Note 39 — Chapter VIII · THE AUDIENCIA AND THE GOVERNOR: CONFLICTS OF JURISDICTION

Many disagreements took place between the audiencia and Governor Marquina, who succeeded Basco y Vargas. Marquina quarreled with the audiencia over almost every act of government in which he had relations with the tribunal. Marquina was said to have repeatedly disregarded the acuerdo and to have done as he pleased in matters wherein the audiencia had been or should have been consulted. There was a bitter contest in 1789, shortly after the arrival of this governor, because he had excused various officials of real hacienda from appearing when summoned to the audiencia to serve as witnesses. Marquina did this, he claimed, because they were needed in the provinces as financial agents, and because their absence from their posts of duty would entail a grave loss to the government. The audiencia solved the matter by forwarding all the correspondence relative to these cases to the Council of the Indies. It may be said that Marquina, in exempting these witnesses, was acting in his capacity as president of the audiencia, but in his solicitude that no loss should occur to the royal exchequer he was acting as superintendent of real hacienda, which was within his authority.39