INQUISITION, The Spanish, Sylvester Hassell The notorious Spanish Inquisition was established at Seville in 1480 by the blind religious zeal of Queen Isabella and the unscrupulous avarice of King Ferdinand and of Pope Sixtus IV—the grand object of this infamous institution being to make money by the confiscation of the property of wealthy heretics. In 1481, the first year of its operation, two thousand persons were burned. In the sixteen years of the generalship of Thomas de Torquemada (1483-1498), it is said that 8,800 were condemned to the flames, 6,500 burned in effigy, and 90,000 subjected to imprisonment, confiscation and other penalties. Llorente, the secretary and official historian of the Spanish Inquisition, estimates that that institution, during the whole period of its existence, burned about 30,000 persons alive, and condemned about 300,000 to punishments less severe than death. In 1492 persecution was begun against the Jews, of whom 500,000 were expelled from Spain and their wealth confiscated. In seventy years the population of Spain was reduced from 10,000,000 to 6,000,000 by the banishment of Jews, Moors, and Morescoes (Christianized Moors), the most wealthy and intelligent of the inhabitants of that country. (Hassell’s History pg 470) (See also under AUGUSTINE and The Temporal Power of the POPE)