The African corsairs, under the command of the relentless Barbarossa, at that time held the empire of the Mediterranean, and by their aid multitudes of Moriscoes succeeded in escaping to Morocco. In vain the nobles protested against a policy which depreciated the value of their estates, depopulated their villages, and daily deprived them of laborers whose services could not be dispensed with and whose loss could not be replaced; both royal power and popular sentiment sanctioned the course of the Church, and the material prosperity of a single province was not worthy of consideration when weighed with the perishing souls of thousands of suspected heretics. Pecuniary arguments were then employed, and after several years of negotiation the operations of the Holy Office were suspended upon the payment of a yearly donative of twenty-five hundred ducats. Once more free from the perils of Inquisitorial visitation and punishment, the Moriscoes at once relapsed into their former religious indifference; the clergy viewed with unconcern the unmistakable evidences of apostasy among their parishioners; the nobles welcomed with undisguised satisfaction the relief of their vassals, the increase of their revenues, and the indications of returning prosperity; while the inquisitors, whose treasury had been filled to overflowing with the gold wrung by fines and confiscations from the wealthiest subjects of the kingdom, sought in other quarters new material for the stake and the dungeon, to be condemned to present torture and eternal infamy in the name of an All-Merciful God. The abdication of Charles V. brought a grateful respite to the harassed and suffering Moors. The mighty interests of an empire which extended over two worlds engrossed the attention of Philip II., and he had, at first, no time to devote to the persecution of a handful of alleged heretics lost in a corner of his vast dominions. The Roman Pontiff, who, perhaps influenced by motives of humanity, but certainly not absolutely free from political bias or resentment for the outrage inflicted by the Emperor upon the Holy See, had always discountenanced his oppression of the Moriscoes, now heartily co-operated with Philip in alleviating the misery of their condition. A brief issued from the Vatican in 1556 empowered confessors to absolve from the offence of heresy without penance, and deprived the Inquisition of the greater part of its jurisdiction and authority. The nature of the young King had not yet been corrupted by absolute power; nor were his actions now controlled by that morose and pitiless spirit subsequently developed by remorse, disease, and bigotry, which, added to the hereditary taint of insanity which afflicted his family, rendered him, during the greater portion of his life, one of the most unfeeling monsters that has ever disgraced a throne.