On 1st April 1758 the Pope signed the decree for an inquiry into the behaviour of the Jesuits, and Cardinal Saldanha was sent to South America to conduct the inquiry. The proceedings at Rome had been kept secret from the Jesuits until the decree was signed, and Pombal's agents had secured the appointment of a cardinal who was no friend of the Society. But both the Pope and the General died in the spring of that year, and, when Cardinal Saldanha justly reported that the Jesuits of South America had been wrongly engaged in commerce, the new General, Ricci, appealed to the new Pope, Clement XIII., who was known to be favourable to the Society. Clement appointed a commission of inquiry which, being composed of friends of the Society and making no investigation on the spot, declared the Jesuits innocent. The declaration was absurd and insincere, as we shall appreciate when we come to examine the conduct of the Jesuits on the missions, and Pombal saw that he must deal with the fathers in Portugal. In June (1758) the cardinal-patriarch had laid an interdict on all the Jesuits in the diocese of Lisbon, and public opinion seemed to be prepared for a drastic step. An event that occurred in the night of 3rd-4th September of that year gave Pombal his opportunity. As the King returned from the house of his mistress, the Marchioness Tavora, several shots were fired at him, and a large number of members of the Tavora family were arrested and put to the torture. One of the prisoners, the Duke d'Aveiro, said, under torture, that the Jesuits were privy to the conspiracy, and eight of the leading fathers were arrested and tortured. The duke afterwards retracted, and it must be said that, beyond this worthless declaration, there is no positive evidence to connect the Jesuits with the outrage, though they had been in close correspondence with the Tavoras. They were, however, not punished on that ground with the other prisoners. Only one of the Jesuits was executed, but for heresy, not treason; the others were kept in prison, while all the Tavoras were executed.