But Cardenas saw clearly that, to deal as he wished with the Jesuits, he must entirely gain the Governor’s confidence. This he tried to do by sending to him one Father Lopez, Provincial of the Dominicans. This Lopez was an able and apparently quite honest man, for he told the Governor that the wish of Cardenas was to expel the Jesuits from Paraguay, and from their missions, warning him at the same time not to allow himself to be made use of by the Bishop in his design. From that moment the two adversaries seemed to have changed characters, and Don Gregorio became as cautious as a churchman, whereas the Bishop seemed to lose all his diplomacy. To all the protestations of friendship which were addressed to him, the Governor answered so adroitly that the Bishop fell into the trap, and thought he had secured a partner to help him in the expulsion of the Jesuits. Finally, at Yaguaron, during a sermon, he formulated his celebrated charges against the Jesuits, which, set on foot by him in 1644, eventually caused the expulsion of the whole Order from America, and, though refuted a thousand times, still linger in the writing of all those who treat the question down to the present day. The charges were seven in number, and so ingeniously contrived that royal, national, and domestic indignation were all aroused by them. The first was that the Jesuits prevented the Indians from paying[125] their annual taxes to the crown. Secondly, that the Jesuits kept back the tithes from Bishops and Archbishops.[126] Thirdly, he said the Jesuits had rich mines in their possession, and that the product of these mines was all sent out of the country to the general fund at Rome. This the Jesuits disproved on several occasions, but, as often happens in such cases, proof was of no avail against the folly of mankind, to whom it seemed incredible that the Jesuits should bury themselves in deserts to preach to savages, unless there was some countervailing advantage to be gained. Even the fact that at the expulsion of the Company of Jesus from America no treasure at all was found at any of their colleges or missions did not dispel the conviction that they owned rich mines. The fourth charge was that the Jesuits were not particular about the secrets of the confessional, and that they used the information thus acquired for their own selfish ends. Further, that Father Ruiz de Montoya had acquired from the King, under a misapprehension, a royal edict,[127] giving the territory of the missions to the Jesuits, thus taking the fruits of their conquest from the Spanish colonists. Fifthly, that the Jesuits entered Paraguay possessed but of the clothes upon their backs, that they had made themselves into the sovereign rulers of a great territory, but that he was going to expel them, as the Venetians had expelled them from Venetia.[128] Sixthly, that even the Portuguese of San Paulo de Piritinanga had expelled them.[129] His