The proposition being declared heretical, it was unanimously agreed by the board that the person who had uttered it should be apprehended, and proceeded against agreeably to the laws of the Inquisition.  And now the person was named; for, till it is determined whether the accused person should or should not be apprehended, his name is kept concealed from the counsellors, lest they should be biased, says the directory, in his favor, or against him.  For, in many instances, they keep up an appearance of justice and equity, at the same time that, in truth, they act in direct opposition to all the known laws of justice and equity.  No words can express the concern and astonishment it gave me to hear, on such an occasion, the name of a friend for whom I had the greatest esteem and regard.  The Inquisitor was apprised of it; and to give me an opportunity of practising what he had so often recommended to me, viz. conquering nature with the assistance of grace, he appointed me to apprehend the criminal, as he styled him, and to lodge him safe, before daylight, in the prison of the holy inquisition.  I offered to excuse myself, but with the greatest submission, from being in any way concerned in the execution of that order; an order, I said, which I entirely approved of, but only wished it might be put in execution by some other person; for your lordship knows, I said, the connection.  But the Inquisitor shocked at the word, said with a stern look and angry tone of voice, “What! talk of connections where the faith is concerned?  There is your guard,” (pointing to the Sbirri or bailiffs in waiting) “let the criminal be secured in St. Luke’s cell,” (one of the worst,) “before three in the morning.”  He then withdrew, and as he passed me said, “Thus, nature is conquered.”  I had betrayed some weakness or sense of humanity, not long before, in fainting away while I attended the torture of one who was racked with the utmost barbarity, and I had on that occasion been reprimanded by the Inquisitor for suffering nature to get the better of grace; it being an inexcusable weakness, as he observed, to be in any degree affected with the suffering of the body, however great, when afflicted, as they ever are in the Holy Inquisition, for the good of the soul.  And it was, I presume, to make trial of the effect of that reprimand, that the execution of this cruel order was committed to me.  As I could by no possible means decline it, I summoned all my resolution, after passing an hour by myself, I may say in the agonies of death, and set out a little after two in the morning for my unhappy friend’s house, attended by a notary of the Inquisition, and six armed Sbirri.  We arrived at the house by different ways and knocking at the door, a maid-servant looked out of the window, and asked who knocked.  “The Holy Inquisition,” was the answer, and at the same time she was ordered to awake nobody, but to come down directly and open the door, on pain of excommunication.  At these