[XXIV‑32] The convent of San Pablo, at Leon, founded by Osorio, Las Casas, and their associates in 1532 (see [p. 169], this vol.), belonged to the provincia of Peru, and had now become very wealthy. Remesal, Hist. Chyapa, 598.
[XXIV‑33] 'Los vezinos de la ciudad de Leon, hizieron grandes extremos por la ausencia de los Religiosos. Y para sacar el Padre fray Iuan de Torres la hazienda y alhajas del Conuento, tuuo necessidad de mucha maña y secreto.' Id., 599.
[XXIV‑34] Id., 599. Remesal enlarges on the injurious effects of this second desertion of the province by the Dominicans, and states (p. 620) that a cédula under date of August 1, 1558, forbade any secular priest being assigned to a place where friars of either the Franciscan or Dominican orders were stationed in the dioceses of Guatemala, Chiapas, Honduras, and Nicaragua.
[XXIV‑35] Mention is also made of Nueva Segovia, where much gold is said to have been taken out, and of Nueva Jaen, at the mouth of Lake Nicaragua, whence merchandise from Nombre de Dios was shipped to Granada in canoes. Guatemala, Informe, in Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., xv. 470-2.
[XXIV‑36] Trade had been greatly injured by the misuse of the mark of the leoncillo (little lion) which was introduced into Nicaragua with royal consent. In 1551 it was ordered that the mark be affixed only to 15 or 17 carat gold. About the same time the king was asked to extend an expiring license to melt metal, that 'la fundicion del oro é de la plata, sea al diezimo.' Carrasco, Carta, in Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., v. 526-8.
[XXV‑1] [Hist. Cent. Am., i. 513], this series.
[XXV‑2] [Page 276], this volume.
[XXV‑3] New Survey W. Indies (3d ed., London, 1677), 419. The author lived in the Indies between 1625 and 1637, and made, as he tells us, 9,000 pesos during these 12 years. He was an acute observer, and captious in doctrinal matters, as the following passage will show: 'Whilest this traffick was (at Portobello), it happened unto me that which I have formerly testified in my Recantation Sermon at Pauls Church, which if by that means it have not come unto the knowledge of many, I desire again to record it in this my History, that to all England it may be published; which was, that one day saying the Mass in the chief Church, after the Consecration of the bread, being with my eyes shut at that prayer, which the Church of Rome calleth the Memento for their dead, there came from behind the Altar a Mouse, which running about, came to the very bread or Wafer-god of the Papists, and taking it in his mouth ran away with it, not being perceived by any of the people who were at Mass, for that the Altar was high, by reason of the steps going up to it, and the people far beneath. But as soon as I opened my eyes to go on with my Mass, and perceived my God stolen away, I looked about the Altar, and saw the mouse running away with it.... Whereupon, not knowing what the people had seen, I turned myself unto them, and called them unto the Altar, and told them plainly that whilst I was in my Memento prayers and meditations, a Mouse had carried away the Sacrament, and that I knew not what to do unless they would help me to finde it out again.... After much searching and inquiry for the sacrilegious beast, they found at last in a hole of the wall the Sacrament half eaten up, which with great joy they took out, and as if the Ark had been brought again from the Philistins to the Israelites, so they rejoiced for their new-found God.... I observed in it the marks and signs of the teeth of the Mouse, as they are to be seen in a piece of Cheese gnawn and eaten by it.... And so Transubstantiation here in my judgement was confuted by a Mouse.' New Survey, 446-8.
[XXV‑4] Id., 420-21.
[XXV‑5] A castle with four bastions was erected, on a small rocky eminence. It was protected by a fosse and usually garrisoned by 100 men. Juarros, Guat., i. 52. Pelaez, Hist. Guat., ii. 176, says it was commenced in 1667, and Belly, Nicaragua, ii. 261, that the first castle was not built until 1666, and (in footnote) 'La construction du fort ne l'empêcha pas de reparaître une seconde fois en 1670 et d'obtenir les mêmes succès. C'est alors qu'un ordre royal décida la construction du fort Castillo, à douze lieues en aval du fleuve, qui fut terminé en 1675.'