The Prime Minister
Page 41
Moorish blood in their veins,the term having origin from the following cause.
At an early period in Lusitanian history, we find that the Jews hadcollected in great numbers in Portugal, and down to the reign of Johnthe First they had their synagogues and rabbins; indeed, in no countryin Europe did they enjoy greater prosperity, their wealth adding much tothe power of the kingdom.
In Spain, also, they had acquired considerable influence, till the reignof Ferdinand and Isabella, when those pious sovereigns having driven theMoors from their dominions, conceived that their duty to Heaven ordainedthat they should depopulate the other half of the cities in Spain, bybanishing the Jews also. This idea, fostered by the avarice of some andthe bigotry of others, was put into execution, and great numbers of theunfortunate refugees were received by John the Second on condition oftheir paying a certain tribute, and quitting the kingdom within alimited period, he undertaking to provide them with vessels to transportthem wherever they desired to proceed. The king's state of healthprevented him from seeing his orders put into execution, while thecaptains and seamen of the vessels treated those who had embarked in themost barbarous manner; keeping them at sea till they had entirelyconsumed their own provisions, and then compelling them to buy of themat exorbitant rates; so that those who remained in Portugal, fearful ofthe like treatment, allowed the prescribed time to elapse, and thusforfeited their liberty. Such was the situation of the Jews whenEmanuel began his reign, and generously restored them to liberty, forwhich extraordinary benevolence they offered him, in gratitude, a largesum of money; but he refused it, in the hopes of gaining theiraffections by kind treatment, and converting them to Christianity. Atlength, however, bigotry, and envy at their increasing wealth, caused aloud clamour to be raised against them, and Emanuel was induced,contrary to his own judgment, by the representations of his counsellors,and the interference of the Spanish sovereigns, to order all, both Jewsand Moors, who refused to embrace the Christian faith, to quit hisdominions. A day was fixed for their departure, after which all whoremained in the country were to lose their liberty; but, as itapproached, the king, greatly afflicted at the thoughts of driving somany of his subjects into banishment, devised a scheme which waseventually of great benefit to the kingdom. He ordered all the childrenof the Jews, under fourteen years of age, to be forcibly taken fromtheir parents, that they might be educated in the Christian faith, thusgaining converts to the Church at the expense of all the laws of justiceand humanity.
"What a moving spectacle was this to behold!" exclaims the reverendFather Ozorio. "Children torn from the agonised embraces of theirscreaming mothers, or dragged from the necks of their affectionatebrothers and sisters, from whom they were to be for ever separated,while the fathers sternly gazed, and cursed the perpetrators of deedsthey had no power to avenge! The city of Lisbon was filled with criesand lamentations; even the spectators could not refrain from tears.Parents, in the excess of their frenzy, were seen to lay violent handson themselves; many, rather than submit to the severity of the decree,hurling their infants into wells and pits. Never was such tribulationheard in Israel since the days of Herod the Tetrarch!"
No vessels had been provided for their transport, as had been promised,and thus, when the day for their departure had passed, they againforfeited their liberty. Thus harassed, they at length, to recovertheir children and their liberty, affected to become Christians, theking giving them every encouragement, so that the greater number livedcontentedly in the Portuguese dominions.
Though thus professing the religion of the country, it could not besupposed that they could regard it with any fond affection, andconsequently their faith was ever looked upon with suspicion by the restof the inhabitants, particularly by those who envied their industry andwealth: that hell-invented tribunal of the Inquisition taking everymeans, on the slightest pretext, to subject them to its tyrannicalpower. Many embraced the earliest opportunity of escaping to Holland,England, and other free countries, where they could enjoyuninterruptedly the exercise of their faith. Those that remained stillcontinued to intermarry among themselves, and, it was supposed, notwithout considerable reason, to exercise in private the rites they wereforbidden to perform in public. Whatever, therefore, was theirprofession of faith, none gave them credit for their belief in the holyCatholic Church, but bestowed on them the distinctive appellation of NewChristians, which they retained at the time of which we are nowspeaking.
The Marquis of Pombal, with that liberal policy which marked many of hisactions, finally abolished all such distinctions; but before he hadsucceeded in doing so, King Joseph took it into his most sagacious head,that, for the benefit of religion, there ought to be some sign placed onall those with Jewish blood in their veins. He consequently ordered adecree to be promulgated that all such should wear white hats.
The Minister remonstrated, but in vain. Finding reason ineffectual, hepretended compliance, and presented himself to the king with the edict,at the same time drawing out from under his cloak two white hats. Onthe king inquiring the meaning of the joke--"Oh!" replied Pombal, "Icome prepared to obey your majesty's edict, with one hat for you andanother for myself," thus hinting the well-known fact, that the royalfamily itself was not entirely free from the imaginary stain; the familyof the Minister also, it was said, having sprung from the stock ofAbraham, as are a vast many others. The king laughed, and gave up thepoint.
On the death of Joseph, and the banishment of his Minister, when bigotryand priestcraft regained their supremacy, the New Christians were againsubject to persecutions, and it is only under the present freeconstitution that all difference has been finally, and, we trust, forever, abolished.
But we have wandered from our subject, and have, by nearly a century,forestalled events. Our readers will exclaim, What has this longaccount of the Jews, and King Joseph and his Minister, with the whitehats, got to do with the cobbler and his stall? _Spera humpoco_--(which is to say, in Portuguese, "Stop a little," a veryfavourite expression before all their actions, whereby they often losethe right time)--we shall presently see; for if it has nothing to dowith the cobbler, it has with the family under whose walls he plied histrade, for they were New Christians; many indeed affirmed that theystill adhered to the faith of their forefathers, and there were variousstories current respecting the performance of their ancient rites. Itwas said, that when strangers were admitted to the house, there was oneroom, of considerable dimensions, always kept closed, which was supposedto be dedicated to the purposes of a synagogue. The vulgar believedthat, at the Feast of the Passover, they immolated a Christian child yetunweaned; the origin of which idea was, of course, the sacrifice of thePaschal lamb; and there were various other stories, equally absurd andrevolting, having less foundation in truth. However, Senhor Matteos deMenezes and his family had escaped the power of the Inquisition: itmight have been by timely donations of no inconsiderable amount to holyMother Church, so that even the Grand Inquisitor himself could not doubtthe completeness of their conversion, and the purity of their faith.
Having given a full description of the locality of the cobbler's stall,we may now go on spinning the thread of our history; and if some of ourreaders complain that we have turned our mystic spindle too slowly, wemust beg their pardon, and assure them that we are about to progress ata rapid rate, with scenes of the most thrilling interest, such as willcause their eyes to ache ere they can lay down the book.
The cobbler was one day seated in his stall, hard at work, hammering anew heel on to a shoe, at the same time thinking of the number of foolsthere were in the world, and yet how few were aware that they belongedto that class of creation; for, as we observed, our cobbler was aphilosopher in his way, and had he been born in the higher ranks ofsociety, he would have been a noted wit and satirist, laughing at thefollies and scourging the vices of his equals. But he found the folliesof the poor too slight, or too sad, to laugh at, and their vices morethe fault of institutions than their own, and beyond correction. Next,he thought of the state of the
nation. He saw a priesthood wallowing insloth, corrupted, bigoted, and abandoned to every vice; a nobilityhaughty, ignorant, vicious, and tyrannical; a king weak, superstitious,and profligate; a people sunk in apathy, and the grossest superstition,without courage or intelligence to assert their rights. And he pitiedthem; but he knew there was one man in the realm able and willing tooverthrow the power of the first, to crush the arrogant pride of thesecond, to rule the king, to enlighten the people, and to give justiceto all; and he had long determined to aid his designs; for the cobblerhad more power than the world supposed, and he thanked Heaven he did notbelong to any of these classes. These thoughts had just passed throughhis mind, when he heard a tramping of steeds, and looking up, he behelda cavalcade approaching, at the head of which rode the Duke of Aveiro,accompanied by his handsome young nephew on one side, while on the otherwas his equerry, Captain Policarpio, in earnest