The Austin friars attributed to the Jesuits the troubles with the Mahometans of Mindanao and Sulu, and, in their turn, the Jesuits protested against what they conceived to be the bad policy of the Government, adopted under the influence of the other Orders in Manila. So distinct were their interests that the Augustine chroniclers refer to the other Orders as _different religions_. In 1778 the Province of Pangasinan was spiritually administered by the Dominicans, whilst that of Zambales was allotted to the Recoletos. The Dominicans, therefore, proposed to the Recoletos to cede Zambales to them, because it was repugnant to have to pass through Recoleto territory going from Manila to their own province! The Recoletos were offered Mindoro Island in exchange, which they refused, until the Archbishop compelled them to yield. Disturbances then arose in Zambales, the responsibility of which was thrown on the Dominicans by their rival Order, and the Recoletos finally succeeded in regaining their old province by intrigue. During the Governorship of Martin de Urena, Count de Lizarraga (1709-15), the Aragonese and Castilian priests quarrelled about the ecclesiastical preferments. At the beginning of the 18th century the Bishop-elect of Cebu, Fray Pedro Saez de la Vega Lanzaverde, refused to take possession because the nomination was _in partibus_. He objected also that the Bishopric was merely one in perspective and not yet a reality. The See remained vacant whilst the contumacious priest lived in Mexico. Fray Sebastian de Jorronda was subsequently appointed to administer the Bishopric, but also refused, until he was coerced into submission by the Supreme Court (1718). In 1767 the Austin friars refused to admit the episcopal visits, and exhibited such a spirit of independence that Pope Benedict XIV. was constrained to issue a Bull to exhort them to obey, admonishing them for their insubordination. The friars of late years were subject to a visiting priest--the Provincial--in all matters _de vita et moribus_, to the Bishop of the diocese in all affairs of spiritual dispensation, and to the Gov.-General as vice-royal patron in all that concerned the relations of the Church to the Civil Government. [96] An observant traveller, unacquainted with the historical antecedents of the friars in the Philippines, could not fail to be impressed by the estrangement of religious men, whose sacred mission, if genuine, ought to have formed an inseverable bond of alliance and goodfellowship. CHAPTER XIII Spanish Insular Government