form of ayudas de costa although, as the grants were made in round sums, it is evident that no accounts were rendered and that the payments were arbitrary.[741] However customary the annual payments had become, they still were regarded as a special grace to which the recipients had no claim of right. In 1540, the officials of Barcelona complained to Inquisitor-general Tavera that the receiver refused payment on the ground that the grant had expired with the death of Manrique, in 1538, and that it required confirmation, which Tavera hastened to give, February 12, 1540. In fact, a number of orders issued by Tavera, in 1540, would indicate that this was the accepted view of the matter.[742] Another marked distinction at this time is that the ayudas de costa are ordered to be paid out of the fines and penances inflicted for the "gastos extraordinarios" of the tribunals, while the salaries come from the funds arising out of the confiscations. [Sidenote: _RECORDS_] For awhile there was a regular scale of fifty ducats for the inquisitors, thirty for the fiscal, alguazil, notaries and receiver, fifteen for the nuncio and ten for the portero and alcaide but, in 1559, this was increased by twenty per cent. Care was taken to make it understood that it was a grace and not a right and the ordinary formula was that it was given in view of the labor in determining the cases of the auto de fe of the previous year and when, in 1561, Calahorra was exceptionally active and celebrated a second auto, it was rewarded with a supplementary ayuda of half the customary amount.[743] The grant was dependent on the receipt of detailed reports of all the cases in the previous auto, which were frequently accompanied with an humble petition for it, setting forth the insufficiency of the salaries and the cost of living, and begging the Suprema to obtain the grace from the king, who was technically the giver.[744] Subsequently, as we have seen, it was made conditional on rendering monthly reports and on the discharge of the duty of visiting the district and other matters apt to be neglected, such as rendering prompt statements of accounts and of properties. Finally, in the later period, when the tribunals were under close supervision of the Suprema, it sometimes took the form of a Christmas-gift.[745] Perhaps the most remarkable of all ayudas de costa was one granted by Carlos IV, in October 1807, in the midst of his troubles with his son Fernando, when the shadow of Napoleon was already darkening Spain and the treasury was empty. It was possibly with the object of securing the fidelity of the Inquisition that he ordered an ayuda de costa of 100 ducats to be given to every official of all the tribunals who did not enjoy an income of 7000 reales outside of his salary.[746] In the existing condition of Spanish finances the money could probably have been better employed. * * * * *