atter ordered the
archbishop to produce the protest or defamatory libel, under penalty
of suspension; that act was affixed to the archbishop's door, as he
was not at home, and as he could not be found to notify him. Father
Fray Francisco de Paula [72] acted as notary on this occasion. He
ordered a writing-desk to be placed in the street, and, with great
pomp and clatter, had the said act removed, and copied it on the
writing-desk. Next morning the father commissary sent another friar,
named Fray Ignacio Munoz, [73] to act as notary to summon the judge,
Don Fabian de Santillan; he did it in so clamorous a manner, and at
such a time, that people thought he was trying to place some stain on
the said judge. The latter, in order to purge himself from it, asked
the father commissary for an official statement stating that he had not
been summoned for any crime, but only to be told that the trial of the
said protest did not pertain to him. At nine o'clock in the morning
of the twenty-third of the same month of November, two lay brothers
of the same Order of St. Dominic, also in the capacity of notaries,
went to the judge-conservator, who was at [the convent of] the Society,
to notify him that he must surrender Diego de Rueda. And because the
doorkeeper of the Society told them to wait a moment, they began to
cry aloud and to attest by witnesses that they were being prevented
from attending to the affairs of the Inquisition. On the twenty-sixth
of the same month, another notification was made to the same judge,
asking for Diego de Rueda, and ordering that he be sent to demand
the protest. Many other notifications were served on him through the
agency of Fray Antonio Espexo [74] of the same order. From this your
Grace will observe that they had a different notary for each day;
this is a matter on which I may reflect much, and I even imagine
that the inquisitors of Mexico would not be pleased with so great a
variety of notaries for one commissary--some being lay brothers and
others ordained priests, some youths and others of greater age--and
usually but little restrained. To show that, I will only tell your
Grace of one thing that one of those notaries, Fray Ignacio de Munoz,
said, when going one day to a garden with another friar of his order,
Fray Pedro de Ledo, [75] and with the collegiates of Santo Thomas:
"I shall not stop until I see all the Theatins [_i.e._, Jesuits]
put to the knife." What a fine disposition is that, your G