BARATA Y DESPRECIABLE.

Indeed, most of the persecutions which have arisen in Spain against
Jews, Moors, and Protestants, sprang from motives with which
fanaticism and bigotry, of which it is true the Spaniards have
their full share, had very little connection. Religion was assumed
as a mask to conceal the vilest and most detestable motives which
ever yet led to the commission of crying injustice; the Jews were
doomed to persecution and destruction on two accounts, - their
great riches, and their high superiority over the Spaniards in
learning and intellect. Avarice has always been the dominant
passion in Spanish minds, their rage for money being only to be
compared to the wild hunger of wolves for horse-flesh in the time
of winter: next to avarice, envy of superior talent and
accomplishment is the prevailing passion. These two detestable
feelings united, proved the ruin of the Jews in Spain, who were,
for a long time, an eyesore, both to the clergy and laity, for
their great riches and learning. Much the same causes insured the
expulsion of the Moriscos, who were abhorred for their superior
industry, which the Spaniards would not imitate; whilst the
reformation was kept down by the gaunt arm of the Inquisition, lest
the property of the church should pass into other and more
deserving hands. The faggot piles in the squares of Seville and
Madrid, which consumed the bodies of the Hebrew, the Morisco, and
the Protestant, were lighted by avarice and envy, and those same
piles would likewise have consumed the mulatto carcass of the
Gitano, had he been learned and wealthy enough to become obnoxious
to the two master passions of the Spaniards.

Of all the Spanish writers who have written concerning the Gitanos,