ROYAL AUDIENCE. 



149 



ERECTION AND ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ROYAL AUDIENCE, OR HIGH 

 COURT OP JUSTICE, OP LIMA. 



The disorders, disturbances, and injustices inseparable 

 from a spirit of conquest, were produ6live of loud complaints 

 which reached the throne of Spain. Worldly ambition, and 

 the insatiable thirst of riches, revived in America those disas- 

 trous times, recorded in the sacred writings*, " when there 

 was not any king iA Israel ; but every man did that which was 

 right in his own eyes." The implacable hatred subsisting be- 

 tween the partizans of Almagro and Pizarro, rendered the 

 wisest provisions of little efficacy, and perpetuated the anarchy 

 and confusion which are at all times destru6tive of the prospe- 

 rity, 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 circum- 

 stances. 



By a royal schedule, dated in March 1543, the Emperor 

 Charles V. suppressed the audience of Panama, which had 

 been ere6led, 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 inhabi- 

 tants of Peru v/ere thus freed from the painful necessity of seek- 

 ing, at so great a distance, a redress of their grievances. 



The number of complainants was considerable in every part 



* Judges, chap. xvn. v. 6. 



of 



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