Note 69 — Chapter XI · THE AUDIENCIA AND THE CHURCH: THE ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION

While the Salcedo affair accurately depicts the power which the Inquisition assumed on a particular occasion, the episode cannot be said to illustrate its power and influence throughout the history of the Islands. Indeed, never on any former or subsequent occasion did the Inquisition constitute such a menace to the state. It was generally prevented from exercising too much power in the Philippines by its own isolation. Represented by a single agent, who was not always on good terms with the other ecclesiastical authorities there, and who was thousands of miles from his immediate superior, the tribunal of Mexico, he was confronted and opposed by the combined civil, secular and monastic powers. Owing to these circumstances, the commissary of the Inquisition in the Philippines could not, single-handed and unaided, constitute a long-continued danger to the commonwealth.