conscience, or injure his reputation, by acknowledging crimes which he never committed. Irritated at his constancy, the Inquisitor-general passionately addressed him in language to the following import:—"We will rather cause you to be burnt as guilty, than allow it to be supposed that we have imprisoned you without cause!" At the approach of the auto-da-fé, the major was apprised of his sentence, which was to be burnt alive, and a confessor was sent to his dungeon in order to prepare him for his execution. Overcome by the fear of a death so horrid, the major at length resolved to play the hypocrite; and, on the evening previous to the bloody ceremony, he acknowledged every thing, however false, that had been laid to his charge. He was accordingly led out in the procession with a robe on which the flames were reversed, to intimate that by his confession, though late, he had escaped death, to which he had been condemned by the holy tribunal. All the other promises of the Inquisitor-general were forgotten. His property was confiscated, and himself sentenced to the galleys for five years. It has been clearly shown, that the Inquisitors not unfrequently condemn the innocent to the flames, under the pretence of Judaism or heresy, while the chief motive of these unjust judges evidently is, to obtain possession of their property. This will still further appear from the proceedings which were instituted against Melchior Hernandez, a rich merchant of Murcia, who was imprisoned in the Inquisition of that place in 1564. At his first audience, he was accused of having frequented a clandestine synagogue in Murcia, and of having acted and discoursed in a manner that proved his apostasy from the Christian faith.[22] There were nine witnesses produced against him; but Melchior not only denied all their averments, but showed that their evidence was contradictory, and that several of them were his avowed enemies. After repeated audiences, in which this unhappy person was exceedingly harassed, he at length told his judges, that he remembered being in a house in 1553, where several persons, whom he named, were present, and discoursed on the law of Moses, but that he himself did not join in the conversation. Nothing more could be forced from him, though he was subjected to the torture; and accordingly, on the 18th of October, 1566, he was declared to be a Jewish heretic, and condemned to the flames. On the day of his execution, the 9th of December, the fear of death induced him to accuse fourteen or fifteen individuals as forming part of the assembly, and to confess that he himself believed for twelve months what was said in the Mosaic Law; but that he had not confessed, because he thought there was no proof of his heresy in the depositions of the witnesses. In consequence of this confession, Melchior was remanded to prison, instead of being conducted to the place of execution.