ous prices, when the money was not forthcoming. A. large part of these fines found their way to the pockets of the audiencia, by virtue of a decree which assigned certain classes of tribunal revenue to the settlements for constructing roads and other public works.[1] Against other victims of their greed or hatred private snits were promoted, by which means both passions were appeased. For instance, the wife of Pánfilo de Narvaez, apprehensive on his account, sent from Cuba an agent, Zavalos, with authority to collect what belonged to her husband. The reason of his coming was not known in Mexico, and the oidores easily persuaded him to complain before them for the ill treatment of Narvaez, and loss of his property, against all those soldiers of Cortés who had accompanied him in the expedition to Zempoala, and who were at this time in Mexico. In consequence two hundred and fifty of them were arrested, muleted in different amounts, and banished to the distance of five leagues from the capital.[2]
The members of the audiencia were always prepared to remit the sentence of fine, imprisonment, or exile, on receiving a substantial bribe. Indeed, a large proportion of the suits were brought to intimidate the defendant into such a course, so that the plaintiff was often the creature of the judge; or, if not, he might be mulcted for defamation or other offence, if the opposite party bribed the judges. Appeals only evoked bitter persecution.[3]
Cortés was, after all, the chief object of attack, for his wealth, and for his hostile attitude against Guz-
- ↑ It was revoked in 1528, Puga, Cedulario, 51.
- ↑ The latter part of the sentence was soon revoked, and in many cases the fine was remitted, but the offence rankled. The audiencia also caused proclamation to be made that all of Moorish lineage, any one of whose parents or grandparents had been burned or sentenced to wear the sanbenito by the Inquisition, should depart from New Spain. Condemnation to wear the sanbenito was the mildest form of punishment known to the holy tribunal, What the garment was, and what its uses, I shall treat in detail when I come to write of the Inquisition in Mexico.
- ↑ In Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., xiii, 136-44, are given long lists of bribes accepted by the audiencia, to stay persecution or grant favors.
