Victorious in Africa and Italy, Philip II, who was then the
reigning monarch, carried war into France, and ruled in Germany,
as well as in those provinces now known as Belgium and Holland.
The money necessary to carry on these vast wars of conquest was
undoubtedly acquired in the New World. When Cortez approached the
palace of Montezuma, the King's messengers met him, bearing
presents from their lord. These gifts included 200 pounds of gold
for the commander, and two pounds of gold for each of his army.
Prescott, in his "Conquest of Peru," says that when the Spanish
soldiers captured the capital of that country they spent days in
melting down the golden vessels which they found in temples and
palaces. On one voyage a single ship carried to Spain $15,500,000
in gold, besides vast treasures of silver and jewels.

THE HORRORS OF THE INQUISITION.

The Inquisition was a tribunal in the Roman Catholic church for
the discovery, repression and punishment of heresy and unbelief.
It originated in Rome when Christianity was established as the
religion of the Empire, but its history in Spain and her
dependencies has absorbed almost entirely the real interest in the
painful subject.

As an ordinary tribunal, similar to those of other countries, it
had existed there from an early period. Its functions, however, in
those times were little more than nominal; but early in the reign
of Ferdinand and Isabella, on account of the alleged discovery of
a plot among the Jews to overthrow the government, an application
was made to the Pope to permit its re-organization. But in
reviving the tribunal, the Crown assumed to itself the right of