When Joseph was acknowledged King of Spain, the archives of the Supreme Council and of the Inquisition of the Court were confided to me, in consequence of an order from his majesty. With his approbation, I burnt all the criminal processes, except those which belonged to history, from their importance, and the rank of the accused; but I preserved all the registers of the resolutions of the council, the royal ordinances, the papal bulls and briefs, the papers of the affairs of the tribunal, and all the informations taken concerning the genealogies of the persons employed in the holy office, on account of their utility in proving relationship in trials when it is necessary.
I have read in a work, intituled Acta Latomorum, that in the month of October, 1809, a grand national lodge of Spanish freemasons was founded even in the buildings of the Inquisition of Madrid. This assertion I consider entirely false, because at that time the keys of the building were in the possession of a subaltern under my orders, who would never have consented to give them up for such a purpose. I presume that the authors of this article wished to astonish, by the striking contrast between the different destinations of the same edifice.
My acquaintance with the archives already mentioned enabled me to compose for the Royal Academy of History (of which I have the honour to be a member), a dissertation, under the title of A Memorial, in which the Opinion of the Spaniards concerning the Inquisition is examined. The Academy published my work.
The above-mentioned materials, some others which I had collected since the year 1789, and some which were sent to me from Valladolid and other towns, enabled me to publish, in 1812 and 1813, two volumes of the Annals of the Inquisition, which comprehended all the events which passed in the tribunals from 1477 to 1530. I was not able to finish that work, being obliged to repair to France in 1813.
On the 22d of February, in the same year, the Spanish assembly at Cadiz, which styled itself the General Cortes, suppressed the Inquisition, restoring to the bishops and secular judges their jurisdictions, that they might prosecute heretics in the same manner as before the existence of the Inquisition.
This measure was the cause of long discussions in the tribune, and many orators pronounced speeches of great eloquence. The liberty of the press which then existed allowed many works to be published both for and against the holy office. Its partisans neglected nothing in its defence; in short, all that could possibly be advanced in favour of such a tribunal as the Inquisition, was published at Cadiz during this celebrated discussion. But reason prevailed; not because the majority of the voters were irreligious persons, or Jacobins (as it has since been unjustly said), but because the Cortes found an irresistible strength in the reasoning which condemned a tribunal which had been so fatal to the prosperity of the nation for three centuries. The representatives of Spain received an infinite number of letters and addresses, returning thanks for the benefit bestowed on the nation: several of these letters were signed by persons employed in the Inquisition. I have the satisfaction to be able to declare, that this triumph of reason and humanity was principally owing to the documents which I furnished, and which became known to the public in 1812, by means of the Memorial on the Opinion of the Spaniards concerning the Inquisition, and the first volume of the Annals of the Inquisition. This is proved by the manifesto addressed by the Cortes to the Spanish people; in which the representatives say, that they had seen the apostolical bulls addressed to the Inquisition, and the complaints and appeals of the prisoners: these details could only have been obtained from the works above mentioned, but they were not cited, because I was then a counsellor of state to King Joseph.
These measures of the Cortes were however useless. Buonaparte restored the crown of Spain to Ferdinand, by a treaty at Valencé, in 1813, and in March, 1814, the king re-entered Spain; on his arrival at Valencia, he was immediately surrounded by persons imbued with the Gothic prejudices of the age of chivalry, and one of the first measures of his administration was the re-establishment of the holy office, on the 21st of July, 1814.
In the preamble to the royal decree, Ferdinand informed the people, that the object of the restoration of the Inquisition was to repair the evil caused to the religion of the state by the foreign troops, who were not Catholics; to forestall that which might be caused hereafter by the heretical opinions imbibed by a great number of Spaniards, and to preserve the tranquillity of the kingdom; that this measure was desired by learned and virtuous prelates, and by different bodies and corporations, who reminded him that, in the sixteenth century, Spain had preserved herself from the contagion of heresy, and the errors which desolated other countries; while the arts and sciences flourished under many men, who were famed for their learning and sanctity; that this happy influence of the Inquisition, was the reason why Buonaparte had destroyed the tribunal, and that the same resolution was afterwards adopted by the junta, falsely calling itself the General Cortes of the kingdom, on the pretence that the Inquisition was opposed to the constitution of Cadiz, and that it was only decreed in the midst of tumults, and against the wishes of the nation. The decree also declares, that as it had been found necessary to frame new laws, to correct certain abuses and to limit privileges, it was his majesty's intention that they should be observed, and to appoint two members of the Council of Castile, and two of that of the holy office, to propose the necessary reforms and alterations in the mode of procedure concerning personal affairs, and the prohibition of books.
It appears that these commissioners were, Don Manuel de Lardizabal Uribe and Don Sebastian de Torres, of the Council of Castile; Don Joseph Armarilla, and Don Antonio Galarza, counsellors of the Inquisition. These persons might have proposed a reform, which would have remedied several evils, or entirely destroyed them. I do not know what these commissioners have yet done to justify the confidence placed in them, but it is certain that hitherto no reform has been made public.
On the 5th of May, 1815, Don Francis Xavier de Mier y Campillo, the inquisitor-general, published an edict, commanding all those who felt themselves guilty, to denounce themselves before the end of the year, and announcing that Spain was infected by the new and dangerous doctrines which had ruined the greatest part of Europe. The inquisitor-general condemned the new and dangerous doctrines which followed the entrance of the French army, and did not mention the systems which were propagated and put in practice by the Spanish partisans for the war, though they really came under his jurisdiction, because they were formerly opposed to the letter and spirit of the Gospel. This circumstance induces me to lay it before my readers, in order to prove that the re-established Inquisition differs little from that which was suppressed, since, if the latter allowed works inculcating regicide to be circulated, and condemned books which supported the royal authority, the former began by condemning the doctrine which taught us, that men were not slaves or animals to be bought and sold, and at the same time allowed such maxims as the following to be acted upon:—