Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/609

Rh himself to financial matters; he suggested a radical change in the tenure of office. He disliked that public officers should take root in Hew Spain, as if they expected to pass here the rest of their lives. He preferred that the meritorious should have their rewards elsewhere; those who had been neglectful or criminal should be punished. The corregimientos had been often improperly bestowed, and the old settlers thereby much offended. It had been provided by royal order of September 4, 1560, that no corregidor appointed by the audiencia for two years

The accounting by viceroys and oidores he recommended to be at short periods, and not as heretofore in many instances at intervals of sixteen or twenty years. They should certainly be held to account before they died. He also rejected to the presidency of the audiencia being vested in the viceroy, instead of in a jurist. The oidores, he said, usually voted as the viceroy desired.

Velasco was much annoyed at this meddling of Valderrama, as he termed it, with viceregal affairs, and in the midst of the dissensions which followed, he threatened to throw up the office; but Valderrama dissuaded him, saying that he was simply doing his duty. Heath, that great comforter and final rest, soon came to the viceroy's relief. He had been ill for some time, when a diseased bladder suddenly terminated his career the 31st of July, 1564.

The funeral was conducted with a pomp such as