Note 50 — Chapter IV · JUDICIAL FUNCTIONS OF THE AUDIENCIA; THE RESIDENCIA1

The factors of petty spite, malice, and personal ambition entered to an extensive degree in the rendering of testimony at a residencia. A governor, recently arrived in the colony, would be full of zeal and ardor to inaugurate a successful administration, and make a good record for himself. The first duty that presented itself on his arrival was that of taking or supervising his predecessor’s residencia. Frequently, before arriving at Manila, the new governor would be in full possession of a complete record of the misdeeds of his predecessor, and the residencia of the latter was as good as taken.50 Oidores, merchants, alcaldes, treasury officials, and churchmen, compelled to stand aside and see a governor take his choice out of the best things, leaving for them only the husks, were not slow in bringing charges at the official residencia.51 A new governor, desirous of demonstrating his intention of starting an honest and vigorous administration, hearing nothing but evil of his predecessor, would naturally lend himself as an instrument to the malcontents. A fiscal, after spending six years in conflict with a governor, could be depended on to bring strenuous prosecution against him. A magistrate with enmity in his heart for the governor whose residencia he was to take, was no fit person to conduct an impartial investigation.