superintended the execution of the laws within their districts and regulated all minor local matters. The office of regidor was a regular matter of bargain and sale; and, as the regidores subsequently elected the alcaldes, it will be seen that this admitted of great corruption, and tended to augment the direct oppression of the masses subjected to their jurisdiction. It was an instrument to increase the wealth and strengthen the tyrannical power of the rulers.
These ill regulated audiencias and cabildos, were, in themselves, capable of destroying all principles of just harmony, and were sufficient to corrupt the laws both in their enactment and administration. But all men were not equal before these tribunals. A system of fueros or privileges, opposed innumerable obstacles. These were the privileges of corporate bodies and of the professions; of the clergy, called public or common; and of the monks, canons, inquisitions, college, and universities; the privileges of persons employed in the royal revenue service; the general privileges of the military, which were extended also to the militia, and the especial privileges of the marines, of engineers, and of the artillery. An individual enjoying any of these privileges was elevated above the civil authority, and, whether as plaintiff or defendant, was subject only to the chief of the body to which he belonged, both in civil and criminal cases. So great a number of jurisdictions created an extricable labyrinth, which, by keeping up a ceaseless conflict between the chiefs in regard to the extent of their powers, stimulated each one to sustain his own authority at all hazards, and, with such resoluteness as to employ even force to gain his purpose.2 Bribery, intrigue, delay, denial of justice, outrage, ruin, were the natural results of such a system of complicated irresponsibility; and consequently it is not singular to find even now in Mexico and South America large masses of people who are utterly ignorant of the true principles upon which justice should be administered or laws enacted for its immaculate protection. The manifesto