[15] This does not, however, hold good in every case; individuals, as we have already seen, and shall afterwards have occasion to notice, who have been subjected to the torture, and made confession, having subsequently been condemned to the flames. No doubt the Inquisitors pretended to have had good grounds for thus acting; but where was there ever a deed of blood perpetrated, (and innumerable have been the number which have been committed by these demons in human form), that they could not colour over, in a manner sufficient to satisfy the _consciences_ of at least _Romish ecclesiastics_? CHAPTER V. Auto-da-fé celebrated at Seville in 1560—proceedings of the Inquisition during the reigns of Philip III. Philip IV. and Charles II.—M. Legal, the French commander, throws open the doors of the Inquisition, and liberates the prisoners—state of the Inquisition during the reigns of Ferdinand VI. Charles III. and Charles IV.—it is suppressed by Bonaparte—is re-established by Ferdinand VII.—persecuting spirit of the modern Inquisition. Previous to giving any further account of individual persecutions by the Inquisition, we shall now resume the history of that tribunal in Spain. On the 22d of December 1560, a splendid auto-da-fé was celebrated at Seville, at which fourteen individuals were burnt in person, three in effigy, and thirty-four were subjected to various penances.[16] Several of the sufferers were Englishmen, whose only crime was that they possessed wealth. Under the pretext that they were guilty of heresy, their property was seized by the hands of the avaricious Inquisitors, and not a few of them were condemned to the flames.[17] In 1561, the Inquisitor-general, Valdes, published a new code of laws, for the regulation of the different tribunals of the "Holy Office" throughout Spain. This code consisted of eighty-one articles, "which have been, till the present time, the laws by which the proceedings of the Inquisition have been regulated."[18] From 1560 to 1570, one auto-da-fé, at least, was celebrated annually in every Inquisition throughout Spain, at which many adherents of the Reformation were consigned to the flames. Thirty individuals were burnt at Murcia in 1560, twenty-three in 1562, seventeen in 1563, and thirty-five in the two years following, besides many in effigy; and great numbers were condemned to different other punishments. Similar tragedies were acted in Toledo, Saragossa, Grenada, &c., where not a few of the victims who were sacrificed to the cruelty of this barbarous tribunal were the disciples of Luther and Calvin.