Joseph I of Portugal
Eckart was confined for eighteen years in the underground dungeons of Almeida and St. Julian. He wrote the story of his own sufferings and those of his companions in prison. Upon the death of Joseph I of Portugal in 1777, the Jesuits' opponent Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, Marquis of Pombal fell into disgrace, and those of his victims who survived were released.