Even the marqués de Falces was brought before the dread court of the royal emissaries; charges of disloyalty as well as offences of omission were made against him, to which he pleaded that his conscience was at peace, for he had done nothing incompatible with the duties of a loyal subject and servant of the crown. In view of his rank, the judges abstained from rendering a decision in his case, and referred it to the king. This was all Falces asked, and a few days later he went down to Vera Cruz to embark on the first ship for Spain.
Muñoz continued his abuse of power almost without a limit. The jails as well as his pestilence-breeding dungeons were filled with innocent victims, whose sons and wives dare not move in their release lest worse befall them. For once in their battered existence the Indians were saved by their insignificance from the horrid notice of their present rulers. It was the Spaniards and their descendants, and particularly those of high position, conquerors and sons of conquerors, who had themselves gloried in practising enormities on others, even as they were now wrought upon by fiends of injustice; it was these who were now the sufferers, and at the hands of those of their own race.[1]
- ↑ 'No avia Hombre con Hombre en la Tierra, y de tal modo vivian todos, que no sabian de sí, ni como defenderse, ni ampararse de tantas crueldades, y tiranias, como hacia.' Torquemada, i. 636. It must be here stated, however, that the Franciscan province of the Santo Evangelio, to which Torquemada afterward belonged, had by this time changed its opinion respecting the political condition of the country. It may have been from an honest belief, or from a feeling of gratitude to Muñoz for favors received, that fathers Miguel Navarro, provincial, and Diego de Mendoza, Juan Focher, and Joan Ramirez, definidores, in a letter of May 24, 1568, commend in glowing terms his rule, adding that if he could have retained his powers two or three years, the country would be in much better state than it ever had been since the conquest. He had already set everything in order in both spiritual and temporal concerns, and his name stood now very high. In the prosecution of the marqués del Valle and others, both Muñoz and Carrillo had done their duty like good Christians, using no more severity than was needful, and the evidence produced at the trials should be considered dispassionately: 'si ensangrentaron algo las manos no devia conuenir otra cosa para la entera pacificacion destos reinos.' They conclude wishing for Muñoz' return, or the coming of some one possessed of his spirit, and with freedom of action. Navarro et al., in Cartas de Indias, 159.
