for the suppression of this institution, wherever his victorious troops should extend their arms. I reminded Marshal Soult, then governor of Madrid, of this decree, who directed me to proceed to its execution on this far-famed establishment. With my regiment, the 9th of the Polish lancers, he gave me two others. One of which, the 117th, was under the command of Colonel de Lile.

"With these troops I proceeded to the Inquisition, which was about five miles from the city. It was surrounded with a wall of great strength, and defended by about four hundred soldiers. When we arrived at the walls I addressed one of the sentinels, and summoned the holy fathers to surrender to the imperial army, and open the gates of the Inquisition. The sentinel who was standing on the wall appeared to enter into conversation for a few moments with some one within, at the close of which, he presented his musket and shot one of my men. This was a signal for attack, and I ordered my troops to fire upon those who appeared on the wall.

"It was soon obvious that it was an unequal warfare. Our troops were in the open plain, and exposed to a destructive fire. We had no cannon, nor could we scale the walls, and the gates successfully resisted all attempts at forcing them. I saw that it was necessary to change the mode of attack, and directed some trees to be cut down and trimmed, and brought on the ground, to be used as battering-rams. Presently the walls began to tremble, and under the welldirected and persevering application of the ram, a breach was made, and the imperial troops rushed into the Inquisition.

"Here we met with an incident which nothing but jesuitical effrontery is equal to. The Inquisitor General, followed by the father confessors in their priestly robes, all came out of their rooms as we were making our way into the interior of the Inquisition, and with long faces and their

arms crossed over their breasts, as though they had been deaf to all the noise of the attack and defence, and had jnst learned what was going on, addressed themselves in the language of rebuke to their own soldiers, saying, 'Why do you fight our friends the French?'

"Their intention, apparently, was to make us think that this defence was wholly unauthorized by them, hoping they should thus have a better opportunity, in the confusion and plunder of the Inquisition, to escape. Their artifice was too shallow. I caused them to be placed under guard, and all the soldiers of the Inquisition to be secured as prisoners.

"We then proceeded through room after room, found altars, and crucifixes, and wax candles in abundance-the proportions of the architecture were perfect-the ceiling and floors were scoured and highly polished-there was every thing to please the eye and gratify a cultivated taste; but where were those horrid instruments of torture of which we had been told, and where those dungeons in which human beings were said to be buried alive? We searched in vain. The holy fathers assured us that they had been belied; that we had seen all; and I was prepared to believe it.

"But Colonel De Lile was not so ready to give up the search. At his instance water was brought in and poured over the marble floor, the slabs of which were large and beautifully polished. Presently an opening was discovered, and as all hands were at work for further discovery, a soldier, with the butt of his musket, struck a spring, when the marble slab flew up. Then the faces of the Inquisitors grew pale, and as Belshazzar when the hand appeared writing on the wall, so did these men of Belial shake and quake in every bone, joint, and sinew. We saw a staircase. I stepped to the table and took one of the candles, four feet in length, which was burning, that I might explore what was before us; as I was doing this, I was arrested by one of the

Inquisitors, who laid his hand gently on my arm, and with a very demure and holy look said, "My son, you must not take that with your profane and bloody hand; it is holy." "Well, well," I said, "I want something that is holy, to see if it will not shed light on iniquity; I will bear the responsibility."

"I took the candle and proceeded down the staircase, when we entered a large room, called the Hall of Judgment. In the centre of it was a large block, and a chain fastened to it. On this they had been accustomed to place the accused, chained to his seat. On one side of the room was an elevated seat, called the Throne of Judgment. This the Inquisitor General occupied, and on either side were seats less elevated, for the holy fathers when engaged in the solemn business of the Holy Inquisition. From this room we proceeded to the right, and obtained access to small cells, extending the entire length of the edifice; and here what a sight met our eyes! How has the benevolent religion of Jesus been abused and slandered by its professed friends!

"These cells were places of solitary confinement, where the wretched objects of inquisitorial hate were confined year after year, till death released them from their sufferings, and there their bodies were suffered to remain until they were entirely decayed, and the rooms had become fit for others to occupy. To prevent this practice being offensive to those who occupied the Inquisition, there were flues or tubes extending to the open air, sufficiently capacious to carry off the odor from those decaying bodies. In these cells we found the remains of some who had paid the debt of nature; some of them had been dead apparently but a short time, while of others nothing remained but their bones, still chained to the floor of their dungeon. In others, we found the living sufferer of every age and of both sexes, from the young man and maiden to those of threescore and ten years, all as naked as when

they were born into the world.

Our soldiers immediately

applied themselves to releasing these captives of their chains, stripped themselves in part of their own clothing to cover these wretched beings, and were exceedingly anxious to bring them up to the light of day. But, aware of the danger, I insisted on their wants being supplied, and that they should be brought gradually to the light, as they could bear it.

"When we had explored these cells, and opened the prison-doors of those who yet survived, we proceeded to explore another room on the left. Here we found the instruments of torture, of every kind which the ingenuity of men or devils could invent. At the sight of them the fury of our soldiers refused any longer to be restrained. They declared that every inquisitor, monk, and soldier of the establishment deserved to be put to the torture. We did not attempt any longer to restrain them. They commenced at once the work of torture with the holy fathers. I remained till I saw four different kinds of torture applied, and then retired from the awful scene, which terminated not while one individual remained of the former guilty inmates of this antechamber of hell, on whom they could wreak revenge. As soon as the poor sufferers from the cells of the Inquisition could with safety be brought out of their prison to the light of day, (news having been spread far and near that numbers had been rescued from the Inquisition), all who had been deprived of friends by the holy office, came to inquire if theirs were among the number.

"What meeting was there! About a hundred who had been buried alive for many years, were now restored to the active world, and many of them found here a son and there a daughter, here a sister and there a brother, and some, alas! could recognize no friends. The scene was such a one as no tongue can describe. When this work of recognition was over, to complete the business in which I had en

gaged, I went to Madrid and obtained a large quantity of gunpowder, which I placed underneath the edifice and in its vaults, and as we applied the slow-match there was a joyful sight to thousands of admiring eyes! The walls and massive turrets of that proud edifice were raised towards the heavens, and the Inquisition of Madrid was no more."

I have heard it gravely affirmed, that the idea of the Inquisition being an institution which ever indulged in acts of cruelty, is a Protestant fiction. But the person who affirmed this also approbated the massacre of Saint Bartholomew's night. And he is an American citizen, and was once a Protestant-perhaps a religious exhorter-despises New England, and pretends to be a South Carolinian, but was born "by accident" in Massachusetts. "A little learning makes one mad," &c., and a little religion, I fear, usually makes one a hot zealot.

BISHOP'S PALACE.

I returned by the way of the Archbishop's palace, situated at the east side of the plaza, in a line with the cathedral. The see, at the time of my writing this, was vacant, and the palace occupied by a Padre Canonigo. The Archbishop had died some months before, and his place had not been filled. There was but little to interest in the different parts of the buildings; but dust, decay, and desertion seemed to hold their reign throughout the apartments of the buildings. Where is the life that once floated along these corridors, the sala, and the balcony-the lights that streamed in the courts the founts that pearled in refreshing rivulets, which gave freshness and beauty to shrub, and plant, and flower? Dearth, night, and death, have severally usurped their places; and "so PASSES THE GLORY OF THE WORLD.'

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