city where your father had become entitled to royal authority opened its gates. These matters you will remember. Since the distribution of lands was completed and a wall of separation divided the Moriscoes of Murcia from their persistent persecutors, your brethren in the villages and country places have been the objects of unceasing malevolence. Daily insults and frauds deprive them of their just share, and no redress for the most wanton ‘injuries is extended. Valencia has been consigned to the operation of a relentless succession of bitter outrages under the direct instigation of the Roman disturber by peremptory orders to Don Jayme; and the same spirit is manifested everywhere. I regret to anticipate that little will be left to your highness but an empty dignity as king, and a depleted exchequer as a sovereign. But if you should carry into effect your once meditated design of identifying yourself with what seemed the universal tendency towards chief control of our native land by the Christians, and the cross should become your symbol also, permit me to express a warning that this step will not extricate you from the perilous descent to the extinction of your dynasty. Your fathers fought nobly for the independence of Cordova, and the philosophers of your race added luster to its halls of learning. But a new tendency is assuming chief control and I fear that still more evil days are inevitable.”
“Accept my thanks for your candor, my excellent friend,” returned Don Abraham; “should the events ‘now commencing in this region not proceed as you
