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Our Catltolic Ii eritage i11 Texas
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quently retired to Mission Concepcion shortly after the argument. Franquis at first demanded from Father Santa Ana that Fray Mariano be sent back to his convent, but he later relented and did not press his request. The governor's assumption that he had the right to have mis- sionaries removed from one mission to another, and even out of the province will be noted in the course of his difficulties with the Padres. Tampering witli t/1e mails. Apprehensive, no doubt, that the mis- sionaries would present formal complaints of the many abuses suffered at his hands, the governor resorted to a practice that was to bring him a deserved and severe reprimand. In the various letters written by the missionaries from the latter part of October through January, 1737, frequent references are made to the serious doubts entertained by the writers as to whether the letters would ever reach their destination. The reason was that the governor did not permit any letters to go out of the province without his seal which he did not place on the letters until he had read them, thus making himself practically a censor. Shortly after the removal of the mission guards, Chirino, a messenger bearing letters from the missionaries to the Rio Grande, was stopped by Alferez Galvan and a group of soldiers stationed at the crossing of the Medina River. Galvan searched the messenger and took from him the letters he was carrying and sent them to the governor. When Chirino inquired by whose orders this outrage was committed, he was curtly informed that they were the governor's orders. That this was not an isolated incident is shown by the fact that a short time aftenvards. Lieutenant Perez stopped another messenger and asked him if he had any letters from the missionaries. This time Perez did not obtain the letters because, aware of the practice, the bearer had hidden them securely where they could not be found. In the formal remonstrance against this condemnable practice, Father Sevillano declared emphatically: "It is against the royal will as expressed in law 7, book 3, title 16, of the Laws of tlte Indies, where his majesty orders that such offenders be deprived of office and banished from the Indies forever for such an abuse . . . For which reason I beg your Excellency to order Don Carlos Franquis to restrain himself in the future in acting against this law and that he allow the letters and mail to pass freely in order that each party may have an opportunity to defend his innocence and claim the rights to which he is justly entitled." 40 40Fray Miguel Sevillano de Paredes, Consulta A,Polegetica in A. G. M., Missiones, vol. 21, pt. 1, pp. 93-96.
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