tical
and secular. The most difficult thing was to subdue the Jesuits. A
bishop who was a great friend of ours charged himself with this task,
and easily persuaded the vice-provincial and the consultors; but I
always have been of opinion that we ought to pursue an even course--for
I immediately saw the trick, and that he was setting a trap for us,
as actually happened. Finally the vice-provincial and another father
went, because I excused myself from going in company with the other
orders. With them went Don Fray Juan Duran, a religious of the Order
of Mercy and bishop of Sinopolis; it was he who in the name of all the
orders made the address, setting forth the serious difficulties that
must ensue in spiritual and temporal affairs. This petition being
ended, the snare began; the governor told them to draw up a paper
in which they were to set forth the causes that led them to make the
request, and that all the orders should sign it--which converted the
petition into advice, and he did the same with the other estates,
even with the military leaders.

The [preparation of the] paper which the orders were to sign was
entrusted to one of the bemired ones, the provincial of the Augustinian
Recollects; but what he wrote was so unsatisfactory that even the
bishop of Sinopolis--who was active in carrying on this affair for the
governor, on account of being his intimate friend--did not like it;
and the bishop himself therefore drew up the paper, which was signed
by all the orders except the Society. Ours preferred to make its own
answer, separately; we did so, and I send [a copy of it] with this.

News since the year 1688

1. It is asked that the contents of this document may be read
attentively; the writer asserts that it is not his intention that
corporal injury shall come to the guilty, but only that the truth
may be known and these many evils be set forth.

2. Early in January of the said year, very secret conferences were
held in the palace, in which Bobadilla, Atienza, and Cervantes took
part--all opposed to the auditors, to Zalaeta and Lezama, and to Don
Juan de Vargas. They began to favor the designs of the archbishop, and
the governor to act despotically, according to the dictation of Verart.

3. The result of the said conferences was the imprisonment of
Zalaeta and Lezama, on the twenty-second of January. Their property
was sequestered, and with great cruelty their papers were seized;
and they were very close