The Itatines, either suspecting that Acosta’s true law was false, or tired of his preaching, rose and killed him; but the effect was bad, and there grew up amongst those infidels a coldness even towards the Jesuits themselves. Had it not been for two miraculous events which happened opportunely, as such things should happen if they are to be turned to good account, much harm might have been done. A chief, having cursed a priest, was seized at once with a malignant ulcer in the throat, which shortly killed him. The Itatines did not apparently think anything of the influence of the unhealthy climate in which they lived, and set the occurrence down to the act of God. But more was still to come. Another chief having so far forgotten himself as to jeer at a priest, a thunderbolt fell so close to him that he was knocked senseless, and lay as dead. These two events confirmed the Jesuits’ power, and things began to flourish in their four new missions. But the Great Power, so careful of the individual effort of His priests, seems to have been most unaccountably remiss of their success considered as a whole. In the same year (1632) the Mamelucos appeared and ruined all the four missions, so that the efforts of the Jesuits and the miracles were lost. In 1633 the first skirmish took place between the Bishop of Paraguay and the Jesuits. This skirmish little by little grew into a war, kept up for more than a hundred years, and ended finally in the expulsion of the Jesuits from Paraguay. The Governor, Don Luis de Cespedes, having called upon the Indians of the Jesuit missions for personal service, a proceeding quite against both the King’s orders and the Papal Bulls, the Bishop thought the moment opportune to press for tithes. This, too, was equally forbidden both by a Bull and by an order of the Council of the Indies. Padre Romero went to Asuncion and displayed his Bulls and his orders of the Council, and the Governor withdrew his claims. The Bishop, after some opposition, withdrew likewise, and the Provincial of the Order arrived at Asuncion, bringing with him an order from the King signifying that the Indians of the reductions were to be left entirely to the Jesuits. So for the present the Jesuits scored a victory, though in the future it was to cost them dear. But the Governor of Paraguay having returned apparently to his design of exacting personal service from the Indians of the missions, the Provincial checkmated him with a royal order from Philip IV. The order was addressed to the Viceroy of Peru, the fourth Count of Chinchon. The missive, dated at Madrid in 1633, condemned in the strongest terms all personal service (that is, forced labour) amongst the Indians, not only of the Jesuit missions, but of Peru and Mexico. With a touching confidence in his own powers, and absolute right Divine, the well-meaning King added to his orders a paragraph commanding all to be done as he had ordered within six months.