hat the soldiers could not use their weapons or
prevent the entrance. Thus, by forcing their way into the guardhouse,
the friars, brought him into the city. I felt the resentment in
this matter that was natural, and I ordered the corporal and the
soldiers to be arrested. Being about to punish them for not having
obeyed their orders, they exculpated themselves very thoroughly in
the investigation made by the auditor-general, but the violence of
the religious gave the soldiers no opportunity to do more. Consider,
your Majesty, what liberties these are to be taken from religious;
and who can endure them? I wrote to their vicar-provincial, but he
answered coolly that his religious had not done any such thing, as
they are obedient, and that he had information to the contrary. The
father vicar-provincial adds that Don Pedro [de] Monrroy entered
the city in response to the summons of the Inquisition. This word
"Inquisition" is the motto and cry of the fathers of the Order of
St. Dominic in these islands, for whatever they wish to do. Your
Majesty will have seen from the aforesaid what ill use they make of
the authority of the Inquisition--so much so, that I assert that
with it they disturb and excite the community, which would not be
safe if your Majesty did not have so many soldiers here. Therefore,
since it is advisable to preserve peace here, will your Majesty be
pleased to order the supreme tribunal of the Inquisition to order
the tribunal of Mexico to appoint, as commissaries, not friars but
seculars, since there are so many seculars who are able to act in
that capacity, and since it is an office that properly belongs to the
ecclesiastical estate. Affairs will then run more smoothly, and there
will be more harmony; and I do not expect peace until that be done,
and until these lawless acts be checked.

The judge-conservator went on with his commission, urging the
archbishop with censures in order to make him hand over the protest
or libel which had been made; but the religious gained possession,
by force, of the will of the archbishop, and although he desired to
surrender the paper, they did not allow him to do so. He gave it to
Fray Diego Collado, of the Order of St. Dominic, who secured such
possession of that paper that afterward the archbishop himself was
unable to obtain it, notwithstanding his efforts.

All was now confusion in the community, and the friars made innumerable
evil and vile reports against the fathers