Note 20 — Chapter V · THE SEMI-JUDICIAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE FUNCTIONS OF THE AUDIENCIA.
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The oidores did not tamely submit to a deprivation of their posts as asesores on the occasion of the establishment of the intendancy. They complained to the king, alleging that these appointments belonged to them by their own right. The king inquired of Governor Basco y Vargas why the oidores had not been designated for these duties. The governor replied that the supervision of the rents had been assumed by the intendant, but that their direction belonged at that time to the governor and superintendent, by virtue of the cédula of November 23, 1787.20 He stated that the oidores had no right of their own to these asesorías, since the faculty of appointing asesores had been conferred on the governor (or viceroy) by the laws of the Indies,21 and in times past governors had appointed lawyers who were not oidores. There was therefore no obligation on the part of the governor to give these places to oidores; indeed, the laws of the Indies had emphasized the undesirability of doing so.22