The juicio de residencia in the Indies

Every royal officer in the Spanish Indies, from a village corregidor to the viceroy of Peru, had to stand a public audit when his term ended, and could not be appointed to anything else without the certificate of it. One law of 1556 orders that the edicts opening a residencia be published so as to come to the notice of the Indians, so that they may demand justice for their grievances in full liberty. Two naval officers reporting in secret in the 1740s describe how the audit was bought.