Meanwhile the people of Realejo had sent frequent petitions to Guatemala, and as a last resort addressed themselves directly to the king, asking for the establishment of a Jesuit college in their midst,[XXV‑10] especially as the cura of the town had made donations which would yield a revenue of six thousand pesos. The royal license for the foundation of the college was issued, accompanied by a grant from the royal treasury of three thousand ducats, whereupon the provincial relented, and notwithstanding the opposition of his fellow padres, authorized its institution. About the close of 1621 the Jesuits returned for a while to Granada, but the consent of the provincial to the establishment of the order in this province had in truth been given only with the expectation of multiplying dependencies until Guatemala could claim the dignity of a vice-provincia. When this failed the padres were not allowed to remain in Nicaragua, and henceforth the Jesuits disappear for a time from the history of the province. The see of Nicaragua was subject to the archbishop of Lima, and the remoteness of the archiepiscopal court was a frequent source of complaint among the Spaniards, for the expense of the voyage often exceeded the monetary value of the interests involved. In 1621 Benito Valtonado was prelate at Granada.[XXV‑11] He was a man noted for his kindness of heart, and mainly from his own resources, which were ample, he founded the hospital of Santa Catalina at Leon. After his decease in 1627 little worthy of special note is mentioned in connection with the prelates of Nicaragua until after the appointment in 1667 of Andrés de las Navas y Quevada,[XXV‑12] who built an episcopal palace, a church college, and received by royal order a grant of religious books. About the middle of the seventeenth century the income of the diocese amounted to 3,000 pesos, of which sum the dean received 600 pesos, the archdeacon 400, and two canons each 300 pesos a year. At this period the convent of La Merced in Leon contained twenty ecclesiastics. If Fray Blas del Castillo could have deferred until 1670 the journey which he made through Nicaragua in 1537, discovering, as we have seen, that providence had reserved for the ecclesiastics the molten treasures of El Infierno de Masaya,[XXV‑13] he would have had a better opportunity to test his belief. "Some assert," relates Oviedo, who it will be remembered was in that neighborhood in 1529, when a violent outburst occurred, and resided for three years in Nicaragua,[XXV‑14] "that the light caused by the eruption is sufficient to read by at the distance of three leagues." From the northern slope of the mountain poured in 1670 a volume of lava so vast as to extend almost to the lake of Managua, or as many conjecture, to reach far into the lake.[XXV‑15]