Notwithstanding the practice of executing all who delayed conversion until after hearing their sentences, there still were those who argued that they should be admitted to reconciliation, basing their contention on the ancient rule and on the silence of the Instructions of 1561 on this point. In 1674 the Suprema felt called upon to quiet the doubts of the Granada tribunal, by insisting that this rigor had been the invariable custom of the Holy Office. Still the question was debated until a carta acordada of May 24, 1699, disposed of it authoritatively. This declared that, in consequence of existing doubts, the Suprema had examined the matter carefully, reaching the conclusion that technically the delivery to the secular arm was coincident with the reading of the sentence; the Inquisition thus remained without jurisdiction which had passed to the royal justice for the execution of the sentence. Therefore, if the convict was not converted before the reading of the sentence, he was not to have mercy or to be admitted to reconciliation, even if he begged for it, but the royal justice was to execute and fulfil the sentence. If the conversion was real and not feigned--the latter being presumable at such a time--any of the confessors who assisted the culprit could reconcile him to the church and confess him sacramentally.[569] Thus his body was irrevocably forfeited, although his soul might be saved. After so formal a definition, no arguments in favor of mercy could be urged. In the sixty-four autos de fe, between 1721 and 1727, there was a total of seventy-seven cases of relaxation in person. In the relations it is not always stated distinctly whether the victim was burned alive or garrotted but, from the details given, the estimate cannot be far wrong that not over thirteen, or about one in six, endured the severer punishment. In the Granada auto of January 21, 1722, there were eleven relaxed, all of whom professed conversion after their sentences were read, and all were garrotted before burning. So rigid was the interpretation of the rule that it could not be dispensed with even to gratify the intense longing for expiation which sometimes possessed the eleventh hour convert. In the Córdova auto of April 12, 1722, Antonio Gabriel de Torre Zavallos, relaxed for Judaism, was converted after the reading of his sentence. At the brasero, with copious tears and signs of repentance, he loudly proclaimed his Christian faith, praising the mercy of God and of the Holy Office and demanding to be burnt alive, in order to offer to God satisfaction for his sins, but this was refused; he was duly garrotted and "he gave his soul to God to the great consolation and edification of all the people."[570] [Sidenote: _PERTINACITY_]