Page:A New Survey of the West Indies or The English American his Travel by Sea and Land.djvu/22

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
6
A New Survey
Chap. I.

they being of his profession ought only to be sent thither. But this their way being stopped by the opposition of all other Religious Orders, especially by the felicitation of one

Fryer Diego Colliado, a Dominican, as hereafter I will shew more largely. Now, secondly, their Policy is to lean more to the Popes of Rome, then any other of those Orders, by a special Vow which they make above the three Vows of other Orders, Poverty,Chastity, and Obedience to their Superiors; to wit, to be always ready to go to Preach when or whithr soever the Pope shall send them, and to advance his name, defend his power in what parts soever, maugre whatsoever danger, or opposition. Thus though the remoteness of America may discourage other Orders from going thither to Preach, and their freewil which is left unto them to make choice of so long and tedious a journey may retard their readiness and the dangers of the Barbarians unwillingness to submit to a Popes power, and admit of a new Religion as superstitious as their own, may affright them from hazarding their lives among a Barbarous, Rude, and Idolatrous people; yet if all others fail, the Pope, and the Jesuites being thus agreed, and the King of Spain bound by the new Royal Patrimony, Preachers have not, nor shall ever be wanting in those parts: And in stead of the old Jesuites and Preachers grown in age, yearly are sent thither Missions (as they call them) either of Voluntiers, Fryers, Mendicants, Priests or Monks; or else of forced Jesuites: All which entring once into the List and Bond of Missionaries, must abide there, and be maintained by the King of Spain ten years. And whosocver before the ten years expired, shall desire to see Spain again, or runagate-like shall return, may be constrained (if taken in Spain) to return again to the India's, as it happened whilst I lived in those parts, to one Fryer Peter de Balcazar a Dominican, who privily flying back to Spain, was the year after shipped, and restored again to his forced service under the Pope of Rome. And thus doth Policy open the ways to those remote and forain parts of America. Thus hath Policy wrought upon the Kings of Spain; and Jesuitical Policy meeting with

Anti-