Nevertheless, it must be said that, had matters been left as Isabella
and Ferdinand left them, Spain might have benefited by the example of
her conquerors, as other countries have done, and as she herself did
during the Roman occupation. Philip II. was too wise to expel the
richest and most industrious of his subjects so long as they paid his
taxes and, at least, professed to be Christians. It was not until the
reign of Philip III. and his disgraceful favourite Lerma, himself the
most bigoted of Valencian "Christians," that, by the advice of Ribera,
the Archbishop of Valencia, these industrious, thrifty, and harmless
people were ruthlessly driven out. They had turned Valencia into a
prolific garden,--even to-day it is called the _huerta_,--their silk
manufactures were known and valued throughout the world; their industry
and frugality were, in fact, their worst crimes; they were able to draw
wealth from the sterile lands which "Christians" found wholly
unproductive. "Since it is impossible to kill them all," said Ribera,
the representative of Christ, he again and again urged on the King their
expulsion.

The nobles and landowners protested in vain. September 22, 1609, is one
of the blackest--perhaps, in fact, the blackest--of all days in the
disastrous annals of Spain. The Marqués de Caracena, Viceroy of
Valencia, issued the terrible edict of expulsion. Six of the oldest and
"most Christian" Moriscos in each community of a hundred souls were to
remain to teach their modes of cultivation and their industries, and
only three days were allowed for the carrying out of this most wicked
and suicidal law. In the following six months one hundred and fifty
thousand Moors were hounded out of the land which their ancestors had
possessed and enriched for centuries. Murcia, Andalucia, Aragon,
Cataluña, Castile, La Mancha, and Estremadura were next taken in hand.