should purposely be
made to destroy the mainspring of the whole of this political machine?

[Curtailing priestly authority.] Such, nevertheless, are the mistaken
ideas which, within the last few years, have unhappily led to the
adoption of measures, diametrically opposed to the public interest,
under the pretext of curtailing the excessive authority of the
parish-curates. The superior government, not satisfied with having
deprived the ministers of the faculty of personally prescribing certain
correctional punishments, which although of little moment, when applied
with discretion, greatly contributed to fortify their ascendency,
and consequently, that of the sovereign; but, in order to exclude and
divest them of all intervention in the civil administration, a direct
attempt has also been made to lower the esteem in which they are held,
by awakening the distrust of the Indian, and, as much as possible,
removing him to a greater distance from them. In proof of this, and
in order that what has been said may not be deemed an exaggeration,
it will suffice to quote the substance of two regulations, remarkable
for their obvious tendency to weaken the influence and credit of the
spiritual administrators.

By one of these, it is enacted that in order to prevent the abuses
and notorious malversation of the funds of the sanctuary, specially
applicable to the expenses of the festivities and worship of each
parish, and arising out of the real and half for this purpose
contributed by each tributary person, and collected and privately
administered by the curate, the same shall hereafter be kept in a chest
with three keys, and lodged in the head-town of each province. The keys
are to be left, one in possession of the chief magistrate, another in
the hands of the governor of the respective town, and the remaining
one with the parish-curate. By the other measure it is declared, as
a standing rule, that no Indian, who may lately have been employed
in the domestic service of the curate, shall in his own town be
considered eligible to any office belonging to the judicial department.

On measures of this kind, comments are unnecessary; their meaning and
effect cannot be mistaken. I shall, therefore, merely observe, that
no untimely means could have been devised more injurious to the state,
to the propagation of religion, and even to the natives themselves. It
is, in fact, a most strange affair, that such endeavors should have
been made to