The great story of the discovery of America and the new crusade it began against ignorance and also, unfortunately, against innocent savages, has a vital bearing, it is true, upon the fortunes, the glory, and the wars of Spain. But since almost every country in Europe was soon involved in the same cry of “Westward, ho!” and since the general outlines are familiar to everybody, it will be permissible to defer the account until the volume on America, where the details can be given with fullness, consecution, and a proper sense of proportionate value. None the less, the reader must not forget that the period of discovery and the encouragement given it by Isabella and her consort form one of the most important as one of the most beautiful major features of their reign. Leaving it to the reader’s imagination to give this better element its due brilliance and its right significance as a partial atonement to history, we must turn to the evil side of the reign, an evil so tremendous and loathsome that it seems incredible when associated with the noble deeds of the sovereigns. This is the persecution of the non-orthodox in the name of religion and without a shadow of that gentleness and mercy which one associates with that name, little as history may have to substantiate that association. The Inquisition we shall leave to a separate chapter in the appendix in which its origin in other countries will be taken up and its history traced in entirety until its end in the last century. A few words of allusion will not, however, be amiss in this place.[a] THE EXPULSION OF THE JEWS While the Spanish sovereigns were detained before Granada, they published their memorable and most disastrous edict against the Jews; inscribing it, as it were, with the same pen which drew up the glorious capitulation of Granada and the treaty with Columbus. The envy raised by their prosperity, combined with the high religious excitement kindled in the long war with the infidel, directed the terrible arm of the Inquisition against this unfortunate people; but the result showed the failure of the experiment, since comparatively few conversions, and those frequently of a suspicious character, were effected, while the great mass still maintained a pertinacious attachment to ancient errors. The inquisitors asserted that the only mode left for the extirpation of the Jewish heresy was to eradicate the seed; and they boldly demanded the immediate and total banishment of every unbaptised Israelite from the land.