Note 29 — Chapter VIII · THE AUDIENCIA AND THE GOVERNOR: CONFLICTS OF JURISDICTION

Fr. Diego de Otazo, the Jesuit confessor of Bustamante, in a letter to his superior, described the power of the governor and his treatment of the audiencia as follows: “Here, my father,” he wrote, “the governor takes away and establishes, gives, commands, unmakes and makes more despotically than does the king himself;... Royal decrees are not sufficient; for either he hides them, or he does not fulfill them as he ought. The Audiencia does not serve [as a check] on him, for he suppresses and he establishes it, when and how he pleases; nor do other bodies, whether chapters or [religious] communities (dare to oppose him), ... for he does the same thing [with them]. And never do there lack pretexts for doing thus, even though such bodies are appointed by the king; and with the pretext that account of the matter has already been rendered to Madrid, what he has begun remains permanently done, or else he proceeds to change it, as seems good to him.” (Letter of Diego de Otazo, S. J., November 19, 1719, Blair and Robertson, XLIV, 175.)