The enlightened advisers of Charles V. came to the conclusion that Peru could never become a loyal and profitable appanage of the Crown until freedom of action was granted to its government. Don Andres Hurtado de Mendoza, Marquis of Cañete, accepted the difficult post of viceroy. He was a scion of the noblest House of Spain, distinguished alike in arms and letters, capable and resolute, of mature years and wide experience. His salary was fixed at the then fabulous sum of forty thousand ducats in order to enable him to maintain regal state, and, accompanied by his vice-queen and an imposing retinue, he assumed power with ceremonial splendour. He prohibited further immigration from Spain and ordered that no Spaniard in Peru should leave his district without permission. Though the encomienderos were left in possession of their estates, they were made to understand that they must cease the more outrageous forms of oppressing the natives. He sent for the most notorious disturbers, and they came joyfully expecting to receive grants, but were summarily disarmed and banished. He employed the more adventurous in expeditions to the interior and in completing the conquest of Chile. All the artillery in the country was gathered under his eye, and the corregidors were required to dismiss most of their soldiery. Finally, the viceroy continued Pizarro's policy of founding cities into which were gathered the Spaniards who remained scattered over the country.
He did much to alleviate the lot of the natives, though he dared not venture on giving them all the rights guaranteed by Spanish law. No efforts were spared to Hispaniolise the Inca nobles, and native chiefs who could prove their right by descent were formally allowed to exercise jurisdiction as magistrates. Even the rightful emperor, Sayri Tupac, who had maintained his independence in the wilds of Vilcabamba, was induced to swear allegiance and accept a pension and estates in the valley of Yucay. When the Inca had attested the documents by which he renounced his sovereignty, he lifted up the gilded fringe of the table-cloth, saying: "All this cloth and its fringe were mine, and now they give me a thread of it for my sustenance and that of all my house." Retiring to Yucay, he sank into a deep melancholy and died within two years.