[Sidenote: Joseph Fernandez in the secret prison of this tribunal, for having written and spoken divers heresies, blasphemies, and insults against our Holy Faith. Distitute. Maintenance, two sueldos, and the bread of the Contractor. Prison of the Innocents.] Joseph Fernandez, a native of the town of Santa Llina, in the bishopric of Urgel, aged eighteen years, formerly an apothecary, and latterly a soldier in the cavalry regiment of Calatrava, taken from the Royal prison of this city of Barcelona, and transported to the secret prison of this tribunal, on the twentieth of the present month of February. This prisoner made a spontaneous confession on the fifteenth of January of the present year, declaring that he had made an explicit league with the devil, and had granted him his soul. He furthermore stated that he had uttered, on many occasions, divers impious and heretical sayings against God, and against Christ and his Holy Mother. This confession was ratified on the eighteenth and twentyfirst of the month; and on the twentyeighth, in consequence of his confession, a sentence was passed, that the said Joseph Fernandez be reprehended, admonished, and warned; that he make an abjuration _de vehementi_, be absolved _ad cautelam_, and intrusted to the charge of a Calificador or learned person, for the purpose of being instructed in the mysteries of our Holy Faith, ratifying his previous confession, which sentence was ordered to be referred to your Highness, and transmitted the same day. On the eighteenth of February, the answer of your Highness was received, with a confirmation of the sentence, which was not put in execution, in consequence of the prisoner’s having written several letters to the Inquisitor Don Balthasar Villarexo, which letters contained insulting, heretical, and blasphemous matter against our Holy Catholic Religion, as well as contemptuous and insolent language against the said Inquisitor. For this reason an order was issued for his imprisonment, and the said Joseph Fernandez was, on the twentieth of the same month, taken from the Royal Prison, where he was then confined. On the twentysecond and twentythird, an audience was held, in which he confessed that the letters were his, and that he had written them for the purpose of getting free from the Royal Prison, and the garrison where he was confined for desertion. He having named several persons in prison, before whom he had uttered heretical speeches, a commission was expedited on the twentyeighth to take their depositions. The cause is delayed till the depositions are completed. April, 1736.