The Present State of Peru/5b
ERECTION AND ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ROYAL AUDIENCE, OR HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE, OF LIMA.
The disorders, disturbances, and injustices inseparable from a spirit of conquest, were productive of loud complaints which reached the throne of Spain. Worldly ambition, and the insatiable thirst of riches, revived in America those disastrous times, recorded in the sacred writings[1], "when there was not any king in Israel; but every man did that which was right in his own eyes." The implacable hatred subsisting between the partizans of Almagro and Pizarro, rendered the wisest provisions of little efficacy, and perpetuated the anarchy and confusion which are at all times destructive of the prosperity and growth of a rising state. It became necessary to apply a powerful remedy to these evils; and the establishment of an audience, or high court of justice, in the capital of Peru, was considered as the one the most appropriate to such circumstances.
By a royal schedule, dated in March 1543, the Emperor Charles V. suppressed the audience of Panama, which had been erected, in 1538, to administer justice in all the Spanish possessions of Terra Firma, Rio de la Plata, New Castille, and Toledo; and ordered, by another schedule of the same date, the establishment of an audience at Lima. The inhabitants of Peru were thus freed from the painful necessity of seeking, at so great a distance, a redress of their grievances.
The number of complainants was considerable in every part of the kingdom, at the time of the promulgation of the forty ordinances, for the freedom and kind treatment of the Indians, drawn up by the council appointed to regulate the affairs of America, and confirmed at Barcelona by the Emperor in November, 1542. It therefore became essential to their strict observance, to make choice of a man of integrity and good moral conduct; which qualities having been found in Blasco Nunez Vela, inspector-general of the guards of Castille, he was appointed viceroy of Peru, and president of the royal audience, in preference to the Marechal of Navarre, and Don Antonio Leiva, who had been also named for these high employments.
The judges were appointed at the same time, and the choice fell on the licentiate Zepeda, who had held a similar employment in the Canary Isles; on Doctor Lison De Texada, alcaid of the court of Valladolid; on the licentiate Alvarez, advocate of that court; and on the licentiate Pedro Ortiz De Zarate, alcaid-major of Segovia. They embarked at San Lucar, with the viceroy, -in the month of November, 1543, and reached Panama on the eighteenth of February of the following year.
On the succeeding day, the licentiate Ramirez De Quinones, governor of Terra-Firma, visitor of the audience of Panama, and supreme judge of that of the confines of Guatemala and Nicaragua, ordered the licentiate Martinez, in his quality of chancellor, to deliver to the viceroy the royal seal. With the seal in his possession, the latter reached Lima on the 15th of May, 1544, without being accompanied by the judges, although they had been solicited to that effect.
This delay prevented the public entry of the royal seal from 
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Female warrior of the Yurimagua tribe.
Pub. Feb. 12. 1805 by Richard Philips 6 New Bridge Street
The entry of the royal seal implies, in the language of the Peruvian writers, that of the newly appointed viceroy into the capital. On this occasion, the procession to the vice-regal palace, situated at the north side of the great square, is marked by a splendour of decoration, a very faint idea of which would be conveyed by any description that could be given. In the festivals which ensue, to celebrate the event of the reception of the viceroy, the Indian inhabitants of Lima are not backward in displaying their fancy and taste. The female Indian, represented in Plate V. carrying on the head a sun, and in the hand a tomahawk, is habited as an Amazon, or female warrior of the Yurimagua tribe. Among their traditions, this one has been handed down by the modern Indians. The tomahawk is the emblem of royalty, to which the other parts of the dress are allusive.
We abstain from giving any opinion on the subject of the ruinous contests between the president and the judges. They were carried to such a length, that the former was put under arrest, to be sent back, to Spain; but afterwards recovered his liberty and the exercise of his prerogatives. He, as well as his adversaries, met with a tragical end: he fell, by the hand of a negro, in 1546, at the battle of Anaquito. The licentiate Zepeda, having been sent prisoner to Spain by the president Gasca, perished in a jail. Lison De Texada was drowned in the straits of Bahama. Alvarez, in recovering from the wounds inflicted on him at Anaquito, received, at the abode of his companion Zepeda, a mortal bite from a reptile, in a grove of almond trees; and Zarate was poisoned by certain powders which Gonzalo Pizarro administered to him as a remedy.
To return to the division between the president and the judges. It originated on their landing at Panama, and became generally known on the imprisonment of the former, Blasco, after which event, Zepeda and Zarate took possession of the royal seal. The viceroy having, however, retained Alvarez in his company, and having been furnished with a royal schedule, which imported that an audience might be holden with one or two judges only, ordered a new seal to be opened by one of the regidors of Piura, who was afterwards, on that very account, put to death by Francisco Carvajal. It thus happened, as was observed by the historian Zarate, who was an eye-witness of these contentions, that "there were two audiences in Peru, the one in the capital of Lima, the other with the viceroy at Piura; and it frequently occurred, that two provisions, in direct opposition to each other, were made in the same affair."
The audience established at Piura was dissolved by the of Blasco, the president and viceroy; and that of Lima was but of short duration. Lison having been sent prisoner to Spain, and Zepeda having set out to join the army of Gonzalo Pizarro, the above-mentioned Zarate was the only one of the judges, who remained; on which account, and the better to confirm his authority, Pizarro carried off with him the royal seal. Accordingly, when the licentiate Pedro de la Gasca was, in 1546, named president, the dispatch observed, of the royal audience which did exist in Peru.
Notwithstanding the new judges, Domingo Renteria, and Andres Zianca, did in reality embark with the president Gasca, the latter was prevented from establishing and regulating the order of the dispatch, by the necessity to which he was reduced, to follow the traces of Gonzalo, until his defeat and subsequent imprisonment, in the valley of Xaqui-raguna, four leagues from Cusco, which happened on the 9th of April 1548. As soon, however, as the rebel and his followers had received the punishment due to their crimes, the royal audience was established on a solid basis. On the 13th of March 1549, Melchor Bravo and Andres Zianca took their seats in their judicial capacity; and on the 27th of June of the same year, their example was followed by the licentiates Hernando Santillana and Maldonado. These documents are extracted from an authentic MS. in the possession of the society, but which does not throw any light on the destiny of the licentiate Renteria.
The manuscript in question, which commences by the schedule of the president Blasco Nunez Vela, after stating that a salary of five thousand ducats was annexed to his office, makes the following curious extract from the schedule itself: And because thou art not lettered, thou shalt not have any vote in the halls of justice. It is likewise accompanied by the testimony given by Nicholas Grado, public scriviner, by which it appears that, on the 26th of April 1558, the royal seal was received at Lima with every solemnity. It had been brought to Callao on the preceding day by the licentiate Saavedra, and was accompanied by the new viceroy, Don Andres Hurtado de Mendoza, Marquis of Canete. The canopy was supported by the judges Bravo Saravia, Mercado de Penaloza, and Gonzalo de Cuenca; and the horse was led by the corregidor Sebastian Chirinos, attended by the alcaids Rodrigo Nino, and Vasco de Guevara. In this manner the procession reached the royal palace, where the seal was put into the hands of the secretary, Juan Munoz, to be delivered by him to the chancellor.
There cannot be any doubt but that this public entry was that of the royal seal transmitted to the audience of Lima by Philip II. when, by the abdication of his august father, in 1556, he entered on the government of the kingdoms of Spain and the Indies.
The above monarch, in the instructions which he gave to Don Francisco Toledo, who was received in this capital on the 26th of November 1569, apprized him of the establishment of a royal court, annexed to the audience, for the trial of criminal causes. In 1626, Philip IV. created the two posts of fiscals, which are now filled (in 1791) by the licentiates Torijos and Enciso. He, at the same time, augmented the number of judges to eight.
On the absence of the president Gasca, in 1550, the royal audience took on itself the government of the whole kingdom, as it has done in the different vacancies which have since occurred. Between the above intermission of the vice-regal authority, and the one occasioned by the return of the prince of Esquilache to Spain, in 1621, there were not less than five. In every similar instance, it has not only preserved the kingdom in the most tranquil state, but has been enabled, by a skilful and prudent dire6lion, to remit to his Catholic Majesty, from the royal treasury, specie to the amount of six millions one hundred and twenty thousand eight hundred and seven ducats. In consequence of the death of the viceroy, Don Martin Henriquez, in 1583, and that of the Count of Monte-Rey, in 1606, the audiencies of Charcas and Quito resumed the government of their respe6tive distr16ts, on pretext that the royal schedules of March 1550, and February 1577, by which it was provided that the audience of Lima should govern in the absence of the viceroys, had been dispatched prior to their establishment; but his Majesty, in a schedule dated in November 1606, disapproved of this pretension, and gave directions that the authority of the audience of Lima should extend to every part of the vice-regal dominions.
The instruction for the establishment of regents for the audiences of the Indies, in which the prerogatives and faculties of that distinguished employment are specified, bears the date of the month of June 1776, since which time the audience has not undergone any material change. From what has been precedently said, it may be collected, that the viceroy, in virtue of his office, constantly presides over this high judicial court, which is filled by eight judges, together with several fiscals and other subaltern officers.
- ↑ Judges, chap. XVII. v. 6.