tract immigrants from Majorca the authorities there interfered, to prevent the loss of inhabitants; they endeavored to get a larger share of the fruits in virtue of the incorporation of the dominium utile with the directum of the lands held by the Moriscos, but in view of the heavy burdens on the lands they were obliged to be content with a portion ranging from a sixth to a ninth of the product in place of the third or the half which the Moriscos had been accustomed to pay. On these terms three places were repopulated before the year 1609 was out, fifteen more in 1610, thirty in 1611, and so the process went on. We hear of 8000 immigrants from the Pyrenees and 7000 from Catalonia, but these were a very partial substitute for the 100,000 or 150,000 exiles from Valencia, and if the house of Osuna, as is alleged, in comparatively a few years brought its rentals up to the old standard there must have been exceptionally capable management.'

The process of repopulation was greatly retarded by the censos or ground-rents with which most of the Morisco holdings were charged. The lords took the lands subject to these liens, and were unable to pay the interest or rent,' and newcomers were unwilling to assume them. The rate ranged from six and a half to ten per cent., although the customary charge in Spain was only five; these censos were the chief support of all who had capital to invest— nobles, widows, convents, parish churches, cathedral and collegiate chapters, etc.—so that the confusion was inextricable and the suffering universal, especially in Valencia.

1 Cabrera, Relaciones, p. 392.-Ximenez, Vida de Ribera, p. 435.— Danvila, pp. 334-6.-Boix, Historia de la Ciudad y Reino de Valencia, II. 50-1 (Valencia, 1845).

Francisco Geronimo Ramo, a gentleman of Murviedro, thus lost 20,000 ducats of censos in Almunia, a property of his ancestors since the time of the conquest, and Bernardino Zanoqucra, Maestre Racional of Valencia, lost 6000 ducats in Alzira. To straighten matters out Salvador Fontanet, regent of the royal court of Valencia, was commissioned to investigate the whole subject, and, on the basis of his report, a pragmática of April 2d, and a cedula of June 9, 1614, laid down general principles and gave full instructions what to do in each case. From this it would appear that a horizontal reduction of interest on the census was made to five per cent., while allusions to the pro-rating of creditors and allowing of executions indicate how complete was the financial disturbance and how wide-spread were the losses, it was not only the Morisco villages wlueh were depopulated, but many Christian communities were ruined in consequence of the intimate relations existing between them. The tabla de los depositor of Valencia—presumably a bank of deposit—was bankrupted and had to be assisted by the imposition of an impost to repair its losses. The tabla of Barcelona, which was regarded as exceptionally strong, was likewise bankrupted, and only the one of Saragossa managed to retain its credit. The nobles who, in Fontanet's report, were shown to have suffered exceptionally were assisted by annual payments from the king, "para alimentos," as though they were in danger of starving. Thus, to the Count of Castcllar was awarded the sum of 2000 ducats a year, to Don Juan Rotla 400, to Dona Beatriz de Borja 600, to the Marquis of Quira 600, to the Count del Real 2000, to the Duke of Gandfa 8000, and so forth. The barony of Cortes, belonging to

Don Juan Pallas, had suffered especially, troops having been quartered there who razed the houses, cut down the trees and destroyed everything, in compensation for which he was granted 4000 ducats worth of royal lands and a pension for life of three hundred libras.'

2

These were liberal grants, in view of the fact that the royal treasury was an especial sufferer and that it was habitually in a state of penury. In 1611 Philip, in appealing to the cortes for relief to the necessities of the state and enumerating the reasons for his poverty, included the expulsion of the Moriscos, in which he had postponed the interest of the treasury to the service of God and the state. This was not entirely candid, for the king enjoyed a compensating source of profit denied to the nobles and churches. In Aragon and Valencia he suffered with them, and in the latter kingdom he was the largest landholder, for at the conquest all lands not granted to vassals were reserved to the crown. In the kingdoms of the crown of Castile, however, as we have seen, he escheated the lands of the exiles or made them surrender one-half of the wealth they carried with them. What sums were derived from this we have no means of knowing, but they were undoubtedly large, and, in fact, among the arguments urged in advance for expulsion a prominent place was given to the permanent relief to the state that the confiscations would bring, enabling it to clear off its enormous and increasing indebtedness. As early as October, 1610, the Council of Finance reported that the property of the Moriscos of Ocaña and Madrid

1 Boix, op. cit. II. 344.-Bleda, Crónica, pp. 1032, 1033.-Danvila. pp. 333-9.-Cabrera, Relaciones, p. 546.

2 Cabrera, Relaciones, p. 458.

had mostly been sold and that seventy-five millions of maravedis (200,000 ducats) had been already paid in.' This indicates total receipts of considerable magnitude, but they afforded no relief to the treasury, for greedy favorites were always at hand to profit by the reckless improvidenee of Philip, as the Flemings had done in the early years of Charles V. In letters of Sir Francis Cottington, the British ambassador, to Lord Salisbury, March 4th and May 16, 1610, he states that commissioners had been sent to the provinces to sell the houses and farms of the exiles, but that the king did not propose to utilize the proceeds for the service of the state, for he was dividing them in advance among his favorites with scandalous prodigality—250,000 ducats to Lerma, 100,000 to the Duke of Uceda, Lerma's son, 100,000 to the count of Lemos, and 50,000 to the Countess of Lemos, Lerma's daughter.2

Better use was made of at least a portion of the escheats in Aragon and Valencia. A statement of January 7, 1613, shows that those of Aragon amounted to 471,533 libras, 5 sueldos, out of which 40,188 were bestowed on the Inquisition, 84,949 to new inhabitants in the form of ground-rents on which they were to pay interest, and a considerable sum was devoted to repopulating the barrio de San Juan in the town of Borja, and the village of Torroles, which were deserted. In 1614 Adrian Bayarte was sent to Valencia with full powers to settle all matters connected with the large amount of property left by the Moriscos in the royal cities and towns, to sell it, to verify and pay all claims on it of every kind, to collect

1 Janer, p. 343.

3 Danvila, p. 332.

2 Watson's Philip III., Appendix B.

all debts due by Christians to Moriscos which enured to the fisc, to restore the population of Segorbe, Navajas, Corvera and the suburbs of Jativa, together with many other matters arising from the expulsion. In all this he had plenary authority, and the courts were deprived of jurisdiction in the premises. The task occupied him for two years and a half, during which he settled an infinity of suits and sold the royal properties at prices considerably larger than their valuation, so that the king was able to pay all debts and claims and had a surplus for distribution to the barons, monasteries and other sufferers —it was doubtless from this source that were met the awards made under the report of Fontanet. It is said that Bayarte satisfied every one and that no appeals were made from his decisions, and, in September, 1616, the king ordered that his settlements should be final, that no court should take cognizance of any suit brought to disturb them, under penalty of forfeiture for the pleader and exemplary punishment of the judge entertaining such action. It is easy to imagine the multitude and complexity of the cases arising from this sudden dislocation of business when the active trading element of the community was ordered out of the kingdom on a three days' notice.

How long, indeed, it took to settle all the questions arising from this arbitrary act, and the still more arbitrary methods used in its enforcement, may be seen from the fragment of a suit, brought about 1640, by the Licentiate Herrador, a priest, to recover some property which had been sold at the time of the expulsion by Francisco

1 Bleda, Crónica, pp. 1033-6.