MULTITUDE OF OFFICES. 



287 



Council of the Indies. But any beneficial effect 

 which this might have had in protecting the peo- 

 ple, was counteracted by the inordinate power of 

 the Viceroys, and their consequent means of in- 

 fluencing the Audiencia, and every other subor- 

 dinate authority, civil, military, judicial, or eccle- 

 siastical. 



In free estates administered by a representative 

 body, and when men are allowed to act and think 

 for themselves, the legislative, executive, and ju- 

 dicial branches of the constitution, are easily kept 

 separate by the essential distinctions in their na- 

 ture. But in states arbitrarily governed, it inva- 

 riably happens that these totally distinct func- 

 tions either clash or blend themselves with one 

 another, and mutually neutralize their respective 

 good effects. In order, as it was pretended, to 

 remedy the constant mischief arising out of this 

 practical inefficiency, the number of official au- 

 thorities in every department of the state was 

 multiplied beyond all example ; for every new 

 office required afterwards a dozen others to watch 

 it. The original complexity of the machine was 

 thus daily augmented by the introduction of these 



