By the early 1600s, the average Paraguayan despised the Jesuits. Some agitated for the government to take action against them, and at the very least the idea of extending further "privileges" was out of the question. A series of intrigues took place from 1640-1650 with pro-Jesuit governor Gregorio de Hinestrosa vying against the anti-Jesuit Bishop Bernardino de Cárdenas, a Franciscan. Cárdenas was exiled to Corrientes, but upon the end of Hinestrosa's governorship returned to Asunción. The new governor Diego de Escobar y Osorio attempted to remain neutral in the conflict between the Jesuits and the settlers who were now backed by the returned Cárdenas, and successfully avoided bloodshed for a time, but in 1649 Osorio died. The cabildo, seizing on the Decree of 1537, promptly elected Cárdenas the new governor, and with his support expelled the Jesuits from their college in Asunción. They wrote in explanation of their actions that the Jesuits were destroying the province, and it was the "natural right" of people to defend themselves against aggression. Governor-Bishop Cárdenas, in similar proto-democratic language, said "the voice of the People is the voice of God." The authorities were displeased, and the Jesuits, with the government's permission, sent in an army of mission Indians to depose Cárdenas. Cárdenas and the Paraguayan militia decided to resist, and in a battle on October 5, 1649, the Jesuit army of roughly 700 Indians won a complete victory. The Paraguayans were scattered, Cárdenas and his closest supporters were arrested, and the citizens of Asunción were subjected to the humiliation of an occupying army of Indians patrolling their streets and enforcing the new governor's rule. This wound never healed. By 1721, hatred of the Jesuits was even more intense than it was in the early 1600s.