Many of them have raised up great estates in a few years, not being sparing of their thieving and usury, maintaining that they earn it from their enemies....”[51] [Illustration: _Photo by Donald Macbeth._ SEVILLE. From Colmenar’s “Délices d’Espagne.”] This atrocious tissue of misrepresentation would be utterly negligible and contemptible were it not for the fact--as has been said--that it was written in good faith (the good faith of a bigot) and reflects what was currently believed, fostered by the envy which is plainly revealed when Bernaldez alludes to the occupations of the Jews and the New-Christians--all of whom he assumes to be false to the faith they have embraced. Isabella must have been conscious of this feeling, and she must have rated it at its proper value. She had received in 1474 a very pitiful narrative poem of the New-Christian Anton Montoro, which painted with terrible vividness a slaughter of the _conversos_ and implored justice upon the assassins, protesting the innocence of the New-Christians and the sincerity of their conversions. Her gentle nature must have been moved to compassion by that lament, and her acute mind must have perceived the evil passions and the envy that were stirring under the fair cloak of saintly zeal. All these considerations being weighed, she resisted the representations of Ojeda. But weightier than any may have been the reflection of the power which the tribunal of the Inquisition must place in the hands of the clergy. Already and very bravely she had expressed her resentment of clerical usurpation of royal rights in Spain, and to repress it she had not hesitated to front the Pope himself. If she acceded now to Ojeda’s request, she would be permitting the priesthood to set up a court which, not being subject to any temporal law, must alienate from her some portion of that sovereignty which so jealously she guarded. Thus she came to dismiss the petition of the Dominican, and there can be little doubt when all the circumstances are considered--as presently they shall be--that in this she had the entire support of the Cardinal of Spain, Don Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza, Archbishop of Seville, who was with her at the time. Ojeda withdrew, baffled, but by no means resigned. He awaited a more favourable season, what time he kept the popular feeling in a state of ferment. And no sooner had Ferdinand come to rejoin his Queen in Seville than the Dominican renewed his importunities.