Nicholas Burton, born in England, was condemned at an impenitent Lutheran heretic. It is impossible to justify the conduct of the inquisitors to this Englishman, and several other foreigners who had not settled in Spain, and were merely returning to their respective countries after having transacted their commercial affairs. This man came to Spain in a vessel laden with merchandise, which, he said, was all his own property, but of which some part belonged to John Fronton, who was reconciled in this _auto-da-fé_. Burton refused to abjure, and was burnt alive; the inquisitors seized his vessel and its freight, thus proving that avarice was the principal motive of the Inquisition. The inquisitors were guilty of a great cruelty in this instance, and the commerce of Spain would perhaps have been destroyed, if the violence committed against Burton, and some others, had not been protested against by the different powers, which induced Philip IV. to prohibit the inquisitors from molesting foreign merchants and travellers, if they did not attempt to promulgate heretical opinions; but the inquisitors eluded this order, by pretending that they brought prohibited books into the kingdom, or spoke in favour of heresy. Gonzalez de Montes speaks of the arrival in Spain of a very rich stranger, named Rehukin, whose vessel was finer and better built than any that had ever appeared at San-Lucar de Barrameda. The Inquisition arrested him as an heretic, and confiscated his property; the merchant proved that the vessel did not belong to him, and that it could not be included in the confiscation; but his efforts to recover it were useless. Two other foreigners shared the fate of Burton. One was an Englishman named William Brook, born at Sarum, and a sailor; the other was a Frenchman of Bayonne, named Fabianne, whose trade required his presence in Spain. The _Beata_ protected by Francis Zafra, who had recovered her senses, but persisted in her heresy, was burnt in this _auto-da-fé_, with five women of her family. Thirty-four persons were condemned to penances. The most remarkable instances were:--