no other coach but that of the Inquisition is abroad at that time of night; nay, they are so much afraid, that they dare not even to ask, the next morning, their neighbours any thing about it, for those who talk of any thing the Inquisition doeth, are liable to undergo the same punishment, and this, may be, the night following: so if the accused be the daughter, son, or father, &c. and some friends or relations go in the morning to see that family, and ask the occasion of their tears and grief, they answer, their daughter was stolen away the night before; or, that the son, father, or mother, (whoever the prisoner may be) did not come home the night before, and that they suspect that he (or she) was murdered, &c. This answer they give because they dare not tell the truth without exposing themselves to the same misfortune; and not only this, but they cannot go to the Inquisition to inquire for the prisoner, for they would be confined for that alone;

so all the comfort the family can have in such a case, is, to imagine that the prisoner is in China, or in the remotest part of the world, or in hell, wherein nullus ordo sed sempiternus horror inhabitat. This is the reason why nobody knows the persons who are in the Inquisition, till the sentence is published, and executed, except those priests and friars summoned to hear the trial.

The qualificators and familiars which are in the city and country, upon necessity have full power to secure any person suspected, with the same secrecy, and commit him to the nearest commissary of the holy office of the Inquisition, and he is to take care to send him safely to the prison, which is all done by night, and without any fear that the people should deliver the prisoner, nay, or even talk of it.

QUALIFICATORS.

Are those, that by order from the inquisitors, examine the crimes committed by the prisoners against the roman catholic faith, and do give their opinions or censures about it. They are obliged to secrecy as well as other people; but, as the number of them is great, the inquisitors make use of ten or twelve of the most learned that are in the city, in difficult cases; but this is only a formality, for their opinions and censures are not attended to, the inquisitors themselves being the absolute decisive judges. The distinguishing mark of a qualificator is the cross of the holy office, which is a medal of pure gold as big as a thirteen with a cross in the middle, half white and half black, which they wear before their breasts; but, in public functions or processions the priests and friars wear another larger cross of em

broidery on their cloaks or habits. To be a qualificator is a great honor to his whole family and relations, for this is a public testimony of the old christianity and pure blood (as they call it) of the family. Jay

No nobleman covets the honor of being a qualificator, for they are ambitious of the cross of St. James of Alcantara, of Calatrava, of Malta and of the Golden fleece, which are all the five orders for the nobility, so the honor of a qualifi- · cator is for those, who (though their families being not well known) are desirous to boast of their antiquity and christianism, though, to obtain such honor, they pay a great sum of money; for, in the first place, he that desireth to be a qualificator, is to appear before the holy tribunal, to make the public confession of the catholic faith, and to acknowledge the holy tribunal for the supreme of all others, and the inquisitors for his own judges. This is the first step; after,

he is to lay down, on the table, the certificate of his baptism, and the names of his parents for four generations, the towns and places of their former habita. tions, and 200 pistoles for the expences in taking informations. This done, he goes home till the inquisitors send for him, and, if they do not send for him in six months time, he loseth the money, and all hopes of ever getting the cross of qualificator; and this happens very often, for the reasons I shall give bye and bye.

The inquisitors send their commissaries into all the places of the new proponants' ancestors, where they may get some account of their lives and conversations, and of the purity of their blood, and that they never were mixt with jewish families, nor heretics, and that they were old christians. These examinations are performed in the most rigorous and severe manner that can be; for, if any of the informers and witnesses are in a falsity, they are put into the Inqui