Few words will suffice to relate what befell the Spanish and Portuguese Jews during this century. Beyond the fact, already recorded, of their oft-recurring migration from both countries to the friendly shelter offered by Holland, there is little to tell. Those who lingered behind, unable or unwilling to quit the land of their birth, continued to practise the old deception, and, when discovered or suspected, to undergo the same merciless severities as their fathers had endured. There is no need to repeat the hideous and monotonous tale of their sufferings. The awe and terror with which the Inquisition was regarded were ever on the increase; until notoriously not the common people, not the grandees and nobles only, but the sovereigns themselves, became little better than its instruments. Early in the century Philip III. is related to have been present at the burning of a Jewish girl, and to have been unable to repress some token of natural horror at the sight. This was noticed by the Grand Inquisitor, who, not satisfied with reproving the monarch for his weakness, ordered some of the coward blood to be drawn from his veins, and burned by the public executioner! Later in the century, in 1680, M. Villars, Louis XIV.’s ambassador at the Court of Spain, describes an Auto da Fé which he witnessed at Madrid, where twenty Jews were publicly burned, with attendant circumstances of revolting barbarity. He relates how the king, Charles II., was present, but occupied a lower seat than that assigned to the Grand Inquisitor. If we are curious to know what were the sufferings inflicted at the examinations held in the dungeons of the Inquisition, we may learn them from the narrative of Orobio, an eminent Portuguese philosopher and physician. He was suspected of Judaism, and thrown into prison. After some preliminary inquiries, having refused to confess, he was carried, he tells us, into a subterranean vault, dimly lighted, where two officials were seated—the judge and secretary of the Holy Office. He was stripped, strong cords were tied to his hands and feet, the other ends being passed through iron rings in the walls. These were then drawn tight, so that he remained suspended by the cords, which the executioner kept drawing tighter and tighter, until the surgeon certified that further pressure would destroy life. The cords cut into the flesh and made the blood burst from under the nails. He was then told that this was only the beginning of his sufferings, which would be increased in intensity until he confessed. This scene was frequently repeated during three years, at the end of which time, perceiving that his resolution was invincible, they healed his wounds, and permitted him to depart. He fled to Toulouse, and afterwards to Amsterdam, where he threw off his mask, and professed himself a Jew.