“Beloved Brethren in Moses,--We have your letter in which you tell us of the travail and suffering you are enduring there.... The opinion of the Rabbis is that since the King of Spain attempts to make you Christians, you should become Christians; since he deprives you of your goods and property, you should make your children merchants, that they may deprive the Christians of theirs; since you say that they deprive you of your lives, make your sons apothecaries and physicians to deprive the Christians of theirs; since they destroy your synagogues, make your sons clerics that they may destroy the Christian temples; since you say that you suffer other wrongs, make your sons enter public offices that thus they may render the Christians subject to them. “Do not depart from these orders, and you will see that from oppressed you will come to be held of great account. “HUSÉE, Prince of the Jews of Constantinople.” * * * * * The matter of these letters--so very obviously forged--was freely circulated. Being accepted, public indignation was suddenly increased by fear. Imaginations were stimulated, and stories based upon these injunctions of Prince Husée became current, nothing being ever too flagrant for popular consumption. It was related that a Jewish physician in Toledo carried poison in one of his finger-nails, and that with this he touched the tongues of the patients he visited, thus killing them. Of another physician it was reported that he deliberately poisoned the wounds he was desired to heal.[232] And that there were many other such stories current is beyond all doubt. * * * * * What use, if any, Torquemada made of those forged letters and the stories that were their offspring, we do not know. But it would be strange if the circulation and acceptance of such matters displeased him, since they were plainly calculated to forward his aims and compel the Sovereigns to lend an ear to his insistent denunciations of the Jews. Incessantly he preached the need for religious unity in a united Spain. Indeed, Spain, he urged, never could be united, never could deserve the blessing of Heaven, until all men in that land were the children of God, true believers in the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Faith. God had greatly favoured Ferdinand and Isabella, the friar continued. He had collected the various elements of the peninsula into one mighty kingdom, which He had subjected to their sceptre. Let them fuse those elements into a solid whole, rejecting all those who resist this fusion--and this for the honour and glory of God and of their own kingdom. Before this terrific gospel of Religious Unity nothing could stand. Humanitarian considerations, principles of equity, indebtedness and gratitude are mere trifles to be swept away by that hurricane of religious argument.