Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/698

678 pomp, covering a wide-spread feeling of apprehension and horror. The chief inquisitor was Doctor Pedro de Moya y Contreras, the same who some years later became archbishop of Mexico and afterward viceroy of New Spain. The first appointee to the office had been the licenciado Juan de Cervantes, but he died on the passage from Spain, whereupon Moya succeeded him, and installed the court on the 11th of November of the same year, in the large buildings of Juan Velazquez de Salazar, the dean of Mexico. Alonso Fernandez de Bonilla was the first fiscal or prosecuting officer of the court, who in 1583 became chief inquisitor.

The tribunal had jurisdiction over all Catholics who by deed or word gave signs of harboring heretical or schismatical opinions; and also over such persons not Catholics as attempted to proselyte, or uttered heretical sentiments, or were known to be hostile to the church. Foreign Protestants brought within its reach, and all offenders against the laws of the church, were also fit subjects for its tender mercies. And probably nothing better proves the honesty of the king and the good faith of the ecclesiastical authorities than the fact that Indians were made exempt, except in extreme cases, on the ground that they, as a race, were insufficiently instructed in the tenets of the faith, and therefore liable to fall, without malice, into error. In so fresh a field full of reckless