These disagreements have been discussed in the foregoing pages largely from the view-point of the audiencia. Practically all the charges and complaints which have been cited were made in behalf of the audiencia, and these show the magistrates in almost all cases to have been acting in defense of their rights against usurpation and tyranny. Fairness demands, however, that the other side should be presented in the same manner. [559] Reference will now be made to a few of the many memorials heretofore unquoted, which were sent by various governors in protest against the alleged excesses of the audiencia.
As a first instance we may note the criticisms which Governor Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas made of the first audiencia which served from 1584 to 1589. We shall also consider the complaints which Dasmariñas made against Pedro de Rojas, former oidor and later teniente and asesor of that governor (1589-1593). Dasmariñas came to the colony shortly after the first audiencia had been suppressed and from his correspondence one may estimate the prevailing opinion of the tribunal which had been recently removed. The governor wrote as follows:
As the royal Audiencia was here so haughty and domineering, he (Pedro de Rojas) retains that authority and harshness, with which he tries to reduce all others as his vassals. In the matters of justice that he discusses, he is unable to be impartial, but is in many matters very biased. This is because of his trading and trafficking, which the president and all the auditors (oidores) carried on from the time of their arrival--and with so great avidity, trying to secure it all to themselves, that I find no rich men here beside them. This is the reason why Rojas ... and the auditors opposed the pancada in order that the consignments of money sent by them to China might not be known--which, at last, have come to light. [560]
The governor charged the audiencia, moreover, with having opposed the three per cent tax levied for the construction of the city wall. Indeed, he accused the magistrates of having influenced the friars to oppose all his acts as governor. He referred to the commercial excesses of the oidores, saying: "If the matter of inspection and the residencia held here had fallen to my order and commission, as it fell to that of the Viceroy of Nueva España, I would have proved to your Majesty the investments of past years." He concluded with the statement that Rojas had been so busy with gain that he had been unable to attend to his other duties; he was "puffed up with the authority and name of auditor" (i. e., oidor). He protested against the transfer of Rojas to an office in Mexico, "for," he wrote, "such men go delighted with their interests and gains from trade here, they are fettered and biased by their relations with the trade of this country."