“The beards of the professed having been thus made, as they call it in jollity, fire is set to the furze which is at the bottom of the stake, and above which the professed are chained so high that the top of the flame seldom reacheth higher than the seat they sit upon; and if there happen to be a wind, and to which that place is much exposed, it seldom reacheth so high as their knees; so that though there be a calm, the professed are commonly dead in half an hour after the furze is set on fire; yet, if it prove windy, they are not after that dead in an hour and a half, or two hours, and so are really roasted, and not burnt to death. But though out of hell there cannot be a more lamentable spectacle than this, being joined with the sufferers, so long as they are able to speak, crying out, ‘_Misericordia, por amos de Dios_’ (_Mercy, for the love of God_,) yet it is beheld by people of both sexes and of all ages with such transports of joy and satisfaction, as are not on any other occasion to be met with. And that the reader may not think that this inhuman joy may be the effect of a natural cruelty that is in those people’s disposition, and not of the spirit of their religion, he may rest assured that all public malefactors, besides heretics, have their violent deaths nowhere more tenderly lamented than among the same people, and even when there is nothing in the manner of their deaths that appears inhuman or cruel. “Within a few days after the execution, the pictures of all that have been burnt, and which were taken off their breasts when they were brought to the stake, are hung up in St. Domingo’s church, whose west end, though very high, is all covered over with such trophies of the Inquisition, hung up there in honour to Dominic, who, to fulfil his mother’s dream, was the first inventor of that court. Dominic’s mother, when she was about to be delivered, having dreamed that she was delivered, not of a human creature, but of a fierce dog, with a burning torch in his mouth!” Enormities of cruel bigotry so truly shocking might well require to be authenticated by the most unquestionable testimony. This has been given. That of the Rev. Mr. Wilcox, chaplain to the English factory of Lisbon in the reign of Queen Anne, and afterwards Bishop of Rochester, wrote in reply to the inquiry of Bishop Burnet, confirming the statements of Dr. Geddes, June 15, 1706. Part of his letter is as follows:--