Some culprits, we are told, cunningly took advantage of the opportunity of retraction, by confessing at once, as soon as subjected to torture, then recanting and repeating this process indefinitely, to the no small disgust of the inquisitors. A writer of the close of the seventeenth century, who mentions this, shows that the subject was then in an indeterminate condition, by suggesting as a remedy that they should be subjected to extraordinary penalties.[79] A case at Cuenca, in 1725, in which these tactics were successful, indicates that by that time a third torture was not recognized as lawful. Dr. Diego Matheo López Zapata, as soon as the torturer was ready to begin, exclaimed that he was ready to confess, and made a detailed confession of Judaic practices followed for nearly fifty years. The next day he revoked and, when the torture was resumed, he repeated his confession, only to revoke it as before. The tribunal appears to have been powerless and contented itself with making him appear in an auto de fe as a penitent, with a sanbenito to be immediately removed, abjuration _de vehementi_ and twenty years' exile from Cuenca, Murcia and Madrid.[80] At an earlier period he would scarce have escaped without scourging, galleys and irremissible prison.
When torture was administered, without eliciting a confession, the logical conclusion, if torture proved anything, was that the accused was innocent. In legal phrase, he had purged the evidence and was entitled to acquittal.[81] Such, indeed, was the law, but there was a natural repugnance to being baffled, or to admit that innocence had been so cruelly persecuted, and excuses were readily found to evade the law. On such a subject there could be no definite line of practice prescribed, and the situation is reflected by the Instructions of 1561, which tell the inquisitor that, in such cases, he must consider the nature of the evidence, the degree of torture employed, and the age and disposition of the accused; if it appears that he has fully purged the evidence, he should be fully acquitted, but if it seems that he has not been sufficiently tortured he can be required to abjure either for light or vehement suspicion, or some pecuniary penalty can be imposed, although this should be done only with great consideration.[82] Thus the matter was practically left to the discretion of the tribunal, with the implied admission that, when torture proved unsuccessful, it was merely surplusage.