All who should give them encouragement or assistance were
declared traitors to their country; the very lives of the Inquisitors
and their families were, in the first burst of fury, endangered; but
after a time, imagining they had sunk into harmless insignificance,
their oppressors desisted in their efforts against them, and
were guilty of the unpardonable error of not exterminating them
entirely.[A]
[Footnote A: Stockdale's History of the Inquisition.]
According to the popular belief, the dreaded tribunal slept, and so
soundly, they feared not, imagined not its awakening. They little
knew that its subterranean halls were established near almost all the
principal cities, and that its engines were often at work, even in the
palaces of kings. Many a family wept the loss of a beloved member,
they knew not, guessed not how--for those who once entered those fatal
walls were never permitted to depart; so secret were their measures,
that even the existence of this fearful mockery of justice and
Religion was not known, or at that time it would have been wholly
eradicated. Superstition had not then gained the ascendency which in
after years so tarnished the glory of Spain, and opened the wide gates
to the ruin and debasement under which she labors now. The fierce
wars and revolutions ravaging the land had given too many, and too
favorable opportunities for the exercise of this secret power; but
still, regard for their own safety prevented the more public display
of their office, as ambition prompted.
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