Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/454

434 The causes prompting the Spanish sovereign to adopt so extreme a measure, very much against his feelings as we have been told by some friends of the victims, were, as I have said, reserved to himself. It has been asserted that the grounds on which the council based its advice were purposely or otherwise removed from sight, thus not enabling us to judge with any degree of certainty what it was that had biassed the king’s mind; and fault has been found with his reticence in a case calling, in his judgment, for so severe a punishment. But if that record is lost, the causes are extant in another equally important document, of which I possess a copy and will take notice in this connection.

A measure of such magnitude affecting so vitally the interests of the church, could not have been consummated by a faithful Catholic and high-minded king and gentleman, such as Cárlos III., without apprising the Roman pontiff of the intention, and perhaps of some of his motives. He dutifully discharged that obligation. His action met with opposition on the part of Clement XIII., who felt both distressed and indignant; indeed, the destruction of a religious order from which the papacy derived so much support and so large a revenue, could but be unpalatable, aside from other considerations, such as the possibility of the pensions being suddenly stopped, and the pope's treasury becoming burdened with the maintenance of the poverty-stricken. His Holiness made up his mind not to receive the ejected Jesuits in his dominions. Still, Cárlos was a powerful monarch, and a stubborn one, upon whom the fulminations of the Vatican would fall harmless; conciliation was then the