Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/448

428 amidst difficulties and hardships. Much of the trouble arose from the conduct of the whites, including the troops of the presidio, whose captain could not control them.

The moral condition of the province seems to have been satisfactory to the general of the order in 1747, as he so expressed himself to the provincial in Mexico, who in his turn made it known to his subjects, in his letter enjoining the strictest discipline, in order that the general's words should be sustained. The question of payment of tithes by the society on its estates had been for several years a cause of contention between it and the archbishop, in which the real audiencia sided with the latter. In December, 1734, the jueces hacedores of the archdiocese passed a decree, wherein, after noticing the decrease in the amount paid by the managers of the haciendas owned by the society in New Spain and the Philippines, the collection was provided of the full tithes due for that year by the aforesaid estates. The judges also published censuras against their managers and several other members of the society, even though it had an appeal pending before the audiencia. The provincial refused to accede to the demand, and pretended to pay little or no heed to the censuras. However, in