Note 64 — Chapter XI · THE AUDIENCIA AND THE CHURCH: THE ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION

That Governor León had a trying position to fill may be believed by his description of affairs as he found them in Manila, and of his struggles to restore the royal authority to its proper status. He gave a full account of “the excessive presumption of the commissary of the Inquisition in the arrest of Don Diego Salcedo, my (his) predecessor, and his interference in matters wherein he had no real jurisdiction.” León reported having prevailed upon the royal audiencia to order the commissary to refrain from meddling in affairs which did not concern the Inquisition. The ways of the Inquisition he described as “dark and secret;” it was “a danger and a fearful power,” a “monster, feared by all,” working, not in the light of day, but insidiously, constituting a sinister power whose strength was not fully realized (León to Council, June 10, 1671, and July 4, 1672; Consulta of the Council of the Indies, July 16, 1674, A. I., 67–6–3).