With the return of Capodiferro, after a little diplomatic sparring, Paul III dropped the whole question for nearly two years. João was quite content; the three years' limitation to secular procedure had expired, the bull _Pastoris æterni_ had not been published, the Inquisition had full swing, and its activity began to rival that of Spain. Its first auto de fe was celebrated in Lisbon, September 20, 1540, with twenty-three penitents and no relaxations and was speedily followed by others.[692] It is not until December 2, 1541 that Christovão de Sousa, then ambassador, refers to the New Christians who, he says, were earnestly at work to have another nuncio sent, and he had had a thousand discussions over it with the pope whose intention was fixed, because so many were burnt and so many thousands more were in prison. The New Christians offered to pay eight or ten thousand cruzados to the pope, and two hundred and fifty a month to the nuncio. At a subsequent audience, Paul said that the nuncio would have a salary of a hundred cruzados a month, to which the New Christians could add a hundred and fifty, thus raising him above the temptation of bribery, to which Sousa rejoined that this would convert him from their judge to their advocate. Then, on a later occasion, he read a remonstrance from the king so vigorous that the pope walked up and down the room, crossing himself and saying that it was the work of the devil. Sousa replied by dwelling on the misdeeds of preceding nuncios, and even offered to let the Inquisition be withdrawn if it would relieve the kingdom from the evil of a nuncio.[693] [Sidenote: _INQUISITION OF PORTUGAL_] Further discussion was abruptly terminated by an explosion. Miguel da Silva, Bishop of Viseu and minister of João, a man of high culture, had been ambassador at Rome in the time of Leo X, and had formed lasting friendships with the future Clement VII and Paul III. He had recently fallen into disfavor at court and was about to be arrested, when he fled and found refuge in Italy. João tried to entice him back with flattering letters, while employing, as Silva says, bravos to follow and assassinate him. Paul could wound the king in no more sensitive spot than by announcing, as he did on December 2, 1541, Silva's appointment as cardinal. João's rage was unbounded; he promptly deprived the new cardinal not only of his offices and temporalities, but of his citizenship, thus rendering him an outlaw and, on January 24, 1542, a special courier carried to Sousa peremptory orders to leave Rome as soon as he could present his letters of recall. His report of the manner in which this abrupt sundering of relations was received indicates that it gave rise to fears that Portugal was about to withdraw from the Roman obedience.[694]