198 ARMENDARIZ VICEROY ESCALONA VICEROY. 



Don Lope Diaz de Armendariz, Marques de Cadereita, 

 XVI. Viceroy of New Spain 

 1635—1640. 



The five years of this personage's government were unmarked by 

 any events of consequence in the colony; except that in the last 

 of them, — 1640, — he despatched an expedition to the north, 

 where he founded in New Leon, the town of Cadereita, which the 

 emigrants named in honor of their viceroy. 



Don Diego Lopez Pacheco Cabrera y Bobadilla, 

 Duke of Escalona, Marques of Vilbua and Grandee of 

 Spain of the first class. 

 XVII. Viceroy of New Spain. 

 1640—1642. 



The Duke of Escalona succeeded the Marques of Cadereita, and 

 arrived in Mexico on the 28th of June, 1640, together with the 

 venerable Palafox, who came, in the character of Visitador, to 

 inquire into the administration of the last viceroy whose reputation, 

 like that of other chief magistrates in New Spain, had suffered 

 considerably in the hands of his enemies. Whilst this functionary 

 proceeded with his disagreeable task against a man who was no 

 longer in power, the duke, in compliance with the king's command 

 ordered the governor of Sinaloa, Don Luis Cestinos, accompanied 

 by two Jesuits, to visit the Californias and examine their coasts 

 and the neighboring isles in search of the wealth in pearls and 

 precious metals with which they were reputed to be filled. The 

 reports of the explorers were altogether satisfactory both as to the 

 character of the natives and of the riches of the waters as well as 

 of the mines, though they represented the soil as extremely sterile. 

 The gold of California was reserved for another age. 



Ever since the conquest the instruction of Indians in christian 

 doctrine had been confided exclusively to the regular clergy of the 

 Roman Catholic church. The secular priests were, thus, entirely 

 deprived of the privilege of mingling their cares with their monastic 

 brethren, who, in the course of time, began to regard this as an 

 absolute, indefeasible right, whose enjoyment they were unwilling 

 to forego, especially as the obvenciones or tributes of the Indian 

 converts, formed no small item of corporate wealth in their 

 respective orders. The Indians were, in fact, lawful tributaries, 



