Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/703

Rh injunctions came from the crown against any but secular 'clergymen being nominated for vacant benefices. The result was a better state of affairs; the ranks of the seculars were reënforced by worthy and able men, and they soon gained the ascendency among the people.

During the first two centuries after the conquest the church offered preferment to natives of America, many of whom held bishoprics, and other high positions; but in the latter part of the eighteenth century, all royal orders to the contrary notwithstanding, the number of native-born priests thus promoted had become very small. A cédula of May 2, 1792, ordered that one half the prebendaries of the cathedral should be conferred on natives of America; but a suggestion, said to have emanated from Archbishop Haro, to the effect that Americans should have only inferior offices in order to keep them ever humble and submissive, seems to have been adopted. The result of this policy was that in 1808 all the bishoprics of New Spain with one exception, the greater portion of the canon stalls, and a large number of the rich curacies were in the hands of Spaniards from Europe.