appeal or demand justice; and the governor searches
for contrivances to annoy those who do not approve his doings.

The governor also makes a practice of being so absolute in everything,
that he does not only what is mentioned above so summarily and in
general terms--for, as I have stated to your Majesty in the beginning,
it appears difficult in each of these subjects to enumerate the things
that he does (even, in my judgment, only the weighty and more serious
ones)--but also in regard to various other matters does he act and
proceed in the same manner. Consequently, I believe that there is no
man who will not affirm that from the time that the governor entered
this country, he has done no good thing, but all in disservice of
your Majesty, at least in the regular procedure. For if he calls
treasury meetings, if he sometimes attends the Audiencia and sessions,
or does any other act by reason of his office, there is no one who
does not understand that the ends and objects of his acts are his
own conveniences, vengeance, and passions or the conduct of his own
affairs and those of all his following--as has been apparent to me
at many times, on occasions when I have been able to be present by
virtue of my office. Yet he neither wishes the auditors to counsel or
advise or influence him, nor that a word be said about his actions. On,
the contrary he manages to get all his affairs approved especially by
those persons holding office, such as regidors, royal officials, and
others, and not only laymen but ecclesiastical persons. Consequently
he seeks with most strenuous efforts the life of those laymen who do
not approve his acts, both in public and in private. He threatens to
proceed against them, either personally or through intermediaries,
for the most remote and trifling irregularity that can be imagined;
and he brings suits without hesitating, when he finds no witnesses,
to secure others, even though they be false. To them he furnishes
offices and other accommodations for that service, as many dare to
say; and there is no longer any redress or protection, or at least
that which is usually a safeguard destroys them. Consequently they
endeavor to please him, without considering what he asks or what they
do. Hence it results that neither the royal officials nor the regidors,
nor any other persons whatever whom he may need--either that they may
give him their approval, or that they may suit his pleasure--whether
in violation of