John Fronton, an Englishman of the city of Bristol, who came to Seville, where he was informed of the arrest of Nicholas Burton. He was the proprietor of a considerable part of the merchandise taken from Burton, and after proving this fact by documents which he brought from England he claimed restitution. He was subjected to great delays and expenses, but as it was impossible to deny his rights, the inquisitors promised to restore the merchandise: in the mean time they contrived that witnesses should appear and depose that John Fronton had advanced heretical propositions, and he was taken to the secret prisons. The fear of death induced Fronton to say everything that the inquisitors required, and he demanded reconciliation. He was declared to be _violently suspected_ of the Lutheran heresy. This was sufficient to authorize the inquisitors to seize his property, and he was reconciled, condemned to forfeit his merchandise, and to wear the _san-benito_ for the space of one year. This is a remarkable proof of the mischief produced by the secrecy of the inquisitorial proceedings. If the affair of John Fronton had been made public, any lawyer would have shown the nullity and falsehood of the _instruction_. Yet there are Englishmen who defend the tribunal of the holy office as a useful institution, and I have heard an _English Catholic priest_ speak in its defence. I represented that he did not understand the nature of the tribunal; that I was not less attached to the Catholic religion than he, or any inquisitor might be; but that if the spirit of peace and charity, humility and disinterestedness, inculcated by the Holy Scriptures, is compared with the system of severity, craft, and malice, dictated by the laws of the holy office, and the power possessed by the inquisitors (from the secrecy of their proceedings) of abusing their authority in defiance of natural and divine laws, the orders of the Popes and the royal decrees, it will be impossible not to detest the tribunal as only tending to produce hypocrisy.