3. ARREST OF THE ACCUSED.--Persons accused of heresy, living in cities, are usually arrested in the dead of night, by familiars of the Inquisition. They proceed to the dwelling of the accused, who is required immediately to rise and follow them to a carriage in waiting. Resistance is useless; and people stand so much in awe of the hated court, that parents deliver up their children, husbands their wives, and masters their servants, to its officers, without daring to murmur in the least degree; the prisoners are kept in solitary confinement, generally for a long time, till they are convicted of any crime of which they may have been guilty. 4. EXAMINATION OF PRISONERS.--After solemn prayer to the Holy Spirit has been read, the prisoner is brought before the inquisitor in the chamber of audience. He beholds at a table on his right hand the judge-inquisitor, at the farther end sits the notary, and the unhappy victim, with his arms and feet naked, and his head shaved and uncovered, is allowed to sit on a form at the lower end of the table. Opposite to him, against the wall, is fixed a large crucifix, reaching nearly to the ceiling. He is then interrogated by the inquisitor, who employs every possible artifice to induce him to make confession of every thing that he may have said or done against the Catholic faith. In Spain and Portugal, the inquisitor sometimes sends a person to visit him, exhorting him, as a friend, to make confession, that he may obtain the favour of his judge, and not be separated for ever from his wife and children. Many are thereby induced to confess fictitious crimes, in the vain hope of obtaining liberty. 5. BILL OF ACCUSATION.--The promoter-fiscal exhibits the bill of accusation against the prisoner, thus,--“I, _N._, fiscal of the office of the Holy Inquisition, do, before you, the reverend inquisitor, delegated judge in causes of the faith against heretical pravity, criminally accuse _M._, who being baptised a Christian, and accounted such among all persons, hath departed from the Catholic faith.” Their various crimes are specified in grievous terms. The witnesses are examined in private, and only their testimony exhibited against the prisoner. This iniquitous course is uniformly pursued. So that the New Christians, as the conforming Jews in Spain were called, in vain offered Charles V. the sum of 80,000 pieces of gold, if he would order the witnesses against some of them to be made known at the tribunal of the Inquisition. In some cases, prisoners are allowed to appeal from the inquisitor, before the trial has proceeded to the definitive sentence. 6. COURSE FOR THE PRISONER.--If the prisoner deny his guilt, he is allowed to select an advocate from a list provided by the inquisitors, but paid from the effects of the accused. If under twenty-five years, he is allowed a curator or guardian.