In order to secure the payment of these fees, the applicant was required, when he presented his genealogy, to make a deposit, originally of 300 reales. As the business increased it became evident that a separate fund and separate accounts of these moneys must be kept and, in 1600, it was ordered that a special chest be provided, with two keys, one entrusted to the fiscal and the other to a secretary. Abuses crept in, effectively described in the memorial of 1623 to the Suprema, as a remedy for which a new official was created, known as the _Depositario de los Pretendientes_, who received and accounted for the deposits, charging two per cent. on the sums passing through his hands. This he remitted to the Suprema, for his office was salaried and he was relieved of the temptation of perquisites. The office was one of those put up for sale, for three or four lives, under Sotomayor.[889] The whole business was provocative of fraud and perjury and bribery. Despite the well-meant efforts of the Inquisition to preserve the profoundest secrecy, the writers of the period are too unanimous in deploring the success of enemies in casting infamy on those they hated, for us to doubt that means were found to ascertain what was on hand and to abuse the opportunity. To the applicants the stake was too great for them to shrink from any means that promised success. Cases become not infrequent in the records of prosecutions for false-witness in matters of limpieza, showing that aspirants were not remiss in furnishing testimony to prove fraudulent claims. [Sidenote: _FRAUDULENT TESTIMONY_]