Note 55 — Chapter IX · THE AUDIENCIA AND THE GOVERNOR: THE AD INTERIM RULE

Fajardo urged that the audiencia should be permitted to retain the government as it had done formerly. He showed the advantages accruing to the colony from a continuity of policy which would result from the rule of the oidores. He showed that the incursions of the viceroys and residents of Mexico upon the galleon trade would more likely be checked by the oidores than by any other agency, adding moreover that this particular matter should be attended to at once since the life and prosperity of the colony depended on the control of the Acapulco and Chinese commerce by the merchants of Manila.55 A similar argument was presented by Governor Manrique de Lara in a letter written July 19, 1654. This governor urged that a commission of magistrates, familiar with the needs of the colony through experience and long residence, was better fitted to rule for the common good than a stranger, appointed by a distant viceroy, coming to the Islands as most of the temporary governors had done, with the sole purpose of exploitation.56