continually about the country attended by a train of
Indians to carry their baggage, vast numbers of them had perished.
Having re-established the royal audience, or supreme court of justice,
in Lima, he applied earnestly to regulate the tributes which were to be
paid by the Indians to the Spaniards upon fixed principles, which had
not been hitherto done on account of the wars and revolutions which had
distracted the country ever since its discovery and conquest. Before
this new arrangement, every Spaniard who possessed a repartimiento or
allotment of lands and Indians, used to receive from the curaca or
cacique of his district such tribute as he was able or willing to pay,
and many of the Spaniards often exacted larger sums from their Indians
than they were well able to afford, frequently plundering them of their
hard-earned property with lawless violence. Some even went so far as to
inflict tortures on their Indians, to compel them to give up every thing
they possessed, often carrying their cruelty to such a pitch as to put
them to death in the most wanton and unjustifiable manner. To put a stop
to these violent proceedings, the taxes of each province and district
were regulated in proportion to the number of Indian and Spanish
inhabitants which they respectively contained; and, in forming their
arrangements, the president and judges carefully inquired into the
productions of each province; such as its mines of gold and silver, the
quantity of its cattle, and other things of a similar nature, the taxes
on which were all regulated according to circumstances in the most
reasonable and equitable manner.

Having thus reduced the affairs of the kingdom to good order, all the
unemployed soldiers being sent off to different places, some to Chili,
others to the new province on the Rio Plata, and others to various new
discoveries under different commanders, and all who remained in Peru
being established in various occupations by which they might maintain
themselves, according to their inclinations and capacities, mostly in
the concerns of the mines, the president resolved to return, into Spain,
pursuant to the authority he had received from his majesty to do so when
he might see proper. One of his most powerful motives for returning to
Spain proceeded from his anxiety to preserve the large treasure he had
amassed for the king: as, having no military force for its protection,
he was afraid such great riches might excite fresh tr