Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/161

Rh alliances, though at the expense of their vaunted chapter purity of blood.

These various offences were urged against the Jews with great pertinacity by their enemies, and the sovereigns were importuned to adopt a more rigorous policy. The inquisitors, in particular, to whom the work of conversion had been specially intrusted, represented the incompetence of all lenient measures to the end proposed. They asserted, that the only mode left for the extirpation of the Jewish heresy, was to eradicate the seed; and they boldly demanded the immediate and total banishment of every unbaptized Israelite from the land.

The Jews, who had obtained an intimation of these proceedings, resorted to their usual crafty policy for propitiating the sovereigns. They commissioned one of their body to tender a donative of thirty thousand ducats towards defraying the expenses of the Moorish war.

The negotiation however was suddenly interrupted by the inquisitor general, Torquemada, who burst into the apartment of the palace, where the sovereigns were giving audience to the Jewish deputy, and, drawing forth a crucifix from beneath his mantle, held it up, exclaiming, "Judas Iscariot sold his master for thirty