At the time of the greatest rigor against the Judaizing Christians, there is a fact worthy of attention. Persons accused, or threatened with the pursuit of the Inquisition, took every means to escape the action of that tribunal: they left the soil of Spain and went to Rome. Would those who imagine that Rome has always been the hot-bed of intolerance, the firebrand of persecution, have imagined this? The number of causes commenced by the Inquisition, and summoned from Spain to Rome, is countless, during the first fifty years of the existence of that tribunal; and it must be added that Rome always inclined to the side of indulgence. I do not know that it would be possible to cite one accused person who, by appealing to Rome, did not ameliorate his condition. The history of the Inquisition at that time is full of contests between the kings and popes; and we constantly find, on the part of the holy see, a desire to restrain the Inquisition within the bounds of justice and humanity. The line of conduct prescribed by the court of Rome was not always followed as it ought to have been. Thus we see the popes compelled to receive a multitude of appeals, and mitigate the lot that would have befallen the appellants if their cause had been definitely decided in Spain. We also see the Pope name the judge of appeal, at the solicitation of the Catholic sovereigns, who desired that causes should be finally decided in Spain: the first of these judges was Inigo Manrique, Archbishop of Seville. Nevertheless, at the end of a short time, the same Pope, in a bull of August 2, 1483, said that he had received new appeals, made by a great number of the Spaniards of Seville, who had not dared to address themselves to the judge of appeal for fear of being arrested. Such was then the excitement of the public mind; such was at that time the necessity of preventing injustice or measures of undue severity. The Pope added that some of those who had had recourse to his justice had already received the absolution of the apostolical penitentiary, and that others were about to receive it; he afterward complained that indulgences granted to divers accused persons had not been sufficiently respected at Seville; in fine, after several other admonitions, he observed to Ferdinand and Isabella that mercy toward the guilty was more pleasing to God than the severity which it was desired to use; and he gave the example of the good shepherd following the wandering sheep. He ended by exhorting the sovereigns to treat with mildness those who voluntarily confessed their faults, desiring them to allow them to reside at Seville or in some other place they might choose; and to allow them the enjoyment of their property, as if they had not been guilty of the crime of heresy.