Note 15 — THE EXPULSION OF THE JESUITS, 1768–1769

[Space will not permit us to present this summary in full, but we make an outline of it sufficient to preserve all the facts of main importance; it may be found at pp. 187–216 of Montero y Vidal’s account. Charges were brought against Raón and three others; these were Francisco Henriquez de Villacorta and Domingo Blas de Basaraz, members of the Audiencia, and Juan Antonio Cosio, the governor’s secretary. Raón was proved guilty on the charge of having given information to the Jesuits of the measures to be taken against them, on the next day (May 18) after receiving the royal commands; “and immediately they began, and continued without ceasing, the concealment of their wealth and the burning of papers. Circumstantial evidence shows that it was Raón who told them, and various persons declared that this ‘was worth to him many pesos.’ ” He made an outward show of obeying the decree, by sending (at 10 a. m.) troops to surround and guard the Jesuit college; and also his secretary, to tell the fathers that the soldiers had gone there for purposes which would afterward be explained to them by Auditor Galvan. The latter, however, he kept busy otherwise, until the twenty-first. On May 18 he sent Galvan to the Jesuit college of San Ildefonso, outside the walls, to carry out the decree, and Raón waited until he finished these duties before he sent Galvan to the main colleges within the city; this gave the Jesuits from three to five days to hide their treasures and burn their papers,15 in which they occupied themselves both day and night. Raón failed to require the superiors of the colleges to call in their absent priests, and to remove the Jesuits, as soon as they were notified of the decree, from their colleges to some other place of detention till they could be sent from the city. They also possessed eleven farms and ranches; Raón is charged with having left the Jesuits in these undisturbed, for several months or even more than a year, without any check on their doings, or inventory of the property, which they stated as they chose; and even that he sent cavalry to these farms, to be at the orders of the fathers there. In the provinces outside of Manila, Raón neglected to carry out his instructions for the expulsion; and in consequence “there was not a college or a town in which the Jesuits did not have notice beforehand of their expulsion.” Accordingly, they also concealed their wealth and burned their papers, and they even found their way into their colleges at Manila; and Raón so neglected his duties that it was four months after the royal decree was published at Manila before the first orders for the expulsion from Visayas were sent thither.16 In order to shield himself, he had his secretary Cosio draw up a false statement, duly attested, that the governor had duly executed the royal commands regarding the Jesuits, in accordance with his instructions; and this was sent to Aranda, with a letter in which he threw the blame upon Galvan for any defects which might be found in the conduct of the expulsion. Other secondary charges were brought against Raón: he had allowed the Jesuits to prepare their outfits for their voyage as they chose, and for this to leave the college in which they were detained, and to have intercourse with various people, all this contrary to his instructions; he had displayed negligence, lack of system, and extravagance in the shipment and supplies of food for the exiles; he neglected to look after the interests of the obras pías which the Jesuits had administered, thus causing serious damages to those foundations. He did not make provision, for two years after the expulsion, for the administration of the temporalities occupied by the Jesuits; thus the collection of debts due to them was “absolutely neglected, until measures for this were taken by the present government; so were the estates, houses, obras pías, and moneys at interest, and left without any person to call to account the individuals who were managing them; and from this ensued the arrears and losses that may be inferred.” Raón was also charged with having conspired with Cosio, Basaraz, and Villacorta to persecute and harass Galvan, Viana, and Santa Justa—from which persecution Galvan suffered so much that, worn out and depressed by it, he finally died; but they, not content with that, tried to defame his reputation. In most of these charges, Raón tried to make excuses for his conduct, or to throw the blame on Galvan or Villacorta; but Anda declares that they were all partly or wholly proved, and that Raón neglected everything in his official position “which did not involve the handling of ‘Mexican grease [vnto mexicano],’ ” that is, of bribes. His secretary Cosio was naturally included in all the charges made against Raón (in some of which he was declared more to blame than his master); but he is especially denounced for having drawn up and attested the false declaration that Raón had obeyed his instructions and performed his duty faithfully in the expulsion of the Jesuits, and as having done more than any one else to cause the death of Galvan; Anda concludes by saying, “he is more subtle and malevolent than can be expressed.”17 Villacorta was charged with having been more intimate with the expelled Jesuits than was becoming in an auditor; with having censured the archbishop for his insistence on episcopal visitation of the regulars; with having conspired against Galvan and the others; and with perjury. It was also proved that he had lived in open immorality, having two illegitimate daughters; that he engaged in trade, with dummy partners [testas de Ferro]; that he had, contrary to his obligation of secrecy, informed the friars of the government’s decision in regard to the diocesan visitation of their curas, before it could be carried out, and had complained of the archbishop to the king. The charges against Basaraz were similar to those against Raón, in regard to the expulsion of the Jesuits and the conspiracy against Galvan, and are not repeated in detail, especially as he had died before the conclusion of the legal process against him. He was also an intimate friend of the Jesuits, being a “third brother” of theirs, that is, affiliated to them through a third or lay order, like those of other regular corporations; he prevented the execution of some measures against them, and allowed them to take whatever they desired from their archives which had been seized; he was in constant and secret communication with the expelled priests, and spent money for them as they directed him; he allowed them to carry money and papers on board the ship; he spoke disparagingly of the king and his ministers, and their proceedings against the Jesuits; he falsified records, and compelled the notaries to make false entries; and, besides all these, he was drunken, licentious, and extravagant. Raón and Basaraz died soon after the beginning of proceedings against them; “and Villacorta did not raise his head after he saw the charges, and that all of them were documentary; and finally he also showed the bad taste to go to accompany the others, at the very time when he finished making his defense;” accordingly, Cosio was the only one left to send to Spain. Anda recounts the aid and kindness which he showed to all the accused, allowing them abundance of money, attendance, and liberty, and sending Basaraz to a hospital, and afterward to one of the best houses in the city, for the sake of his health; Cosio is the only one who experienced any severity, being sent to Fort Santiago. Nevertheless, Anda expects that many will try to make trouble for him, by misrepresenting or calumniating him, and accusing him of having caused those deaths by undue severity; he desires, however, that “those malicious acts be not attributed to him which, as he has known, have been represented at the court by the friars, and the prisoners, and especially the blessed [bendito, ironically] Father Serena.” Another auditor, Juan Antonio de Uruñuela, was also accused of voting at Raón’s dictation, and being concerned in the conspiracy against Galvan; he also brought to the islands 3,000 pesos, which he placed in charge of the friars, who included it and other property of his with their own money, as all being “for their missions in China,” so that he might not have to pay duties on it. Cosio and Raón’s friends attempted to show that the archbishop had warned the Jesuits of their expulsion; but Raón’s own testimony had disproved that accusation. Anda was unable to conclude the proceedings against the accused, for when he reached Manila he found that the Audiencia contained only Villacorta, Basaraz, and Uruñuela; “and although two auditors came in company with him, Don Francisco Ignacio Gonzalez Maldonado and Don Juan Francisco Anda (his own nephew), the former gave indications of perversity in the residencia of Villacorta, which he conducted, and it was necessary to reserve the second to succeed Basaraz in the post of commissioner of the Jesuit properties—for the governor knew, extra-judicially, that Uruñuela and Maldonado would decline to accept it, and, in order to avoid a dispute, he would not propose it to them.” Anda mentions various ways in which the relatives of the accused had endeavored to hinder the legal proceedings, means which they afterward used too successfully at court to involve him in trouble with the home government, although he had faithfully followed the instructions given him by that very government to bring the guilty parties to justice.]