Note 325 — Chapter IV

In 1546, the Venetian ambassador at the court of the Emperor Charles V. stated, in an official report to his own government on his return home, ‘that in Holland and in Friesland, more than 30,000 persons have suffered death at the hands of justice for Anabaptist errors.’ Correspondence of Charles V. and his Ambassadors, edited by William Bradford, Lond. 8vo, 1850, p. 471. In Spain, the Inquisition, during the eighteen years of Torquemada's ministry, punished, according to the lowest estimate, upwards of 105,000 persons, of whom 8,800 were burned. Prescott's History of Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. i. p. 265. In Andalusia alone, during a single year, the Inquisition put to death 2,000 Jews, ‘besides 17,000 who underwent some form of punishment less severe than that of the stake.’ Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature, vol. i. p. 410. For other statistical evidence on this horrible subject, see Llorente, Histoire de l'Inquisition, vol. i. pp. 160, 229, 238, 239, 279, 280, 406, 407, 455, vol. ii. pp. 77, 116, 376, vol. iv. p. 31; and, above all, the summary at pp. 242–273.