Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/585

Rh The royal officials were not to be called to other duties than strictly those of their respective offices, experience having shown that such officers, under the pretext of collecting the revenue, often inflicted much injury. Churchmen must not interfere in matters foreign to their calling. Another most important injunction by the monarch was the advancement of public education, and the establishment of a university in Mexico.

As in duty bound, Velasco set himself at work energetically to carry out his instructions and continue to the best of his ability the work so well begun by Mendoza. His straightforward course won for him the respect and love of his subjects, and confirmed the confidence of the sovereign. One of his first acts was the enforcement, in 1551, of the new laws which it had been deemed expedient by Mendoza and Tello Sandoval to suspend in 1544 at the importunate petitions of the colonists. The king's commands were now peremptory to make effective the laws for the manumission of the natives. By an affirmatory decree of July 7, 1551, the crown ordered that all Indian women taken prisoners in war, and males who at the time of being captured were under fourteen years of age, whether already branded or not, should be