516 APPENDIX. miento, which made representations against it both here and at the Court, I have supported it with firmness, and explained to the Regency the absolute necessity of its adoption. In order to maintain tranquillity in this populous capital, and to pre- vent, more particularly, the secret communications which were kept up with the Insurgents, by watching over the conventicles and })rivate meet- ings of concealed traitors, a tribunal of police was established, which, under the superintendence of one of the members of the Audiencia, took cognizance of all cases of this description. On the receipt of the new law for the regulation of tribunals, this establishment was done away with, and the disaffected were on the point of seeing themselves at liberty to pursue their schemes without let or hindrance, tlie whole police of the town being confided to the two Constitutional Alcaldes. In this di- lemma, the impossibility of leaving such a field open to the machinations of the disaffected, induced me to conciliate obedience to the law, with a proper regard for the jiublic security, by allowing the old employh in the police to retain their situations, under the orders of a person of distinc- tion and confidence, who performed some of the duties of the situation as a commissioner, without any judicial authority. His duties were to give passports to those who wished to leave the Capital, — to examine those who entered it,— to watch over clandestine Juntas, or meetings, and to arrest all suspicious persons, delivering them over to the competent judge within forty-eight hours after their detention, as provided by the law. — The Ayuntamiento could not brook a measure that threatened to derange those agreeable prospects, which the exclusive direction of the police opened to its bad faith ;— and it took advantage of the letter of the Constitutional law, to protest, in a very high tone, against the new regulation,^ — not from any real zeal in support of the law, but because, by retaining in its own hands the police, and the investigation of crimes, in which not a few of its own members were implicated, it would have been easy for them to continue, without fear of interruption, their perfi- dious intrigues, and to prevent their friends and colleagues from being detected in similar crimes. — This measure I likewise sustained with equal firmness, and 1 repi-esented to the Regency the impossibility of providing for the security and preservation of the country, while every day some new legal disqualification was added to those, which had al- ready compelled me to abandon so many of those interesting and delicate points, for which I was nevertheless held responsible. But the most serious and important point of all, was the establishment of the political superiority of the Viceroy throughout the kingdom, and the immediate dependence of the Provincial Deputations upon him. The most complete division and anarchy menaced these dominions, had I not fixed a central point in their common Chief ; for without regarding the decrees of the Cortes respecting the powers of the Viceroy, every Political Chief believed himself endowed with independent powers in his
