Such a character was not likely to escape the attention of the Holy Office. On July 16, 1800, Fray Joaquin Huesca, a teacher of philosophy in the Order of Merced, denounced him to the commissioner of Mechoacan for various unorthodox utterances, at which Fray Manuel Estrada, of the same Order, had been present, and Estrada, on being summoned, confirmed and amplified the accusation. In transmitting these depositions to the tribunal, July 19th, the commissioner reported that Hidalgo was a most learned man, who had ruined himself with gambling and women, that he read prohibited books and, while professor of theology, had taught from Jansenist works. The tribunal necessarily started an investigation, which lasted for more than a year and included the testimony of some thirteen witnesses, resulting in proof of a wide variety of most heretical utterances, any one of which, if pertinaciously maintained, would have sufficed to consign him to the stake. Moreover, he was described as revolutionary in his tendencies, speaking of monarchs as tyrants and cherishing aspirations for liberty; he was well-read in current French literature and had little respect for the censorship--in short he was what was subsequently termed an _afrancesado_. The commissioner of San Miguel el Grande reported, March 11, 1801, much about Hidalgo’s disorderly life and that he carried about with him an Alcoran but, in a second report of April 13th, he stated that in the recent Easter, Hidalgo had reformed, a matter which was widely discussed and seems to have aroused general attention. In due time, on October 2, 1801, the fiscal reported on this accumulated testimony that, if Hidalgo had uttered the propositions ascribed to him, he should be arrested with sequestration of property, but the witnesses were contradictory and Estrada had the reputation of an habitual liar. He therefore recommended that the case be suspended and the papers be filed for future reference, to which the tribunal assented.