Crimes of the blackest description were left unpunished during the last reign, from a fixed and avowed determination of the King[31] not to inflict the punishment of death upon a priest. Townsend has mentioned the murder of a young lady committed by a friar at San Lucar de Barrameda; and I would not repeat the painful narrative, were it not that my acquaintance with some of her relatives, as well as with the spot on which she fell, enables me to give a more accurate statement. [31] Charles III. A young lady, of a very respectable family in the above-mentioned town, had for her confessor a friar of the Reformed or _Unshod_ Carmelites. I have often visited the house where she lived, in front of the convent. Thither her mother took her every day to mass, and frequently to confession. The priest, a man of middle age, had conceived a passion for his young penitent, which, not venturing to disclose, he madly fed by visiting the unsuspecting girl with all the frequency which the spiritual relation in which he stood towards her, and the friendship of her parents, allowed him. The young woman now about nineteen, had an offer of a suitable match, which she accepted with the approbation of her parents. The day being fixed for the marriage, the bride, according to custom, went, attended by her mother, early in the morning to church, to confess and receive the sacrament. After giving her absolution, the confessor, stung with the madness of jealousy, was observed whetting a knife in the kitchen. The unfortunate girl had, in the mean time, received the host, and was now leaving the church, when the villain, meeting her in the porch, and pretending to speak a few words in her ear--a liberty to which his office entitled him--stabbed her to the heart in the presence of her mother. The assassin did not endeavour to escape. He was committed to prison; and after the usual delays of the Spanish law, was condemned to death. The King, however, commuted this sentence into a confinement for life in a fortress at Puerto Rico. The only anxiety ever showed by the murderer was respecting the success of his crime. He made frequent enquiries to ascertain the death of the young woman; and the assurance that no man could possess the object of his passion, seemed to make him happy during the remainder of a long life.