The effect of all this was nugatory. In the Aragon Concordia, forced upon the king in 1646, the number allowed to a tribunal, in addition to the inquisitors and fiscal, commissioners and their notaries and familiars, was twenty-three, which shows how excessive had been the practice.[566] What this was elsewhere is indicated in a memorial from Majorca, about 1650, occasioned by the imprisonment in chains of a familiar, named Reginaldo Estado, because he desired to resign on being appointed Consul del Mar. The opportunity is taken of representing the evils arising from the multiplication of officials, as set forth in a previous petition of January 11, 1647, and protesting that the civil and criminal jurisdiction of the Inquisition was the total ruin of the people, so that they would welcome its limitation to matters of faith as a full recompense for all the services rendered to the crown. In each of the thirty-four villages, outside of the capital, there were three officials, besides familiars. In Palma they were multiplied without limit, by creating places that had no duties and appointing assistants and deputies ad libitum, while all the tradespeople and mechanics employed were reckoned as officials, bringing the number up to a hundred and fifty besides familiars. All these, with their wives and children and household servants, and the widows of the deceased, enjoyed the active and passive fuero in both civil and criminal cases, bringing in large revenues to the tribunal, through the excessive costs of litigation, and stimulating oppression of all kinds endured through dread of its censures. This memorial, with evidence sustaining its allegations, was submitted to the Council of Aragon which, after due examination, reported it to the king with a recommendation that the officials and familiars in Majorca should be reduced to what was necessary for the business of the tribunal, but there is no trace that attention was paid to this advice.[567] [Sidenote: _SALE OF OFFICES_]