‘After breakfast we resumed the subject of the inquisition. The inquisitor admitted that Dellon’s descriptions of the dungeons, of the torture, of the mode of trial, and of the Auto da Fè, were in general just; but he said the writer judged untruly of the motives of the inquisitors, and very uncharitably of the character of the Holy Church; and I admitted that, under the pressure of his peculiar suffering, this might possibly be the case. The inquisitor was now anxious to know to what extent Dellon’s book had been circulated in Europe. I told him that Picart had published to the world extracts from it, in his celebrated work called ‘Religious Ceremonies,’ together with plates of the system of torture and burnings at the Auto da Fè. I added that it was now generally believed in Europe that these enormities no longer existed, and that the inquisition itself had been totally suppressed; but that I was concerned to find that this was not the case. He now began a grave narration to shew that the inquisition had undergone a change in some respects, and that its terrors were mitigated.[288] ----- Footnote 288: The following were the passages in Mr. Dellon’s narrative, to which I wished particularly to draw the attention of the inquisitor.—Mr. D. had been thrown into the inquisition at Goa and confined in a dungeon, ten feet square, where he remained upwards of two years, without seeing any person, but the gaoler who brought him his victuals, except when he was brought to his trial, expecting daily to be brought to the stake. His alleged crime was, charging the inquisition with cruelty, in a conversation he had with a priest at Daman, a Portuguese town in another part of India.