which he was not guilty; and the holy inquisitors, in their great mercy, would send him back to his dungeon, with a command to review his whole life; and there they would leave him for a year or two longer, to recollect, if he could, every word that he had spoken, and every per son to whom he had spoken, during the whole period of his conscious existence.

A man thus shut up in a dark and loathsome dungeon, without the society of a living creature, would very probably recollect some foolish thing that he had said to some person in the course of his life; and trusting in the boasted mercy of the holy tribunal, he would confess this the next time he was called to a hearing. This however would only furnish his tormentors with a pretext for teasing him with more ensnaring questions, not only with regard to himself, but also the persons with whom he had conversed upon any point of religion. These persons would be immured within the sacred walls before the next morning; and he himself would be sent back to his dungeon to consider of what other crimes he ought to accuse himself.

These reflections are not thrown out at random. They are supported by incontestable facts, as any person may see who will read the numerous relations in Limborch, and in Baker's History of the Inquisition. This last author, among a number of instances, relates at great length, the sufferings of one Isaac Martin, an English merchant in Malaga, who was confined in the Inquisition in 1714, and grievously tormented, upon suspicion of his being a Jew, and that upon no stronger evidence than that his name was Isaac, and that he had a son whom he had named Abraham. It was in vain that he protested that he was a Christian of the church of England, and that Abraham and Isaac were not Jews, but had lived hundreds of years before the designation of Jew was known in the world. The inquisitors would not believe his assertion either with regard to himself or the patriarchs. He was known to be guilty of the crime of being rich, of which he was effectually purged by the holy office, for this heresy yields to force sooner than any other; and then he was sent out of the country with a body dreadfully torn by scourging and other torments which he had endured.

But the unparalleled hypocrisy and impudence of the inquisitors appear chiefly in their professions of mercy for those whom they have devoted to the flames. It is pretended that the holy office puts no man to death. It merely, on finding persons obstinate heretics, delivers them over to the civil power, which in a popish country, must submit to be the church's hangman; and when men are so delivered over, it is with great affectation of pity and compassion on the part of the ghostly fathers, who beseech the magistrate, perhaps with tears in their eyes, as a crocodile is said to shed tears over the prey he is about to devour, to deal mercifully with the unhappy criminals, and to be sure not to hurt them; and this at the very time when the stake is fixed, the fuel prepared, and people assembled to witness their execution; and if any magistrate should so understand them as to comply with their request, the fire would soon be applied to himself as a favourer of heretics.

"Is there," says Dr. Geddes, in his View of the Court of Inquisition in Portugal, p. 446, "in all history, an instance of so gross and confident a mockery of God, and the world, as this of the inquisitors beseeching the civil magistrate, not to put the heretics they have condemned

and delivered to them, to death? For were they in earnest when they made this solemn petition to the secular magistrates, why do they bring their prisoners out of the Inquisition, and deliver them to those magistrates in coats painted over with flames? Why do they teach that heretics, above all other malefactors, ought to be punished with death? And why do they never resent the secular magistrates having so little regard to their earnest and joint petition as never to fail to burn all the heretics that are delivered to them by the Inquisition, within an hour or two after they have them in their hands? And why in Rome, where the supreme, civil, and ecclesiastical authority are lodged in the same person, is this petition of the Inquisition, which is made there as well as in other places, never granted?"-Thus far Dr. Geddes. And let me here add, that this hypocrisy and dissimulation is the more vile and execrable, in that the inquisitors are commanded by the bulls of several popes, to compel the secular magistrate, under penalty of excommunication and other ecclesiastical censures, within six days, readily to execute the sentences pronounced by the inquisitors against heretics, that is, to burn them. Limborch, vol. ii. p. 289.

On entering upon this subject, I said that popish writers traced the Inquisition to a period as ancient as that of the Mosaic dispensation. I have since received from a correspondent, an extract from a Spanish author, who maintains that the holy tribunal had its origin in paradise; but instead of ascribing it to its real author, who was a liar and a murderer from the beginning, this writer blasphemously represents the Creator himself as the first inquisitor, and Adam and Eve as the first who were brought before the holy tribunal. The words are "Dizen que Dios fue Inquisidor de Adam y Eva por haver comido el vedado fruto," &c. &c. That is, "It is said that God was inquisitor of Adam and Eve, for having eaten the forbidden fruit."

If there be any of my readers who wish to see more evidence of the bloody and murderous character of popery than I have given in my late numbers, I refer them to the narrative of the grand massacre in Paris, which is recorded in all our ecclesiastical histories and martyrologies. And here I take the opportunity of expressing my best thanks to a worthy correspondent in Ireland, for sending me an impression in wax, of a genuine medal which Pope Gregory XIII. ordered to be struck, in honourable commemoration of that, to him, joyful event. It is pretty generally known, that the pope was so delighted with the intelligence which he received from Paris on that occasion, that he ordered solemn thanksgiving to God to be offered up in all the churches. But that the memory of the thing might not be forgotten, he ordered to be struck a medal in silver, which has on one side, a well-defined profile of himself, and on the reverse, the figure of an angel, with a crucifix in one hand, and a drawn sword in the other, in the act of destroying a confused multitude of human creatures, who are represented as falling down before him. O, what a delightful picture this must be to all good Papists! and how they would rejoice if they had it in their power to do the thing over again! Some sentimental Protestants will cry out. against this as uncharitable, and they will insist upon it, that modern Papists are not so bloody-minded; then let modern Papists themselves say so. Let them condemn the bloody massacre of thousands of peaceable citizens; and let them condemn the fiendlike triumph and rejoicing VOL. II.-21

of the head of their church on the occasion, and then they may perhaps deserve credit for their professions of being more humane and less bloody-minded than their fathers were. But I know they will not, and that they dare not pronounce any such condemnation. They will not that the head of their church did wrong in rejoicing, and in calling the whole church to rejoice in that horrible massacre; and, therefore, I do them no wrong in maintaining, that they would practise the same thing if they had it in their power.

say

The Papists in France had another glorious opportunity of glutting themselves with the blood of Protestants, on the revocation of the edict of Nantz, by Lewis XIV. For particulars, I refer the reader to Jurieu's Pastoral Letters:-the Introduction to Quick's Synodicon:—and to a work in French, entitled, "Etat des Reformes en France:" printed at the Hague in 1685, during the very heat of the persecution. This work was lately sent me by a reverend gentleman from a remote part of the Highlands. It goes with much detail into the dreadful sufferings which Protestants were called to endure on that occasion. I do not know if there be an edition of it in English.

To come nearer home, I might fill a volume with a tragical account of the sufferings of Protestants in Ireland, in the great massacre and rebellion that commenced in 1641, in the reign of Charles I. "The rebellion," says Hume, "which had been upwards of fourteen years threatened in Ireland, and which had been repressed only by the vigour of the earl of Stafford's government, broke out at this time with incredible fury. On this fatal day, the Irish, every where intermingled with the English, needed but a hint from their leaders and priests to begin hostilities against a people whom they hated on account of their religion, and envied for their riches and prosperity. The houses, cattle, and goods of the unwary English were first seized. Those who heard of the commotions in their neighbourhood, instead of deserting their habitations, and assembling together for mutual protection, remained at home, in hopes of defending their property, and fell thus separately into the hands of their enemies. After rapacity had fully exerted itself, cruelty, and that the most barbarous that ever in any nation was known or heard of, began its operations. A universal massacre commenced of the English, (Protestants,) now defenceless, and passively resigned to their inhuman foes; no age, no sex, no condition, was spared. The wife weeping for her butchered husband, and embracing her helpless children, was pierced with them, and perished by the same stroke; the old, the young, the vigorous, the infirm, underwent the like fate, and were confounded in one common ruin. In vain did flight save from the first assault; destruction was every where let loose, and met the hunted victims at every turn. In vain was recourse had to relations, to companions, to friends; all connexions were dissolved, and death was dealt by that hand from which protection was implored and expected. Without provocation, without opposition, the astonished English, (Protestants,) being in profound peace and full security, were massacred by their nearest neighbours, with whom they had long upheld a continued intercourse of kindness and good offices. But death was the lightest punishment inflicted by those enraged rebels; all the tortures which wanton cruelty could devise, all the lingering pains of body, and anguish of mind, the agonies of despair, could not satiate revenge excited without

injury, and cruelty derived from no cause. To enter into particulars would shock the least delicate humanity; such enormities, thought attested by undoubted evidence, would appear almost incredible.

"The weaker sex themselves, naturally tender and compassionate, here emulated their more robust companions in the practice of every cruelty. Even children, taught by the example, and encouraged by the exhortations of their parents, essayed their feeble blows on the dead carcasses, or defenceless children of the English (Protestants.) The very avarice of the Irish was not a sufficient restraint to their cruelty; such was their frenzy, that the cattle which they had seized, and by rapine made their own, yet because they bore the name of English, were wantonly slaughtered, or when covered with wounds, turned loose into the woods and deserts.

"The stately buildings or commodious habitations of the planters, as if upbraiding the sloth and ignorance of the natives, were consumed with fire, or laid level with the ground; and where the miserable owners shut up their houses and prepared for defence, perished in the flames, together with their wives and children, a double triumph was afforded to their insulting foes. If any where a number assembled together, and assuming courage from despair, were resolved to sweeten death by revenge upon their assassins, they were disarmed by capitulations and promises of safety, confirmed by the most solemn oaths; then the rebels, (in the immutable spirit of popery,) with perfidy equal to their cruelty, made them share the fate of their unhappy countrymen. Others more ingenious still in their barbarity, tempted their prisoners with the fond hope of life, to imbrue their hands in the blood of their friends, brothers, and parents; and having thus rendered them accomplices in guilt, gave them that death which they sought to shun by deserving it.

"Amidst all these enormities, the sacred name of religion sounded on every side, not to stop the hands of these murderers, but to enforce their blows, and to steel their hearts against every movement of human or social sympathy. The English, as heretics abhorred of God, and detestable to all holy men, were marked out by the priests for slaughter; and of all actions, to rid the world of these declared enemies to Catholic faith and piety, was represented as the most meritorious in its nature, which, in that rude people, sufficiently inclined to atrocious deeds, was further stimulated by precepts and national prejudices, impoisoned by those aversions, more deadly and incurable, which arose from an enraged superstition. While death finished the sufferings of each victim, the bigoted assassins, with joy and exultation, still echoed in his expiring ears, that these agonies were but the commencement of torments infinite and eternal."

This extract from Hume's History is given by the Rev. Mr. Graham, as an Introduction to his interesting work,-The Annals of Ireland. "That he has not heightened the picture beyond reality," says this author, "the writings of Temple, of Clarendon, of Rushworth, of Whitlock, cotemporary historians, and volumes of original depositions taken on the occasion, and now extant in the library of Trinity college, Dublin, sufficiently prove."

Mr. Graham has, with immense labour, collected and arranged such a number of well attested facts on this subject, in his "Annals of Ire

land," as will make the labour of the future historians very easy, and hold up to the abhorrence of future ages, the cruel and unrelenting spirit of the Romish religion. After the general massacre had commenced, and thousands were obliged to flee for their lives, Mr. Graham proceeds as follows, and gives Temple for his authority:

"Many persons of good rank and quality came into Dublin, covered with old rags, and some without any other covering than a little twisted straw to hide their nakedness. Some reverend ministers escaped with their lives, sorely wounded-wives came bitterly lamenting the murder of their husbands-mothers lamenting their children barbarously destroyed before their faces. Some were so over-wearied with long travel that they came creeping on their knees, others frozen up with cold, ready to give up the ghost in the streets. To add to their miseries, they found all manner of relief utterly disproportionable to their wants, the popish inhabitants refusing to minister the least comfort to them, so that these sad creatures appeared like living ghosts in every street. Many empty houses in the city, were, by special direction, taken for them; barns, stables, and out-houses were filled with them, yet many lay in the open streets, and there most miserably perished. Those of a better quality who could not bring themselves to beg, crept into private places, and some of them, who had not friends to relieve them, wasted away silently, and died unnoticed."

The infatuated and unfortunate King Charles I., who was most unhappily beset by a popish queen, and a host of Jesuit priests, was pretty generally suspected of having given his countenance to this rebellion of his popish, and consequent massacre of his Protestant subjects; and it is certain that the rebels gave out that they acted under a commission from him; but this is accounted for in the following manner, for which Mr. Graham refers to Borlase, p. 30, Nov. 4, 1641. "On this day Sir Phelim O'Neil, and Roger M'Guire, gave notice to their confederates, from the rebel camp at Newry, of their having received a commission from the king under the great seal of Scotland. This pretended commission was disclaimed by Lord M'Guire afterwards; and it appears that one Plunket, a worthy branch of the Cavan family of popish advocates, having taken an old broad seal from an obsolete patent out of Farnham Abbey, fixed it to his forged commission, to seduce the vulgar into an opinion of the loyalty of those who had excited them to take arms." It will be in the recollection of most of my readers, that a similar trick was practised, a few years ago, upon the lord mayor and citizens of London, by means of which, the public funds rose 20 per cent. in one hour. We need not then be surprised, that the Papists of Ireland, few, if any of whom, in those days, could read, should have been deceived; and that the king should have got the blame of what arose from the unstimulated barbarity of his popish subjects; or which, if stimulated at all, was by the queen and her Jesuit incendiaries.

It was then publicly declared by the rebels, that no Protestant should be suffered to live in Ireland. On Sunday, October 24, "Rory McGuire, who had, on the preceding day hanged seventeen Protestants in the church of Clowes, seized Mr. Middleton, at Castlekeagh, alias Ballybalfure, in the county of Fermanagh, robbed him of his money, burned the county records in this gentleman's possession, and compelled him