At that time a general visitation of the clergy was ordered, and it is wonderful to see along what rough lines the archbishop conducted it, and what harsh methods he took, so that the remedy was worse than the disease; he placed the clerics in irons among the negroes and vile people, and that not for serious causes. That was a thing that tended to produce contempt for the priestly estate; and its effect was that all the clergy, as a body, became thoroughly disgusted, and viewed their prelate and shepherd not as a father, but as a severe judge, who treated them very harshly in his language--behavior which they greatly resented. I will relate to your Grace one instance of this. I attended the cathedral of this city on Holy Thursday, March 20. I saw on the platform (where the oils had been blessed that morning) that the said archbishop was clad in his pontifical robes, and that he had been given the towel for the washing of the feet. The twelve clerics whose feet he was to wash were already barefoot, the gospel had been said, everything was ready, and there were many people before him. It happened that, because some Indian singers and some one of the clergy were absent, the archbishop began to scold, saying that it was a most shameless act for anyone to be absent from the cathedral during that ceremony. Then he began to disrobe himself in great wrath and fury, also removing his pontifical ornaments in his anger, and throwing on one side his miter (which fell to the ground), and his towel to the other side. Thus did he continue to lay aside the rest, and with all haste he went to his own house--leaving the priests barefooted, and without washing their feet; and all those present, thunderstruck and amazed, and even scandalized at the sight of so great fury and wrath in a prelate, and during a ceremony that demanded so great humility. But to return to our governor; there was no action, however insignificant it may have been, that they did not for it cast calumny on him. The archbishop and religious drew up a paper with twenty-one questions, which the archbishop put to the superiors of the religious, in the form of cases of conscience. The questions were prepared with such skill that, with the reply that would be given to them, they would present weapons against the governor. They proceeded to set down on a paper whatever he did, even in matters of the political government, in order to write to his Majesty. That paper certainly twisted the truth, in many of its statements; and it contained more than sixty or seventy sections. One of the religious who were concerned in it gave it to the governor. Just consider, your Grace, what a tax on his patience this would be, and how it would wound him! Furthermore, the paper ended with twenty-five excommunications which the governor was said to have incurred. Everything was quite ready for the greatest kind of a rupture.