Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/719

 

placed before the reader the condition of the Mexican church at the close of the sixteenth century, and having shown the relations between its two branches, the secular and the regular, and between the church as a whole and the crown, I now proceed to give the private history of each religious order during the same epoch. The missionary army of New Spain was greatly strengthened in 1572 by the accession of the society of Jesus. The Jesuits had already missions planted in Habana and Florida; but becoming convinced that no good results could be expected among the natives of Florida, so fickle, hostile, and cruel, the expediency was urged upon the general, Francisco de Borja, of discontinuing the establishments

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