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302 of a larger company than the first, though sickness and other causes reduced the number to six before he reached Mexico. Installed as vicar-general and inquisitor, he gave an impulse to mission work, reenforced as he was shortly after by a dozen or more friars.

At first they agreed very well with the Franciscans, who surrendered to them several districts already occupied, and joined in opposing many of the iniquitous measures of the audiencia; but soon the old rivalry broke out, creating not only a division on public questions, but internal dissensions, which found vent chiefly on the subject of Indian treatment, and the forcible spread of conversion, the Franciscans favoring the alliance of sword and cross. The larger nuiuber of the latter, and their earlier occupation of the field, gave them precedence among both settlers and natives, and the Dominicans were obliged to exert themselves for a share of influence. Some features of their order gave them an advantage, and they attracted attention by the imposing beauty of their convent.

Among the early missions founded by the order were those of Pánuco, Oajaca, and Guatemala. That of Oajaca was intrusted to Lucero, now a