Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/141

Rh pronounced use of his authority, convinced that the request of the cabildo was founded on justice. He therefore advised the Jesuits either quietly to await the result of the law-suit then pending concerning the property, or to compromise, recommending the latter course. But this counsel was not accepted. To compromise now, would seem to render their pretensions unfounded. Applications were once more made to the bishop, usually couched in respectful phrase, but occasionally imperative in tone. No favorable answer was received, and thus gradually a colder feeling was created between the prelate and the society.

Thus matters continued till 1643, when a council of the Jesuit order, where Andres Perez de Bibas and Juan de Sangüesa were elected as proctors, prompted the bishop to issue a document in defense of his church. This was despatched to Spain by the same fleet in which the proctors took their departure. The emissaries of the society obtained nothing in Spain, and, when this became known in Mexico, the provincial, Francisco Calderon, published a pamphlet against the bishop's policy. Palafox had meanwhile been exposed to many annoyances on the part of his former friends. Sermons were preached against him by the Jesuit priests, especially by Father Juan de San Miguel. During his illness in the beginning of 1647, when a great festivity was held in one of their churches, he was treated with open discourtesy, and much ill-feeling was manifested when the society lost another law-suit about an inheritance, as they supposed through the bishop's influence. All this