nevertheless used very hardly in the prison of the inquisition there. Although his estate was very large, yet he was allowed a very small pension to provide himself provision. This was flesh, which they made him sometimes dress and prepare for himself, without allowing him the help of any servant. In this manner are the richer prisoners treated. As to the poorer, and such who have not enough to supply themselves in jail, their allowance is fixed by the king, viz. the half of a silver piece of money, called a real,[246] every day; and out of this small sum, the buyer of their provision, whom they call the dispenser, and their washer, must be paid, and all other expences that are necessary for the common supports of life. Besides, this very royal allowance for the prisoners doth not come to them but through the hands of several persons, and those none of the most honest; first by the receiver, then the dispenser, then the cook, then the jail-keeper, who, according to his office, distributes the provisions amongst the prisoners. Gonsalvius adds, that he gave this particular account of this matter, because all these persons live, and have their certain profits out of this small allowance of the king to the prisoners; which coming to them through the crooked hands of these harpies, they cannot receive it till every one of them hath taken out more than a tenth part of it. ----- Footnote 246: Dr. Geddes tells us of one in the inquisition at Lisbon, who was allowed no more than three vintems a day; a vintem is about an English penny farthing. ----- The author of the History of the Inquisition at Goa tells us, this order is observed in distributing the provisions. The prisoners have meat given them three times every day; and even those who have the misfortune to be in this case, though they have money, are not treated much better than others, because their riches are employed to make provision for the poorer. I was informed by Isaac Orobio, that in Spain they sometimes give the prisoners coals, which they must light, and then dress their own food. Sometimes they allow them a candle. Those who are confined in the lower cells generally sit in darkness, and are sometimes kept there for several years, without any one’s being suffered to go or speak to them, except their keepers; and they only at certain hours, when they give them their provision. They are not allowed any books of devotion, but are shut up in darkness and solitude, that they may be broke with the horrors of so dreadful a confinement, and by the miseries of it forced to confess things which oftentimes they have never done.