How intolerant and cruel the inquisitors and keepers were, in the sixteenth century, may be learned from two cases: the first was relating to some English persons who put into the port of Cadiz. The familiars of the Inquisition searched the vessel on account of religion. They seized several on board, as they manifested evangelical piety, and they were thrown into gaol. Among these was a child, about ten or twelve years of age, son of a rich gentleman, owner of the ship and part of the cargo. The pretence was, that he had in his hands the Book of Psalms in English. The ship and cargo were confiscated, and the child was imprisoned at Seville, where he lay six or eight months, and became very ill through cruel treatment. The lords inquisitors being informed of his illness, and hoping to profit by his father’s reputed wealth, removed him to the Cardinal Hospital. But he lost the use of his legs. The gaoler often observed him lifting up his eyes to heaven and praying for help; so that he reported him as “already grown a great little heretic!” Through the cruel treatment in the prison, he died in the hospital of the Inquisition! Another case, about the same period, will illustrate the cruelties of the Inquisition. Peter ab Herera, keeper of the tower of Triada, the prison of the Inquisition, had in charge a good matron, and, with her, two daughters, but kept in different cells. They bemoaned their separation, and entreated the keeper to suffer them to be together for a quarter of an hour, that they might have the satisfaction of embracing each other. Moved with compassion for them he granted their request; and after they had indulged their mutual affection for half an hour, he locked them up again in their solitary cells. A few days after, they were examined by torture, and the keeper, fearing that through the severity of their torments they might discover his lenity to the lords inquisitors, went to the holy tribunal and declared what he had done; but they, instead of commending his humanity, regarded him as guilty of a crime, and immediately ordered him into gaol, and to torture. After a year of suffering he was brought out of prison, with a halter round his neck, and led in a public procession, punished with a _hundred_ lashes, and condemned to the galleys as a slave, for six years. He became insane through ill treatment, and attempting the life of the alguazil he was sentenced to four years additional slavery in the galleys! Dreadful as these are, they are far from being the most affecting examples of cruelty in the Inquisition.