On the 30th of March, 1492, the edict for the expulsion of the Jews from Spain was signed by the Spanish sovereigns at Granada. Torquemada had triumphed. He had conquered the scruples of king and queen and Grandees. The edict, schemed and defended by him, had passed, and the faithful execution thereof he took upon himself. Heralds proclaimed from the street corners of every hamlet and village and city of Spain, that all unconverted Jews, of whatever sex or age or condition, should depart from the realm before the expiration of four months, never to revisit it, on any pretext whatever, under penalty of death, that all who should remain in the realm after the expiration of the four months would be put to death, as also all such Christian subjects, who should harbor, succor, or minister to the necessities of any Jew, after the expiration the term limited for his departure; that the Jews dispose in the meanwhile of their possessions as best they can, but are prohibited, under penalty of death, from having gold or silver in their possession at the time of their departure. * * * * * Unfortunate Jews! It was an idle hope when, seeing the sky lurid from the burning of your brethren upon the _quemaderos_ (places of burning heretics), you thought that the cup of your afflictions was full at last. It was an idle hope, when, thinking of the invaluable services you rendered unto Spain, you thought her people could not possibly visit still greater calamities upon your innocent heads. Unfortunate Jews! Ye thought not of Torquemada, the fiend, when you fondly nursed these hopes. When the edict was read from the corners of the streets and from the cross-roads, as the words that convey the sentence of death, strike terror in the heart of the condemned: "So on the hearts of the people descended the words of the speaker. Silent a moment they stood in speechless wonder, and then arose Louder and ever louder a wail of sorrow and anguish." * * _--Longfellow's "Evangeline."_ Maddening thought. Frenzied they rushed to and fro. Cries of terror and despair pierced the air. The Sierra Morena to the South, and the Pyrenees to the North re-echoed the heart-rending wailing of the stricken ones. Whither shall they flee? What country will dare offer them hospitable shores, when the greatest power in Europe thrusts them out helplessly, defencelessly, with a brand of infamy upon their brow?