The attitude of the new governor toward the audiencia during the first six months may be described as conciliatory. That he did not act with entire independence of it is attested by the fact that when Vargas appealed to the tribunal against the ecclesiastical penalties imposed by the archbishop, the governor signed the act ordering the absolution of his predecessor. When the archbishop persisted in his intention to humiliate Vargas on the ground that the Inquisition demanded such action, the new governor threatened again to expel the prelate if he did not desist. [528] His pacificatory efforts also resulted in a temporary cessation of the hostility between the archbishop and the audiencia; he held private conferences with the oidores, manifesting repeatedly his determination to proceed harmoniously with them. As a result of this treatment, the magistrates were emboldened to urge that the return of the prelate was contrary to law, and inconsistent with all precedent.
Finally, unable to resist the pressure exerted by the archbishop, and obtaining advance information of the royal condemnation of the audiencia for its acts in the banishment of Pardo, the governor arrested, imprisoned, and exiled the magistrates, temporarily reconstituting the tribunal with local and more subservient members. [529] Curuzaelegui's proceedings were thenceforth as high-handed as they had formerly been conciliatory, and from that time onward the residents of the colony were subjected to the rule of an absolute governor, aided by an unscrupulous and vindictive prelate and a subservient audiencia. Just before his imprisonment, Magistrate Bolívar, in a letter to the Minister of the Indies, described the chaos existent in Manila as follows:
Here there is no will, save that of a governor, since he is absolute, we all had to acquiesce, under compulsion and pressure, in the restitution of the archbishop; [530] ... to state the case in few words, the archbishop does whatever suits his whim, without there being anyone to restrain him. [531]
Fray Luís Pimentel, a Jesuit, in a letter which he wrote to a friend, stated that the arrest of the oidores by the governor had been inspired by personal spite and a desire for revenge. He had desired to punish magistrates Viga and Bolívar, particularly for their opposition to him in matters of administration and in his trading-schemes. The governor was also said to have been actuated by a suspicion that these oidores had formulated elaborate charges of misgovernment against him, and he desired to prevent these complaints from reaching the king. [532]