Possibly the facts of their relations with the bishops of Paraguay will enable us to decide, if their action on other foreign missions be not regarded as sufficient. These facts are, of course, challenged by Jesuit writers, but the authority is too serious for us to set them aside on that account. Dom Bernardine de Cardenas, a Franciscan monk who became Bishop of Paraguay, sent Friar Villalon to the Spanish court and the Vatican to complain of the Jesuits. I state the facts as they are given in Villalon's memorial to Philip of Spain; and those who think that they are discredited because the Jesuits denied the more flagrant charges and the Spanish court, ruled by Jesuits, rejected them, are free to impute the mendacity to the bishop rather than to the Jesuits.
The two predecessors of Cardenas had had much trouble with the Jesuits, but for a year or two after his consecration he was on very friendly terms with them. They did not from the first affect to regard his consecration as invalid, as their apologist says; that idea (afterwards refuted by the Papacy) occurred to them in the course of the quarrel. In 1644, Cardenas announced that he was about to visit the reductions, which formed part of his diocese, and the Jesuits offered him 20,000 crowns to omit that part of his visitation. He refused, and they discovered a scruple about the validity of his consecration. As Cardenas insisted, they spread the report in the reductions that Spanish priests were coming who would interfere with the women, raised a troop of eight hundred Indians, and advanced toward the episcopal town of Assumption. The governor, a brutal man, had previously quarrelled with the bishop, and one would imagine that it hardly needed a bribe of 30,000 crowns to secure his co-operation. It is at least quite certain that, as he travelled, the bishop was seized by the governor at the head of the Jesuit soldiers, brutally treated, and sent into exile 200 miles away.
Cardenas made his way with great difficulty to La Plata, placed his case before the higher tribunal of the Royal Audience, and was awarded his see. Near the city he was, however, again arrested by the Jesuit troops, and sent back to his wretched exile. In 1647 there was a change of governor, and he returned, to the great joy of the town. The Jesuits, however, intrigued with his clergy, allowed two of his canons to set up a rival chapter in their residence, and turned the new governor against him. He was besieged in his cathedral for fourteen days; but a compromise was accepted, and, when the governor died two years afterwards, the citizens nominated Cardenas himself governor, in accordance with their legal right. The Jesuits then set up a rival for the governorship, secured, by intrigue and bribery, his recognition by the authorities at La Plata, and put 4000 of their armed Indians, under Jesuit leaders, at his disposal. Leaving behind them a trail of outrage which does not harmonise with the Jesuit description of their pupils, these troops flung themselves upon the armed and angry citizens. In the battle that followed 385 Indians and a Jesuit were slain, but the citizens were overpowered.