The gratitude of Pedro to his Jesuit confessor, Fernandez, and his colleagues could not be other than princely. He even made Fernandez a deputy of the Cortes (where he needed supporters), and we gather from the stern letter (given in Franco) in which General Oliva denounced this action to the authorities of the Portuguese Province that Fernandez was very reluctant to resign the honour. Under threat of punishment he yielded, but he maintained an absolute authority over King Pedro and placed his Society in a stronger position than ever. In the Jesuit documents of the time we find constant reference to "the Fathers of the Palace" and the immense benefits they procure for their colleagues. Through the King they secured a modification of the Spanish Inquisition--which had lately imprisoned one of their ablest men--and in many of the colonies they obtained a monopoly of the trade with the natives and acquired a wealth similar to that of the Spanish fathers in Paraguay. Pedro's second wife was no less generous to the Society than Luisa had been, and the ex-Queen of England, who returned to Portugal in 1693, joined in the enrichment of the Jesuits. When Pedro died in 1706, his son John V. continued to patronise the Society and enfeeble the kingdom. There were now more than a dozen Jesuits at the Portuguese court, and for many years it was hardly possible to approach the King without their permission. During the long reign of the incompetent and superstitious John V. Portugal sank rapidly into the decline that awaited her. Not only did Jesuits undertake commerce in the colonies and absorb vast sums of money in donations and annuities, but the Church at large is calculated to have received about five hundred million francs, wrung mainly from the decaying colonies, from the priest-ridden monarch. The Jesuits are by no means wholly responsible for the scandalous expenditure and economic folly of John V., or for the revival of the burning of heretics and the erection of palatial monasteries. In his later years the King transferred his favour to Oratorian and Franciscan priests, and it seemed as if the long reign of the Jesuits was seriously threatened. But this appalling clerical parasitism and disregard of national economy, which were fast sapping the strength of Portugal, were only the culmination of the sentiments which the Jesuits had cultivated in the Portuguese court for a century.