"A long and severe illness, which made him a cripple for life, withdrew the good vicar of Esco, from these active pursuits, and limited his employment to the perusal of the few books which his little library afforded. Providentially the Bible was one of them. Solano read the records of revelation, with a sincere desire to embrace religious truth as he found it there, and having gradually cleared and arranged his views, drew up a little system of divinity, which agreed in the main points with the fundamental tenets of the Protestant churches. His conviction of the Roman Catholic errors became so strong, that he determined to lay his book before the bishop of the diocess, asking his pastoral help and advice upon that most important subject. An answer to his arguments was promised; but despairing, after a lapse of time, to obtain it, Solano applied to the faculty of divinity of the University of Saragossa. The reverend doctors sent the book to the Inquisition, and the infirm vicar of Esco was lodged in the prisons of the holy tribunal of Saragossa in 1802. It seems that some humane persons contrived his escape soon after, and conveyed him to Oleron, the nearest French town. But Solano, having taken time to consider his case, came to the heroic resolution of asserting the truth in the very face of death; and returned of his own accord to the Inquisitorial prisons."
The Inquisitor-general at that time was Arce, archbishop of Santiago, an intimate friend of the Prince of Peace, and one strongly suspected of secret infidelity. When the sentence of the Arragonese tribunal, condemning Solano to die by fire, was presented to the supreme court for confirmation, Arce, shocked at the idea of an auto-da-fé, contrived every method to delay the execution. A fresh examination of witnesses was ordered, during which time the Inquisitors entreated Solano to avert his now imminent danger. Nothing, however, could move him. He said, he well knew the death that awaited him, but no human fear would ever make him swerve from the truth. The first sentence being confirmed, nothing remained but the exequatur of the supreme council. Arce, however, suspended it, and ordered an inquiry into the mental sanity of the prisoner. As nothing appeared to support this plea, Solano would have died at the stake, had not Providence snatched him from the hands of the papal defenders of the faith. A dangerous illness seized him in the prison, where he had lingered three years. The efforts to convert him were on this occasion renewed with increased ardour.
"The Inquisitors," says Llorente, "gave it in charge to the most able divines of Saragossa to reclaim Solano, and even requested Don Miguel Suarez de Santander, auxiliary bishop of that town, and apostolic missionary, (now, like myself, a refugee in France,) to exhort him, with all the tenderness and goodness of a Christian minister, which are so natural to that worthy prelate. The vicar showed a grateful sense of all that was done for him; but declared that he could not renounce his religious persuasion without offending God, by acting treacherously against the truth. On the twenty-first day of his illness, the physician warned him of approaching death, urging him to improve the short time which he had to live. 'I am in the hands of God,' answered Solano, 'and have nothing else to do.' Thus died, in 1805, the vicar of Esco. He was denied Christian burial, and his body privately interred within the inclosure of the Inquisition, near the back gate of the building, towards the Ebro. The Inquisitors reported all that had taken place to the supreme tribunal, whose members approved their conduct, and stopt all further proceedings, in order to avoid the necessity of burning the deceased in effigy."
We shall close this chapter with the following able and just remarks of Puigblanch, on the iniquitous procedure of the holy office. "The Inquisition," says that elegant writer, "in its relations as a tribunal, as well as in the laws by which it is governed, tramples to the ground the rights of the citizen, by violating in substance and in manner, the common rules and principles of justice. A code suggested and framed by fanaticism and error—a want of learning almost general, among the individuals of whom it is composed, accompanied by an omnigenous faculty of committing irregularities—together with the tyrannical oppression with which the innocent man is therein treated, when merely indicted for heresy, are all deducible from the premises established, and come in as incontrovertible arguments to prove the truth of my assertion. Busied rather in forming unhappy victims, than in extirpating crimes, this institution has spared no pains, however contrary to reason, and even to religion, as long as it was able to flatter its pride, and feed its ferocity. Secret accusation and calumny encouraged without any regard to friendship or domestic piety; the name of the Supreme Being invoked with the greatest rashness, in order to wring from the culprit a confession, which must necessarily carry him to the scaffold; mean cavils, perfidious incitements, and even gross falsehood, employed for the same purpose, and with the same iniquity—have all entered into the complicated system of the Inquisition, and constituted its chief essence and delight. Impervious prisons, secured with double bolts, and secluded from all communication; refined and overwhelming torments authorized, and even administered with unheard of cruelty, by judges, who call themselves the ministers of the God of peace: citizens, who had already paid the debt of nature, insulted in their memory, and their mouldering remnants of mortality dug out to public scorn; whole generations condemned to mendicity and infamy, even before they had commenced their existence; blazing piles of faggots, enkindled by the breath of implacable vengeance, hidden under the parade of charity—such have been the component parts which have formed the plan, and such the deeds of this formidable and bloody tribunal. And can that government be called just and beneficent, which suffers the Inquisition to rankle in its bosom?"
FOOTNOTES:
[24] The following is an extract from this interesting paper.
"What is it that princes wait for, in order to prove that the religion of Jesus Christ is not indifferent to them, by promoting a salutary reform? We have been forbidden to speak the truth; the edifice raised by the apostles has been destroyed; the word of God is belied; the majesty of his precepts is diminished; the fruit of the cross, as far as regards the popes, rendered useless; great and unimaginable abuses have been introduced; and, in short, all the divine and human rights have been confounded. Who therefore can be so great an enemy to the name of Christ, as to behold all this, and still remain silent? Or who would not wish, since he is unable to remedy it, rather to die, than be held as an accomplice in so much iniquity? With regard to myself, I can assert, that I shall never regret having undertaken the defence of the gospel, whatever may be the danger to which I am thereby exposed. Here thou hast me: oh! executioner, tie my hands, cover my head, discharge thy axe on my neck, since I voluntarily offer myself to the anger of the popes, as well as to the torments they may seek to inflict upon me. And if with my death they are not satiated, and should wish to see my entrails torn to pieces, and converted into ashes, here thou hast me; oh! executioner, approach I will endure all."
[25] The trial is given in full by Llorente, from which the above is taken.