Note VII‑16 — Chapter VII · ALVARADO'S EXPEDITION TO PERU. 1531-1536.

'Y asi él se volvió á la cibdad de Mexico sin hacer cosa ninguna.' Alvarado, Carta, in Squier's MSS., xix. 17. This investigation was attended with some circumstances difficult of explanation. Maldonado's official proceedings were anomalous, and were strictly neither those of a visitador nor a juez de residencia. The king's decree mentioned in the text enjoined secrecy as to the motives of his visit; yet he caused the object of his arrival to be publicly cried. The difference between a visita and residencia is as follows: The visita could be made at any time by special commission of the crown, but without suspending, in the exercise of his official duties, the person whose conduct was to be investigated. The inquiry was strictly secret, and the visitador had no power to pass sentence. His duty was to remit the original depositions to the India Council, by which tribunal judgment was passed. The residencia, on the other hand, was taken at the expiration of a person's term of office; the examination was public, and afforded every opportunity for defence. Icazbalceta, Col. Doc., ii. pp. xxviii.-xxx. The secrecy of witnesses and non-interference with the authority of the person whose conduct was investigated were not always maintained, however, in the visita. In that to which Viceroy Mendoza was subjected, in 1547, his authority was at first disregarded and the names of witnesses disclosed. Solórzano, Política Indiana, lib. v. cap. x. It may be remarked that the chroniclers seem to have been quite unaware of this first visit of Maldonado in 1535, and only record his arrival in Guatemala as juez de residencia in 1536. It is, however, fully substantiated by Alvarado's letter above quoted. For a full explanation of the term 'residencia,' see Hist. Cent. Am., i. 250-1, this series.