164 WEAK ADMINISTRATION INCREASE OF COMMERCE. 



closely watched and quickly checked. To this duty Xuares did 

 not immediately address himself, and the result was that the 

 oidores, the alcaldes, and all who administered justice, at once put 

 themselves up to auction and sold their services, their favors, or 

 their decisions to the highest bidder. Disorder reigned in every 

 department, in the year following the arrival of Xuares ; and even 

 the royal revenues, which hitherto had generally remained sacred, 

 were squandered or secreted by the persons to whose care and 

 fidelity their collection was intrusted. The limitations which we 

 have already seen were placed upon a viceroy's power in the time 

 of Velasco, now tied the hands of Xuares. He could not dismiss 

 or even suspend the defrauders of the revenue or the public 

 wretches who prostituted their official power for gold. Nor was 

 he, probably, unwilling to be deprived of a dangerous right which 

 would have placed him in direct hostility to the army of specula- 

 tors and jobbers. And yet it was necessary for the preservation 

 of the colony that these evils should be quickly abated. In this 

 political strait, concealing his intentions from the viceroyal court, 

 he applied to Philip to send a Visitador with ample powers to re- 

 adjust the disorganized realm. 



The commerce of New Spain had augmented astonishingly within 

 a few years. Vera Cruz and Acapulco had become splendid em- 

 poriums of wealth and trade. The east and the west poured their 

 people into Mexico through these cities ; and, in the capital, some 

 of the most distinguished merchants of Europe, Asia, and Africa 

 met every year, midway between Spain and China, to transact 

 business and exchange opinions upon the growing facilities of an 

 extended commerce. Peru and Mexico furnished the precious 

 metals which were always so greedily demanded by the east. In 

 1581, Philip II., in view of this state of things in his colony, 

 issued a royal order for the establishment in Mexico for a Tribunal 

 de Consulado, 1 though, it was not, in fact, actually put in effective 

 operation until the year 1593, under the administration of Velasco 

 the Second. In the midsummer of 1582, the viceroy expired, pro- 

 bably of mingled anxiety and old age ; and it was well for Mexico 

 that he passed so rapidly from a stage in whose delicate drama, his 

 years and his abilities altogether unfitted him to play so con- 

 spicuous a part. 



1 This was a mercantile tribunal. 



