It has been common with modern historians to detect a principal motive in the avarice of the government. It is, however, incredible that persons possessing the political sagacity of Ferdinand and Isabella could indulge a temporary cupidity at the sacrifice of the most important and permanent interests, converting by a measure so manifestly unsound, their wealthiest districts into a wilderness and dispeopling them of a class of citizens who contributed beyond all others not only to the general resources but to the direct revenues of the crown. We need look no further for the principle of action, in this case, than the spirit of religious bigotry which led to a similar expulsion of the Jews from England, France, and other parts of Europe, as well as from Portugal, under circumstances of peculiar atrocity, a few years later.[56] Indeed, the spirit of persecution did not expire with the fifteenth century, but extends even into our own more luminous days. How far the banishment of the Jews was conformable to the opinions of the most enlightened contemporaries, may be gathered from the encomiums lavished on its authors from more than one quarter. Spanish writers, without exception, celebrate it as a sublime sacrifice of all temporal interests to religious principle.[g] PERSECUTION AND REVOLT OF THE MOORS (1499-1502 A.D.) [Sidenote: [1492-1499 A.D.]] The establishment of the Inquisition led to the banishment of the Jews; the latter, in its turn, to the persecution of the Mohammedans. These soon found that their religious toleration, so solemnly guaranteed by the articles of capitulation, would be little respected by a prince who did not always hesitate to break his royal word--nor even his oath--when his interests or his bigotry was concerned. It is certain that, from the very year in which Granada submitted, the resolution was taken to convert or expel the Moors; but their number, the assistance they might receive from Africa, and the unsettled state of the new conquests, delayed its execution. In 1499, however, Ferdinand, being at Granada, seriously entered on what he doubtless considered a path of stern but necessary duty. Having assembled some of his counsellors and prelates to deliberate on the proper means of attaining an object so momentous, it was agreed that both end and means should be left to two eminent prelates--to Francisco Ximenes [or Jimenes] de Cisneros, archbishop of Toledo, and to Ferdinand de Talavera, metropolitan of Granada. In selecting two such opposite instruments, it was doubtless intended that the gentleness of Don Ferdinand should be fortified by the decision of his colleague: through his influence it doubtless was that the first steps in the great work were of a mild and rational nature. The alfaquis were assiduously courted; were persuaded to dispute on the merits of their respective faiths; and were severally dismissed with presents.