The Jews have experienced fully the unequaled skill of the Church in administering pain. Mothers cast themselves at the feet of the tyrants and pitifully begged to be taken with their babes; they were heartlessly thrust aside. Hundreds of mothers mad with despair, ran behind the ships as they carried off the idols of their heart, and perished in the waves. The serene fortitude, with which the exile people had borne so many and such grievous calamities, gave way at last, and was replaced by the wildest paroxysms of despair. Piercing shrieks of anguish filled the land. Childless and broken-hearted they now sought to leave the land, but they were told that they had forfeited their right, and they were given the choice between baptism and slavery. Thousands, after enduring all they did, after leaving their beloved Spain and all their wealth and ease, submitted to baptism now, in the hope of being reunited with their children. Thousands were sold as slaves, yet prior to their being sold, they were submitted to tortures, cruelties, outrages too revolting, too repulsive, too heart-rending to be here narrated. Terror seized upon the native Portuguese Jews, when they helplessly beheld the cruelties to which their Spanish brethren were subjected. They knew they, themselves, could not escape the wrath of the Church much longer, and they thought of flight, and well had it been for them had they made their escape then. While they were making secret preparations, John II. died, 1495. He had been afflicted, on the very day when the ships, laden with the Jewish exile children, set sail for the isle of the condemned criminals, with a strange, painful malady, and had lingered ever since. His own promising son and successor preceded him into the grave. His cousin _Manoel_ ascended the throne. He was the counterpart of his predecessor, kind hearted, a promoter of learning, eager to further the interests of his country by discoveries abroad and by commerce at home. Immediately he disfranchised the Jewish exiles sold into slavery, promised to recall the condemned children, and issued an edict, in which he commanded kind treatment to the Jews, and prohibited accusations against them. In their great joy the native Portuguese Jews sent an embassy to him, offering him large sums of money, voluntarily as a token of their gratitude. The king thanked them, reassured them of his good will, but refused to be paid for human kindness.