This brought an exceedingly effectual pressure to bear upon the anxious prisoner, especially when the system of delay, whether calculated or merely procrastinating, left him for months, and perhaps years, to lie in his cell, shut out from the world, brooding over his fate, and torturing himself with conjectures as to the evidence so confidently assumed to be conclusive against him. He was simply admonished to discharge his conscience, being kept in the dark as to the crimes of which he was accused, and left to search his heart and guess as to what he had done to bring him before the terrible tribunal. This had the further utility that in many cases it led to confession of derelictions unknown to the prosecution, his impassible judges coldly accepting his revelations and remanding him to his cell with fresh adjurations to search his memory and clear his conscience. This cruel device of withholding all knowledge of the charge appears to have been introduced gradually. In some cases, of about 1530, slight intimations of the nature of the accusation are given, but by 1540 complete reticence seems to be general. There was no formal instruction prescribing it, but it became the universal custom, based perhaps on the principle that the confession, like that to a priest, to be trustworthy must be spontaneous, showing the change of heart and conversion which alone could render the culprit worthy of mercy. Yet, towards the end of its career, under Carlos III and after the Restoration, the Inquisition occasionally granted an _audiencia de cargos_, in which the accused was apprized of the charges against him and, in trivial matters, this frequently took the shape of summoning him under some pretext that would save his reputation, informing him of the alleged offences and, after hearing his explanations, determining what course to pursue. Even in so serious a matter as the celebration of mass by a married layman, the Santiago tribunal, in 1816, after throwing Angel Sampayo into the secret prison, gave him an audiencia de cargos before proceeding further.[108]