As the activity of the Inquisition diminished, in the latter half of the eighteenth century, the use of torture naturally decreased but, until, the suppression in 1813, the formal demand for it was preserved in the accusation presented by the fiscal. One of the early acts of Fernando VII, on his restoration in 1814, was the issue of a cédula, July 25th, addressed to all officers of justice, reciting that, in 1798, when the Royal Council learned that, in the courts of Madrid, the accused were subjected to the severest pressure to extort confessions, it investigated the matter and found that thumb-screws and other methods more or less rigorous were employed, and that this was without authority of law: consequently on February 5, 1803, the discontinuance of these was ordered, except fetters to the feet, and at the same time inquiries made of all courts in the kingdom showed that various kinds of compulsion were used whereby the innocent were sometimes compelled to convict themselves falsely. In view of all of this Fernando now ordered that in future no judge should use any kind of pressure or torment to obtain confession from the accused or testimony from witnesses, all usages to the contrary being abolished.[98] This can scarce have applied to the Inquisition but, under the Restoration, it had little to do with actual heresy and, before it was thoroughly reorganized, all doubts were removed by Pius VII. Llorente tells us that the _Gazette de France_ of April 14, 1816, contained a letter from Rome of March 31st, stating that the pope had forbidden the use of torture in all tribunals of the Inquisition, and had ordered that this be communicated to the ambassadors of France and Portugal.[99] I see no reason for doubting this, although no such brief appears in the Bullarium of Pius VII, and we may assume that at last the Spanish Holy Office closed its career relieved of this disgrace.
According to an _arancel_, or fee-list, of 1553, the executioner was entitled to one real for administering torture, or to half a real if the infliction was only threatened. In the lay courts the sufferer was obliged to pay his tormentor, for there is a provision that, if he is poor, the executioner is to receive nothing and is not allowed to take his garments in lieu of the money.[100] In the Inquisition where, for offences justifying torture, arrest was accompanied with sequestration, the tribunal necessarily took upon itself the payment and, as we have seen, in 1681, the fee had increased to four ducats. In cases which did not end with confiscation, the outlay was undoubtedly included among the costs of the trial charged against the sequestrated estate. In the Roman Inquisition, where torture was used so much more indiscriminately, a decision of the Congregation, in 1614, relieved the accused from payment of the fee.[101]