Note 64 — Chapter II · THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE AUDIENCIA OF MANILA (1583–1598).
Reading edition
Martínez de Zúñiga has this to say concerning the work and purpose of the tribunal: “The royal audiencia was established to check the despotism of the governor, whom it has never impeded, because its learned members were always the weaker, and the governor may send them as prisoners to Spain, exile them to the provinces to take census, or imprison them in Fort Santiago, as has been done” (Martínez de Zúñiga, Estadismo, I, 244).