During this period of decadence the functions of the tribunal, in its proper sphere of action, amounted to little more than punishing a few bigamists, so-called sorcerers and soliciting confessors. In 1702 it reported only four cases pending--three for bigamy and a Jesuit, Padre Francisco de Figueroa, for what was known as flagellation, or stripping female penitents and using the discipline on them, an offence akin to solicitation.[522] Yet in an auto of 1704 it exhibited eight bigamists and two sorcerers and, in one of 1708, it had thirteen penitents of whom five were bigamists. There was an exception in 1712 when it had the fortune to present a Judaizer who had denounced himself and begged for mercy, notwithstanding which he was condemned to appear in an auto with a gag and to irremissible prison and sanbenito for life. In 1712-13 there were eleven convictions for solicitation and in 1722 an auto with twelve penitents, of whom nine were bigamists, followed soon afterwards with five cases of solicitation. So it went on, gradually diminishing and affording less and less justification for the existence of the tribunal with its large revenues, though when it had an opportunity it demonstrated that it retained its capacity for evil, as in the case of a naval lieutenant, Manuel Germa de Bahamonde, arrested February 24, 1735, for heretical propositions and, after nine years of incarceration, pronounced insane in 1744, when he was sent to the castle of San Juan de Ulua pending transmission to Spain.[523] After 1750 there was some increase in business, arising from the prevalence of blasphemy and irreligion in the army, especially in the regiments of foreigners, and cases became more numerous among foreign residents accused of heresy and free-thinking. It was doubtless owing to this that Fernando VI, in a decree of December 31, 1756, imposed the death penalty on recruits who pretended Catholicism in order to enlistment--a severity modified in 1765 by Carlos III to expulsion from the kingdom.[524] In spite of these measures, the tribunal, in a letter of April 28, 1766, complained of the number of foreigners sent to Mexico among the troops--their disseminating the heresies of Luther and Calvin and of total irreligion, and their justification of England, thus diminishing the horror and detestation felt by the natives for the English, which it was so desirable to maintain. The Suprema represented this to Carlos, who thereupon ordered that no soldiers should be sent to the Indies who were not assuredly Catholics.[525]