vided for that purpose. At the very moment of such arrest you will cause to be sealed the records of said houses, and the papers of such persons, without allowing them to remove anything but their prayer-books, and such garments as are absolutely necessary for the journey. If after the embarkation there should be found in that district a single Jesuit, even if ill or dying, you shall suffer the penalty of death. Yo el Rey," these last words being the sovereign's autograph signature, and meaning I, the king.[1]
Pursuant to this command the viceroy gave his orders; and on the 25t[2]“ of June, a little before daybreak, the Jesuits were arrested in their residences, and their papers[3] and effects seized. In the casa profesa the notification was made by José Areche, fiscal of the audiencia, to the father praepositus, the provincial, Salvador Gándara, being then absent in Querétaro, and the other members, all of whom humbly submitted, knelt down, and prayed.[4]
- ↑ Davila, J. M., P. Salvador Gándara, in Dicc. Univ., iii. 547.
- ↑ Some modern authorities by mistake say it was on the 20th. Zerecero, Mem. Rev. Mex., 442; Mora, Rev. Mex., iii. 264.
- ↑ Father Joseph Och repudiates the idea that anything detrimental to the Jesuits was found in their papers, but he made haste to destroy all the writings in his possession at the first opportunity. He denies the imputation that there was anything secret about the system or relations of the Jesuits, but perhaps forgets himself when he admits that many persons would have given $1,000 to speak to some of them when confined, and exults over the fact that one man actually did smuggle himself in under the pretence of being a doctor. Och, Reise, in Murr, Nachrichten, 94-6; Och, Joseph, Nachrichten von seinen Reisen, 1757 bis 1767, in Murr, Nachrichten. Halle, 1809. Och was a Jesuit priest who came to Mexico in 1756; soon after he was assigned to a mission in Pimería, and remained there till 1767, when he returned in ill-health to Mexico. He was one of the Jesuits expelled from the country, and seems to have been a sociable, jolly priest, and not over pious. His autograph memoirs contain much information on the country and its inhabitants, but little on missions. In treating of the enemies of his order he indulges freely in sarcasm, relating several exaggerated and even unsavory stories in reviling such government officials as had a hand in the expulsion. The memoirs were given by Abbot Franz Huberti to Murr, who published them, as he tells us, reforming them to suit the public taste. Father Och died of apoplexy in the Jesuit college of Würzburg early in July 1773, and only a few days before the suppression of his order.
- ↑ The commissioner having demanded the consumption of the consecrated hosts in the ciborium previous to forming an inventory and seizing the sacred vases, Father Iragorri inquired if the Jesuits present desired to take the communion, and all so expressed their wish. Bustamante, Expa'riacion, in Alegre, Hist. Comp. Jesus iii. 302; Id., Suplem., in Cavo, Tres Siglos, iii. 2. Father Diego Josá Abad, a Tarasco Indian, uttered harsh remarks in Tarascan to
