Philip’s weakness was shown in his next despatch to the viceroy, February 1, 1653, in which he said that he had determined that the Suprema should arrange to make restitution and that, to facilitate a proper adjustment of the matter, it should furnish a statement of all confiscations from the beginning, “for neither my Council of Indies nor my viceroys have been able to obtain this, but only the records of the shipments of silver from the Indies.”[440] There is no evidence that the Suprema made any attempt to obey the royal commands or that it paid any attention to a reiterated demand made on August 12, 1655. Then the effort seems to have been abandoned and the matter was allowed to slumber until attention was called to it again in 1666. Philip had written, August 12, 1665, to the Marquis of Mansera, then Mexican viceroy, urging him to extinguish the debt of 1,333,264 pesos, by which amount the Mexican treasury was in arrears with its payments. The viceroy replied, September 5, 1666, pointing out the difficulty of accomplishing this and, at the same time, keeping up the remittances by the fleet, which were imperatively required by the absolute needs of the monarchy. He added that one of the chief causes of the indebtedness was the large sums withdrawn from it by the salaries and expenses of the Inquisition since its foundation in 1570; this had been intended as a loan, until it could be repaid from the confiscations, fines and penances but, although these had been large, restitution had never been made. The cédula of 1653 had inferred that the matter would be settled between the two councils and therefore the viceroys were powerless, but he suggested that the tribunal was rich and held large amounts of property; it had the disposition, which it might not have in future, to commence making this just and long overdue payment. This despatch the Council of Indies reported to the queen-regent, together with copies of the royal cédulas of 1653 and 1655, in order that she might compel the Suprema to make restitution, not only of the sums reported by Count Alva de Aliste, but of what had since been paid to the tribunal, seeing that it had the means to do so and was remitting such large amounts to the Suprema.[441]