The news at first was received with general rejoicings and some quarters of the town were illuminated, but the people had not been taught to trust their rulers; doubts speedily arose that it was intended to introduce the Inquisition by stealth and, when on November 22d the heralds came forth to proclaim the new laws, they were mobbed and driven back before they could perform the duty. The next day a delegation waited on the viceroy and asked him to postpone the proclamation for two days, during which they could examine the pragmáticas. This was an assumption of supervision over the legislative function which the viceroy naturally denounced as presumptuous, but the necessity of satisfying the people was supreme and, on the next day, the Eletti by further insistence secured a preamble to the first pragmática, in which the king was made to declare formally that, in view of the ancient religion and Catholic faith of the city and kingdom, he ordered the Inquisition to be removed, for the benefit of all. In this shape the proclamation was made on November 24th, and on it was founded the claim which, for more than two centuries, Naples persistently made that exemption from the Inquisition was one of its special privileges. Andrés Palacios departed on December 3d and thus the victory was won without bloodshed, after a struggle lasting for a year.[119] Even the pragmáticas ordering the expulsion of Jews and Conversos were not obeyed and the situation was rendered more aggravating by the facilities of escape from the Sicilian Inquisition afforded by the proximity of the Neapolitan territories. In June of 1513 Ferdinand wrote to the viceroy concerning this ever-present grievance and ordered him to hunt up all refugees and send them back with their property, while at the same time a royal letter to the alcaide of Reggio rebuked him for permitting their transit and threatened him with condign punishment for continued negligence.[120] That it continued is shown by the escape, from Sicily to Naples, in the following September, of some four hundred of these unfortunates (see p. 12) and they doubtless carried with them funds sufficient to close the eyes of those whose duty it was to turn them back. There does not seem to have been in Italy the popular abhorrence felt in Spain for the Hebrew race or any desire for active persecution, but at the same time there was no opposition to the existence of the Inquisition, provided always that it was not of the dreaded Spanish type. In December of the same year, 1513, the Dominican Barnaba, now styling himself papal Inquisitor of Naples, applied to Ferdinand, stating that in Calabria and Apulia the New Christians lived as Jews and held their synagogues publicly; he evidently could have had no support from the local authorities, for he solicited the aid of the king. Ferdinand promptly replied, December 31st, ordering him to investigate secretly and, if he could catch the culprits in the act he