454 RISING IN THE ALPUXARRAS. PART II. Priestly casuislrv. where the eternal interests of the soul were at stake, the force of promises and the faith of trea- ties were equally nugatory. ^^ But the chef-cPcBuvre of monkish casuistry was the argument imputed to Ximenes for depriving the Moors of the benefits of the treaty, as a legitimate consequence of the rebellion, into which they had been driven by his own malpractices. This propo- sition, however, far from outraging the feelings of the nation, well drilled by this time in the meta- physics of the cloister, fell short of them, if we are to judge from recommendations of a still more questionable import, urged, though ineffectually, on the sovereigns at this very time, from the highest quarter. ^ Such are the frightful results to which the fairest 39 See the arf^uments of Xime- nes, or of his enthusiastic biogra- pher Flcchier, for it is not always easy to discriminate between them. Hist, de Ximenes, pp. 108, 109. 40 The duke of Medina Sidonia proposed to Ferdinand and Isabella to be avenged on the Moors, in some way not explained, after their disembarkation in Africa, on the ground that, the term of the royal safe-conduct having elapsed, they might lawfully be treated as ene- mies. To this proposal, which would have done honor to a college of Jesuits in the sixteenth century, the sovereigns made a reply too creditable not to be transcribed. " El Rei 6 la R4ina. Fernando de Zafra, nuestro secretario. Vimos vueslra letra, en que nos fecistes saber lo que el duque de Medinasi- donia tenia pensado que se podia facer contra los Moros de Villa- luenga despues de desembarcados allende. Decidle que le agrade- cemos y tenemos en servicio el buen deseo que tiene de nos servir : pero porqv^ nuestra palabra y segvro real asi se dcbe guardar a Jos injicles como a los Cristianos, y faciendose lo que el dice pareceria cautela y engafio armado sobre nuestro segu- ro para no le guardar, que en nin- guna manera se haga eso, ni otra cosa de que pueda parecer que se quebranta nuestro seguro. De Granada veinte y nueve de mayo de quini^ntos y un aiios. — Yo el Rei. — Yo la R^ina — Por manda- do del Rei e del Reina, Miguel Pe- rez Almazan." Would that the suggestions of Isabella's own heart, instead of the clergy, had always been the guide of her conduct in these matters ! Mem. de la Acad, de Hist., torn. vi. Ilust. 15, from the original in the archives of the family of Medina Sidonia.
