Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/60

40 with reason attached secular clergymen ignorant of their tongues and customs alike, would have been tantamount to cruelty—it was nevertheless in conflict with the provisions of royal cédulas. Father Bartolomé de Burguillos, his confessor, was a friar of San Diego, and possibly his counsels had sufficient weight with the marquis to induce him thus to slight the wish of the sovereign frequently expressed.

The course of the marquis was commended by the upright, but these were far less in number than the vicious, and the number of his enemies increased daily. Those high in place, accustomed to have their own way in matters of government, were offended at the summary clipping of their wings. In public they contented themselves with shrugs and with fingers laid aside the nose, while privately they spoke in open anger, and fostered a hatred to the all-unconscious object thereof that merely bided its time for throwing off the mask. Occasionally, however, resentment overcame prudence.

Pedro de Vergara Gaviria, the senior oidor, was a self-willed man, who after the brief taste of power enjoyed before the arrival of Gelves had become unfitted to play the subordinate. He had easily become chief among his fellows, and was not at all inclined to brook the restraint imposed upon him by the just though severe measures of the viceroy. Gelves, always courteous in his treatment of members of the audiencia and the cabildo, went further than necessary in useless attempts to make a friend of this man, who on his part seemed to consider all the favors of the marquis as so many marks of weakness. Gelves made him his asesor in matters relating to war, and Gaviria's inclination to absolutism readily induced him to fall into the habit of giving orders without having troubled himself to consult the viceroy. To this the