They were invested with greater authority than was permitted to the kindred tribunal at Santo Domingo,[1] the instructions being in amplification of those given to Ponce de Leon. They were to retain the staffs of justice to be taken from present holders, and determine all causes, civil and criminal, with appellate as well as original jurisdiction.[2] The residencia of the existing officials must be proclaimed, and the pertinent features thereof embodied in an exhaustive report to the India Council, accompanied by the opinion of the audiencia.
The treasurer, factor, and veedor were to be sent to Spain, but only after a satisfactory examination of their accounts. The audiencia, conjointly with Albornoz, whose accounts were also to be investigated, were to appoint deputies to serve during the absence of their principals, and neither the contador, treasurer, nor veedor was to engage in business or to hold Indians in encomienda. A full statement of all accounts must be sent immediately to Spain; no one was to be in arrears, and all fines imposed up to this time were to be collected. The best method of administering justice must be considered, and offences punished without fail, judges guilty of malfeasance having to pay the cost of remedies. No oidor or judge could sit in judgment of a matter in which a relative within the second degree of kinship was interested.[3] Law-
- ↑ 'Traian los mayores poderes q nunca á la Nueua España despues truxeron Virreyes, ni Presidentes.' Bernal Diaz, Hist. Verdad., 227.
- ↑ They must engage in no other business, nor hold a second office; a rule infringed by their predecessors.
- ↑ They were not to appear as counsel nor to serve as referees; suits to which an oidor was a party must be heard and determined by the alcaldes
cin de Mexico, Panuco, Yucatan, Cozumel, y la de Guatemala, y del rio de las Palmas, que estaua dada a Panfilo de Naruaez, con todo lo incluso en sus limites.' dec. iv. lib. iv. cap. ii. Yet New Spain 'proper' came some 20 years later to be understood as embracing only the districts confined by the audiencias of Guatemala and New Galicia, created in 1543 and 1548, from a line drawn between the gulfs of Tehuantepec and Honduras, and from the southern border of New Galicia to Florida. Recop. de Indias, i. 324; Calle, Mem. y Not., 44. In this sense it really meant the audiencia district, and New Spain as a political division extended properly from Guatemala into the undeveloped north, Guatemala and Honduras being nearly always spoken of as independent, so that the application of New Spain to their provinces had a merely nominal significance.
