The youthful Philip IV was scarce more than seated on the throne when, in 1622, Fernando Mascarenhas, Bishop of Faro, urged him to provide some remedy for the political dangers apprehended from the New Christians. It was in evidence, he said, that they were all secretly Jews and the state was in great peril from them as they were very numerous. There was no city in which they were not powerful through their wealth and the important positions held by them, while the danger of detection and punishment might lead them to cause serious trouble through alliance with enemies. It was found that they secretly invested their capital in dealings with the Dutch, and in Dutch commercial companies and, if they ventured their wealth with these rebels, they would conspire with them, especially as the Inquisition was pushing them hard, arresting them all and they had no other remedy.[764] Israel has rarely had a more flattering tribute to its intellectual superiority than the fears excited by this remnant surviving through near a century of pitiless persecution. Doubtless there were other urgent warnings which have not reached us and, in 1628, Philip called for a formal expression of opinion from his Portuguese prelates. By his order they assembled at Tomar and summoned to their aid all who were most distinguished in the kingdom for learning and virtue. After prolonged debates they submitted to him a series of suggestions to which he replied seriatim. In view of the failure of all previous efforts to abate the evils wrought and threatened by the New Christians, the remedy they preferred was the thorough expulsion of the whole race; if this were not practicable, at least those who were full-blooded Jews, excepting such as could prove their Christianity, should be banished, and their property be confiscated; as for those of half or quarter blood, all should go who had been, or who in future should be reconciled, or sentenced to abjure de vehementi, unless inquisitors were satisfied of their true repentance and conversion. To this Philip replied, proposing delay in the case of the full-blooded Conversos, and assenting to the exile of the reconciled and vehemently suspect. For the further relief of the kingdom, the bishops proposed that all who desired could, within a year, irrevocably expatriate themselves, selling their property and taking with them the proceeds, but not in jewels or the precious metals. To this the royal answer was that already there was unrestricted liberty to go, but as evils had arisen from their return, in future it should be prohibited. The next suggestion was significant; to check the spread of Judaic infection, by intermarriage, which was destroying the lustre of the nobility, no dower in such unions should exceed two thousand cruzados, and the husband should be disabled from holding positions of honor and dignity. To the first clause the king assented; to the latter he said that the existing