“executive” and “judicial” are employed in this book, as they were in Spain’s colonies, to designate functions rather than departments. The viceroy, as president of the audiencia, had cognizance of certain judicial matters, and more or less participation in them, though he was forbidden to act as judge, especially over affairs in which he had already officiated as executive. The audiencia likewise shared many executive functions, yet it was not judge of its own acts, for when judgment was passed on the administrative acts or judicial pronouncements of an oidor, either on appeal or by review of sentence, that magistrate was expected to retire, or to be occupied with some other case. So, while there was no judicial department with solely judicial functions, or a legislative or executive department, as they are known in some modern states, there existed certain interrelations which did not entirely result in confusion, as one might suppose. On the contrary, it may be often noted that as a resultant of this system, men and acts of an exceedingly well-balanced and statesmanlike character were produced. We shall see, moreover, that they were far from meriting the disapprobation that is frequently heaped upon so-called Spanish governmental incapacity.

The defects which appear so conspicuous in Spanish administration were largely due to the extremely methodical turn of the Spanish official mind, the vastness of the empire which was to be governed, and the lack of facilities available for efficient administration. It was a government of expedientes, literally a government on paper. All acts, estimates, budgets, and plans had to be drafted and written out, duplicates and triplicates of each report had to be made, advice had to be taken, and opinions rendered, whether the matter went any further than the theoretical stage or not. We do much the same in our modern age, but inventions and labor-saving devices have fortunately spared us much of the time and effort which a few centuries ago had to be expended to accomplish proportionate results. The apparent unwieldiness of the Spanish colonial empire would have been materially reduced by the use of the telegraph, cable, steamship, typewriter and carbon-paper.

An effort has been made that this should be something more than a theoretical dissertation. A knowledge that certain laws were promulgated is only half of what is necessary in a study of this character. It is imperative to understand how these laws were applied, and whether they were efficiently and effectively carried out. Every phase of the audiencia’s history has, therefore, been illustrated wherever possible with one or more concrete cases, taken from actual practice. Many of these illustrations are comparatively insignificant by themselves, involving persons of no historical importance and concerning matters of a seemingly trivial nature. Nevertheless, it has been necessary to consider these matters carefully because they were typical and true to actual conditions, and because they reveal better than anything else could the affairs which were the concern of the audiencia, showing the part played by the tribunal in the life of the colony.

In the preparation of this work due deference has been paid to the standard authorities usually cited by writers of Spanish-American history. So little attention has been given by students of Spanish colonial history to the audiencia as an institution, however, that the present writer has been obliged to depend almost entirely on the hitherto untouched documentary material in Spain and the Philippines, and to place almost his sole reliance upon it. This material consists of laws, cédulas, royal orders, ordinances, correspondence, and lastly, but most important, records of cases and actual happenings in the form of letters, memorials, reports, complaints and contemporary accounts. These latter