A large number of the colonial writers on law and government were at the same time practical administrators. This has contributed to make their literary productions reliable and worthy of confidence as sources of information concerning the political affairs of the dependencies. In the last half of the eighteenth century Jorge Escobedo y Alarcón appeared in this double capacity. He was appointed a judge of the audiencia of Charcas in 1776; he held an important post in the government of Potosí; he was the superintendent of the mint, the mines, the bank, and the royal treasury of that city. He participated in the defence of Potosí against the insurgents of 1780, and thus helped to make that town an asylum for the threatened inhabitants of the neighbouring region during the rebellion of Tupac Amarú. He was promoted to the position of a judge of the audiencia of Lima, and in 1782 Charles III appointed him visitador-general of the courts of justice and of the royal treasury of the viceroyalties of Peru and Río de la Plata. He became political governor and intendant of the province of Lima, and in this capacity he was president of the municipal council for the years 1785 and 1787; and at the same time he presided over the superior council of the treasury, which he created, and his administration of these offices was signalized by important reforms. And during these active years of his life he wrote on the development and exploitation of the mines, on the former repartimientos of the corregidores, and on the means of aiding the Indians without imposing upon them the burdens which that system entailed. These and some of his other writings were published in Lima in 1784. After the conclusion of his work in America, Escobedo retired to Spain, and in 1805 he was president of the second division of the Council of the Indies. [Sidenote: Rezabal y Ugarte] [Sidenote: Rezabal’s _Biblioteca_]