was, with the assistance of the Bishop of Isola, to arrest and punish them and the viceroy and governor of the province were instructed to lend whatever aid was necessary. At the same time Ferdinand sought to make this an entering wedge for the Spanish Inquisition, for Barnaba was told to obey the instructions of Bishop Mercader, Inquisitor-general of Aragon, with whom he was put into communication and to whom he reported. He evidently did what he could, in the absence of secular support, for a letter of June 14, 1514, to a bishop instructs him to assist Barnaba and the Bishop of Isola who are about to visit his diocese to punish some descendants of Jews who are living under the Mosaic Law, but his efforts were fruitless. When he applied to the viceroy and to the Governors of Calabria and Apulia for aid in making arrests, they replied that they would have to consult the king. Moreover the viceroy reported that the pragmáticas of 1511 were not enforced because they were construed as applicable only to natives and not to foreigners such as Spaniards and Sicilians. All this stirred Ferdinand’s indignation, which found expression in a letter of June 15, 1514, to the viceroy, accusing him and the regents and governors of sheltering the refugees, characterizing as absurd the construction put on the pragmáticas and ordering anew that every assistance should be given to Barnaba and the Bishop of Isola. In spite of all this there was a deplorable slackness on the part of the secular authorities--the spirit of persecution seemed unable to cross the Faro. The Neapolitan officials would not arrest the Sicilian refugees without formal requisitions from the Sicilian inquisitors, brought by a duly accredited official. From what we have seen of the disorganization of the Sicilian tribunal we can readily believe their assertion that they had applied to both Alonso Bernal and Melchor Cervera, but that neither had given the matter attention. Ferdinand thereupon wrote to Cervera expressing his surprise at this neglect, especially as it was understood that the refugees had large amounts of property concealed. This seems to have produced little effect for when, six months later, Ferdinand scolded Don Francisco Dalagon, Alcaide of Reggio, about the refuge granted to the Sicilian fugitives, the alcaide replied that, if he had proper authorization he would seize them all, whereupon Ferdinand wrote, September 7th, to Cervera, ordering him to send to Dalagon a list of the fugitives, with a commission for their arrest--an order which seems to have been as resultless as its predecessors.[121]