r them well; and that they should not disturb the peace of
the community for him, nor talk with the freedom and levity that they
had displayed to him. The fathers of St. Dominic took occasion from
that to utter innumerable evil reports about the governor, so that
there was no place where they did not murmur aloud about him. Father
Fray Sebastian de Oquendo of the Order of St. Dominic, in especial,
went one morning to the auditor-general of war, Manuel Suarez, with a
bull which he declared had been promulgated by Pius V; and having read
it, he declared that the governor was excommunicated for preventing
the exercise of the Inquisition's authority (although the governor
declared that he did not prevent it but that he was maintaining, as
he ought, the royal jurisdiction); that he was deposed, that he was
not governor, and could not act as such; and that the senior auditor
should immediately assume the government, and arrest Don Sebastian
and place him in a fort. The auditor-general referred all the above
to the governor; and, as a confirmation of this and other rumors
that were current through the city, the same fathers of St. Dominic
brought a friar from Cabite, named Fray Francisco Pinelo, [66] a man
of talent and eloquent in the pulpit, in order that he might preach
on the second Sunday of Advent, December 9, 1635. He did in fact
preach [on that day], and before beginning his sermon, he said that
he had called and invited the people to read a bull that he declared
was given by Pius V, and was translated from Latin into Romance, in
which his Holiness regards those who prevent the exercise of the Holy
Inquisition's authority as infamous, and incapable of holding offices
and dignities, and as _ipso facto_ deposed from them. The said father
asserted all the above with such tones and manner, and at such a time,
that it was clearly seen that he meant it for the governor; and that
he was scoffing at him as an infamous person, and as one deposed from
the government of these islands, because he had sent to Cabite the two
friars who had been sent to him. He began his sermon after that, and
it was throughout a satire on the Society, on the judge-conservator,
and on the governor and the royal Audiencia. He said of the fathers
of the Society that they were the cats of the Church, and a damnable
and corruptible milk, who were trying by their deceits to influence
other religious not to go to Japon. He added that such as they were
membe