cause the tribunal to be reformed, or even suppressed. On the death of Don Leonard Stuck, Consul for the Batavian Republic in that city, his executor, the Vice-Consul of France, put his seals upon the property of the deceased, until the formalities of the law had been fulfilled. The commissary of the Inquisition desired the governor of the town to take off the seals and give him the keys of the house, that he might register the books and prints, as some of them were prohibited. The governor demanded time, in order to consult his majesty's minister. The commissary, who was disconcerted at this delay, went in the night with his alguazils, broke the seals, opened the door, and made the inventory; and when he had done, replaced the seals as well as he could, and went away. The ambassador of the Batavian Republic complained to the government of this violation of the law of nations, and the king wrote to the inquisitor-general, through his minister Urquijo, informing him, that the Inquisition must avoid similar infringements for the future, and bounding its office to the care of observing that, on the death of foreign ministers, no prohibited books were sold to Spaniards or naturalized foreigners. Nearly the same thing happened to the French consul at Barcelona.
It may have been seen in the preceding chapters, that the Inquisition has been several times in danger of being suppressed, or subjected to the general forms of law. These occasions were more frequent during the reign of Charles IV.
The Counts d'Aranda, de Florida-Blanca, and Campomanes, and the extraordinary council, represented the continual abuses committed by the holy office to Charles III., but he contented himself with passing some ordinances to curtail its power.
In 1794, Don Manuel Abad-y-la-Sierra, inquisitor-general under Charles IV., wished to reform the procedure of the tribunal, and commanded me to compose a work, entitled, A Discourse on the Procedure of the Holy Office, in which I represented the vices of the actual practice, and the means of obviating them, even though the proceedings for heresy should still continue to be secret. But, by various intrigues, an order was obtained from Charles IV., which forced the inquisitor-general to quit Madrid, and resign his office.
Another attempt was made, when the Prince of Peace discovered the plot against him; the royal decree for the suppression was drawn up, but never presented for the signature of the king, because Godoy was the dupe of counter-intrigue. In the following year, Jovellanos wished to make use of the work I had composed for Don Manuel Abad-y-la-Sierra, of which I had given him a copy, but he failed in his design; and Charles IV., who was ill-informed, and deceived by intriguers, commanded that minister to retire to his house at Gijon in the Asturias. The attempt of Urquijo has been already mentioned.
In 1808, Napoleon Buonaparte decreed the suppression of the Inquisition, at Chamastin, near Madrid; he alleged that the tribunal was an encroachment on the royal authority.
In 1813, the Cortes-general of the kingdom adopted the same measures, after declaring that the existence of the privileged tribunal of the holy office was incompatible with the political constitution which had been decreed, published, and received by the nation.
In spite of these two last suppressions, the tribunal still exists; because the greatest number of the men who surround the throne have been and will always be the partisans of ignorance, of the ultra-montane opinions, and of those which influenced the world before the invention of printing. These opinions are strenuously supported by the Jesuits, who have been recently recalled to Spain by Ferdinand VII.
CHAPTER XLIV.
OF THE INQUISITION DURING THE REIGN OF FERDINAND VII.
CHARLES IV. abdicated the crown in favour of his eldest son, Ferdinand, who began to reign on the same day, before any public act had proved the validity of the abdication. The royal and supreme Council of Castile considered it necessary to observe the national custom on this occasion, and commissioned the royal fiscals to examine into the validity of the abdication, that the people might be informed that they were released from their oath of allegiance to Charles. But a strict order was immediately sent to the council to renounce the measure, to proclaim the validity of the abdication, and acknowledge Ferdinand as king. Charles protested against his abdication; he said that it was not voluntary, since he had only done it to save his own life and that of the queen, in the sedition at Aranjuez. Ferdinand paid no attention to this protestation; the emperor Napoleon took advantage of the event, and the Bourbons ceased to reign in Spain. While Charles IV. was at Marseilles, and Ferdinand at Valencé, Joseph Napoleon, King of Naples, was proclaimed King of Spain; Ferdinand wrote to Joseph to congratulate him, and request his friendship, and commanded all Spaniards to recognise him, to prevent the ruin and desolation of their country.