Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/50

30 superabundance which was disposed of to their own advantage. So, too, these imitators of their masters, lying in wait just without the city, forced the Indians who supplied the general market to give up, at a nominal price, the scant produce of their toil that the spoilers might receive the profit. Some of the meat thus obtained was retailed at an exorbitant price in a shop established in the palace of the archbishop.

The crown was robbed or defrauded of its dues by the royal officials and their friends. Shipments to Peru of prohibited goods brought from Manila were made openly, and were productive of great gain. The supplies sent by the king to the Philippines were purchased by his agents at twice their market value, and complaints came from that colony of their poor quality, or rottenness, as well as of scant measure. At the treasury it was the custom to receive for the payment of dues coin or silver bullion indifferently; the oidores and the treasury officials, substituting the former for the latter, divided among themselves a gain of three reales in such wares. In all the pueblos the tax-collectors speculated with the royal funds, which they withheld from the treasury, either without a shadow of excuse or on the ground that these sums proceeded from partial payments of taxes which were not due to the crown until those payments should be completed. By collusion of those in charge of the mines and the traders the king was defrauded of his fifth.

Religious ministers would not unfrequently meddle in these affairs, even when they concerned neither their interests nor their native protégés. On the anniversary of the fall of Mexico, 1618, a Jesuit spoke in his sermon rather scathingly of the conquerors and especially of their descendants, as corrupt, unfit to hold office, and tyrannical toward the Indians. The remarks were probably exaggerated by inimical persons, who caused such a stir in the matter that the archbishop was called upon to arrest the preacher. The