was my abode for the period of nearly three years! “The day following my entrance into these prisons, the gaoler came at nine o’clock, with another turnkey, and said that I must accompany him to the hearing of my case by the lord-inquisitor, appointed by the holy tribunal to be my judge, and what they call reporter of the cause, who happened to be the first inquisitor and president of the small board, Manoel Stanislao Fragoso. The affability with which this priest treated me, when I first spoke to him, knew no abatement during the time of my imprisonment, except in one or two instances, when his temper was ruffled. “I must acknowledge, as a warning to others, that my childish credulity, in entertaining the hope of finding in the Holy Office meekness, clemency, or despatch in my trial, had no other ground, except the popular rumour in every corner of Portugal, that the Holy Office is very much altered, and does not now practise those cruelties which it before committed. The inquisitor was in the audience room, with another priest, who acted as clerk, or, as they call it, notary, and he commenced the interrogatories, first, by inquiring my name, parentage, and place of birth; next, if the familiar, who brought me to the prisons of the Holy Office, had done me any violence; or if I knew the cause that had subjected me to the notice of the Inquisition. He then observed to me, that I was before the most just and merciful tribunal on earth; but to obtain its mercy and pardon for my crimes, it was necessary that I should, of my own free will and accord, confess all crimes of which I had been guilty, without concealing my accomplices, frauds, or any other circumstances, and that this confession must be immediate; because the present time was the most favourable moment a prisoner in the Inquisition could have--for, should I confess afterwards what I might deny in the beginning, the lenity of the tribunal would be very different.