The _diminuto_, whose confession did not cover all the adverse evidence, was, according to rule, to be tortured in order to account for the deficiency. If he endured without further admission, he was to be punished on the basis of what he had confessed, but if he did not thus purge the evidence, he was to be sent to the galleys. This was sometimes done in mere surplusage, apparently to gratify the curiosity of the tribunal, as in the Toledo case of Antonio de Andrada, in 1585, who confessed what was amply sufficient for his punishment, but, as there were some omissions, was tortured to elucidate them. In the seventeenth century, however, we are assured that there was much caution used in torturing diminutos, and that it was not done unless the omitted matters were such as to call for relaxation. If they concerned accomplices, however, whom the culprit was suspected of shielding, he was tortured _in caput alienum_. Retraction or vacillation of confession necessarily required torture to reconcile the contradiction; this occurred chiefly with timid persons, frightened by the demand of the fiscal for torture, and thus led to make admissions which they subsequently recalled, thus bringing upon themselves what they had sought to avoid.[30] The question of intention, in the performance of acts in themselves indifferent, was, as we have seen, the frequent occasion of torture, as there was no other means known to the jurisprudence of the period, which was bent on ascertaining the secrets of the offender's mind.
Yet it is possible that in some cases, when torture appears to be pure surplusage, there may have been the kindly intention of contributing to the salvation of the sufferer, by inducing or confirming his conversion; for habitual persecution for the greater glory of God induced a state of mind precluding all rational intellectual processes, where the faith was concerned. Thus Rojas tells us that there should be no hesitation in the use of torture, when the salvation of the culprit's soul was involved, so that he might be reconciled to the Church and undergo penance through which he might be saved.[31] This reasoning was urged in the case of Réné Perrault, in 1624, by some of the consultores of the tribunal of Toledo. His crime of maltreating the Host was public and unquestionable, but he had varied in his statements as to his faith; the consulta de fe was unanimous in ordering torture to discover possible accomplices, but some of the members desired a special additional torture in order to confirm him in the faith and save his soul.[32]