reply, his counsel was entirely opposed to what many
hoped, and Ferdinand expected. Indignant as he declared himself to
be, at the abuses in religion, he yet put a strong and most decided
negative on the royal proposition, of utterly exterminating this
unlawful tribunal. With all his natural eloquence, and in most
forcible language, he declared that, if kept within proper bounds,
restrained by due authority, and its proceedings open to the
inspection of the Sovereign, and under him, the archbishops and other
dignitaries of the church, the Inquisition would be a most valuable
auxiliary to the well-doing and purifying of the most Catholic
kingdom. He produced argument after argument of most subtle reasoning,
to prove that every effort to abolish the office in Spain had been
entirely useless: it would exist, and if not publicly acknowledged,
would always be liable to abuse and desecration; that the only means
of exterminating its secret, and too arrogant power, was to permit its
public establishment, and so control it, that its measures should be
open to the present, and to every successive sovereign. He allowed the
necessity, the imperious necessity of rooting out the _secret_ office;
but he was convinced this could not be done, nor in fact would the
church allow it, unless it should be recognized in the face of all
Europe, as based on alike the civil and religious laws of Spain.

On Ferdinand the wily churchman worked, by proving that his royal
prerogative would be insured rather than injured by this proceeding;
that by publicly establishing the Inquisition, he proved his
resolution to control even this power, and render it a mere instrument
in his sovereign hand; that his contemplated conquest of the Moors
could not be better begun than by the recognition of a holy office,
whose glory it would be to bring all heathens to the purifying and
saving doctrines of the church of Rome. Ferdinand, though wary and
politic himself, was no match for Torquemada's Jesuitical eloquence;
he was won over to adopt the churchman's views with scarcely an effort
to resist them. With Isabella the task was much more difficult. He
appealed guardedly and gently to her tender regard for the spiritual
welfare of her people, sympathized with her in her indignant horror
of the crimes committed under religion's name, but persisted that the
evil of a secret Inquisition would never be remedied, save by the
measure he proposed. He pledged himself never