The commerce of New Spain had augmented astonishingly within a few years. Vera Cruz and Acapulco had become splendid emporiums of wealth and trade. The east and the west poured their people into Mexico through these cities; and, in the capital, some of the most distinguished merchants of Europe, Asia, and Africa met every year, midway between Spain and China, to transact business and exchange opinions upon the growing facilities of an extended commerce. Peru and Mexico furnished the precious metals which were always so greedily demanded by the east. In 1581, Philip II., in view of this state of things in his colony, issued a royal order for the establishment in Mexico for a Tribunal de Consulado,[33] though, it was not, in fact, actually put in effective operation until the year 1593, under the administration of Velasco the Second. In the midsummer of 1582, the viceroy expired, probably of mingled anxiety and old age; and it was well for Mexico that he passed so rapidly from a stage in whose delicate drama, his years and his abilities altogether unfitted him to play so conspicuous a part. DON PEDRO MOYA DE CONTRERAS, ARCHBISHOP OF MEXICO, FIRST INQUISITOR AND VISITADOR, AND VI. VICEROY OF NEW SPAIN. 1583-1585. Upon the death of Xuares, the Audiencia immediately assumed the direction of the state; but the members of this august tribunal were altogether ignorant of the demand made by the late viceroy for a Visitador, until Don Pedro de Contreras, placed in their hands the despatch from Philip, naming him for this important service. The archbishop was a man well known in Mexico. Cold, austere, rigid in his demeanor and principles, he was the very man to be chosen for the dangerous duty of contending with a band of rich, proud and unscrupulous officials. His sacred character as arch-prelate of Mexico, was of no little use in such an exigency, for it gave him spiritual as well as temporal power over masses which might sometimes be swayed by their conscientious dread of the church, even when they could not be controlled by the arm of law. Besides this, he was the first _Inquisitor_ of Mexico, and in the dreaded mysteries of the holy office, there was an overwhelming power before which the most daring offenders would not venture to rebel or intrigue. It may be well imagined that the unexpected appearance of so formidable an ecclesiastic upon the state, armed with the sword as well as the cross, was well calculated to awe the profligate officials. The members of the Audiencia trembled when they read the royal order, for the archbishop knew them well, and had been long cognizant, not only of their own maladministration but of the irregularities they countenanced in others.