removed because he had spoken well of the Inquisition and had been charged by the inquisitors with certain duties to perform; they are not to allow this to be done and are to see that he is not ill-treated.[517] In 1509 Ferdinand had occasion to remonstrate with the Duke of Alva, in the case of Alonso de Jaen, a resident of Coria, because, when he was arrested, an agent of the duke had seized certain cows and sold them and, when he was condemned and his property confiscated, Alva had forbidden any one to purchase anything without his permission. Ferdinand charges him to allow the sale to proceed freely and to account for the cows, pointing out that he had granted to him a third of the net proceeds of all confiscations in his estates.[518] This grant of a third of the confiscations was made to other great nobles and doubtless tended to reconcile them to the operations of the Inquisition. In this general acquiescence it is somewhat remarkable that, as late as 1520, when Charles V ordered Merida to prepare accommodations for a tribunal, the city remonstrated; everything there was quiet and peaceable, it said, and it feared a tumult if the Holy Office was established there, while if merely a visit was made for an inquest it would lend willing aid. Cardinal Adrian hearkened to the warning in Charles's absence and in a letter of November 27, 1520, ordered his inquisitors to settle somewhere else.[519] [Sidenote: _FERDINAND'S BIGOTRY_] At the same time it was inevitable that power so irresponsible would be frequently and greatly abused, and it is interesting to observe that, when no resistance was made, Ferdinand was, as a general rule, prompt to intervene in favor of the oppressed. Thus January 28, 1498, he writes to the inquisitors-general that recently some officials of the Inquisition of Valencia went to the barony of Serra to arrest some women who wore Moorish dress and, as they were not recognized, they were resisted by the Moors, whereupon the inquisitors proceeded to seize all the Moors of Serra who chanced to come to Valencia, so that the place was becoming depopulated. He therefore orders the inquisitors-general to intimate to their subordinates that they must find some other method whereby the innocent shall not suffer for the fault of individuals and, not content with this, he wrote directly to the Inquisitor of Valencia, instructing him to proceed with much moderation. In another case where opposition had been provoked he writes, January 18, 1499, "We have your letter and are much displeased with the maltreatment which you report of the inquisitor and his officials. It will be attended to duly. But often you yourselves are the cause of it, for if each of you would attend to his duties quietly and carefully and injure no one you would be held in good esteem. Look to this in the future, for it will displease us much if you do what you ought not, with little foundation." At the same time he