.. the true religion
which we profess is the greatest blessing which God has bestowed on
the Spanish people; we do not recognize as Spaniards those who do not
profess it ... It is the surest support of all private and social
virtues, of fidelity to the laws and to the monarch, of the love of
country and of just liberty, which are graven in every Spanish heart,
which have impelled you to battle with the hosts of the usurper,
vanquishing and annihilating them, while braving hunger and nakedness,
torture, and death."
The Inquisition is next referred to. It is stated that in their
constant endeavor to hasten the termination of the evils that afflict
the Spanish nation, the people's representatives have first given
their attention to the Inquisition; that, with the object of
discovering the exact civil and ecclesiastical status of the Holy
Office, they have examined all the papal bulls and other documents
that could throw light on the subject, and have discovered that only
the Inquisitor-General had ecclesiastical powers; that the Provincial
Inquisitors were merely his delegates acting under his instructions;
that no supreme inquisitorial council had ever been instituted by
papal brief, and that the general, being with the enemy (the French
troops), no Inquisition really existed. From these investigations the
Cortes had acquired a knowledge of the mode of procedure of the
tribunals, of their history, and of the opinion of them entertained by
the Cortes of the kingdom in early days.
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