and never be found beyond them after nightfall, and that they
should not practice as doctors, surgeons, apothecaries, or
innkeepers. The desire to emancipate themselves from these and
other restrictions upon their commerce with Christians and from
the generally intolerable conditions of bondage and ignominy
imposed upon them, had driven many to accept baptism and embrace
Christianity.

But even such New-Christians as were sincere in their professions
of faith failed to find in this baptism the peace they sought.
Bitter racial hostility, though sometimes tempered, was never
extinguished by their conversion.

Hence the alarm with which they viewed the gloomy, funereal,
sinister pageant--the white-robed, black-mantled and hooded
inquisitors, with their attendant familiars and barefoot friars--
headed by a Dominican bearing the white Cross, which invaded the
city of Seville one day towards the end of December and took its
way to the Convent of St. Paul, there to establish the Holy
Office of the Inquisition. The fear of the New-Christians that
they were to be the object of the attentions of this dread
tribunal had sufficed to drive some thousands of them out of the
city, to seek refuge in such feudal lordships as those of the
Duke of Medina Sidonia, the Marquis of Cadiz, and the Count of
Arcos.

This exodus had led to the publication by the newly appointed
inquisitors of the edict of 2nd January, in which they set forth
that inasmuch as it had come to their knowledge that many persons
had departed out of Seville in fear of prosecution upon grounds