Even this did not satisfy the royal exigency and a further inexcusable step was taken. We have seen that tardy and imperfect confessions were visited with scourging and sometimes with the galleys, while the _buen confitente_, who confessed promptly and freely, was allured with promises of special consideration and mercy. Yet, in 1573, the Suprema issued a carta acordada ordering that Conversos, even when _buen confitentes_, should be sent to the galleys, and this it repeated in 1591, with injunctions for its enforcement.[389] The name of religion has not often been more brutally prostituted than in these provisions, and their success may be measured by a report of the inquisitors of Saragossa to Philip, of an auto celebrated June 6, 1585, in which they call his special attention to their zeal in furnishing him with twenty-nine galley-slaves for six years, besides three left over from a previous auto--and this in Aragon, which forbade galley-service as a punishment for the most heinous crimes.[390] The galley-captains naturally were not punctilious in discharging the men when their terms had expired, giving rise to perpetual friction. The sentence ordinarily was to a term of prison or exile, of which the first three years or more were to be passed at the oar, and this was set forth in the certificates given to the penitents. The tribunals kept watch over them, and demanded their return to serve out the rest of their sentences, but this was not an easy task. The vigilance exercised is illustrated by a royal cedula addressed to the captain of a galley, ordering him to release two men whose terms had expired, and warning him that in future all such persons were to be returned to the tribunal that had sentenced them.[391] This was followed, in 1568, by general instructions to Don John of Austria, as Captain-general of the Sea, and to all captains of galleys, reciting the complaints of the Sicilian tribunal that its reclamations of its penitents were not complied with, and ordering their restoration to their tribunals without waiting for demands.[392] This was ineffectual and, in 1575, we find the Barcelona tribunal instructed to prosecute the captains who impede the discharge of those who had served out inquisitorial sentences.[393] The trouble was perennial and, in 1645, we have a formula of requisition for the return of the party specified, under pain of excommunication and of five hundred ducats, and the tribunal of the port where the galleys lie is requested to see to its execution. A significant note however adds that this is scantly courteous to such great men as the generals of the galleys, and that it is better to ask the tribunal of the port to procure the release by friendly negotiation.[394]