needed. After paying all the expenses of administering the viceroyalty and meeting the cost of supplies sent to Manila, a million of pesos was sent to the king in 1622, and a million and a half in the following year.[1]
The marquis was a religious man and his respect for the clergy was sincere. To the archbishop he spoke privily, regretting the dissensions which rent atwain brethren who should dwell in harmony. He also begged the prelate to cease the unseemly practice of receiving gifts from suitors in the ecclesiastical court, and to reform other abuses.[2] He restrained the inquisitors from intermeddling in temporal matters not within their jurisdiction. As far as he was able to exercise control he saw that offices in the religious orders were held by men fitted for their several positions.
Convinced by the frequent complaints of the Indians that the appointment of secular clergymen as doctrineros instead of friars would be detrimental to interests of the crown also, the viceroy ordered that the latter should be retained in the doctrinas, and that in the future only friars should be appointed to them. In this matter the viceroy was certainly not strictly impartial. Moreover in this action he undoubtedly laid the foundation for an accusation which afterward his enemies were only too glad to make. While his action in the premises had its origin, undeniably, in a spirit of just kindness to the Indians—for to have substituted for the friars to whom they were
- ↑ This was more than had been sent heretofore in any corresponding period. Grambila, Tumultos, MS., 10; Mex., Rel. del Estad., 5.
- ↑ The abuse of the privilege of sanctuary was notorious, and criminals availed themselves of false witnesses in order to prove that they were entitled to it. Gelves required the fiscal to use every diligence in order to arrive at the truth in these matters. One Juan de Rincon having brought forward 11 witnesses to prove his right to immunity, on the testimony of 29 others these men were shown to have forsworn themselves, and were condemned to penal servitude at Manila. They were sent out of the city together with other convicts; but notwithstanding the opposition of the viceroy, the audiencia, on the ground that the sentence was excessive, caused them to be brought back, and finally they went unwhipped of justice. Mex., Rel. Sum., 2.
