Acuña made practically the same charges that have been so often repeated already in this chapter. The magistrates had interfered in the appointment of officials, which the governor claimed as his sole prerogative. Each magistrate was accompanied on his journey to the Islands by a vast company of relatives and dependents, who came to get rich. These persons ultimately monopolized all the offices. Notwithstanding the king's orders which forbade that offices should be held by relatives of oidores, the governor was placed in such a position that if he did not allow these persons to hold office, the magistrates would take revenge by opposing him at every turn, thus ruining the success of his administration. [562] The same was true of trade, for these relatives had to live, and if the government could not support them, they had to be assigned privileges and advantages in trade, which the oidores by virtue of their official positions could guarantee. [563] In view of all these abuses and evils which, directly or indirectly, proceeded from the audiencia, Acuña maintained that all the powers of government, war and justice, should be concentrated in the office of governor and captain-general. The country, he said, was more at war than at peace. It was essentially military, by virtue of its location and isolation. Acuña contended that all authorities and departments of the government should therefore be dependent on a military chief rather than on a high court of justice which was out of sympathy with the spirit and needs of the colony. In a government so new as that of the Philippines, the same laws and punishments should not be enforced so rigidly as in more settled parts, yet the magistrates of the audiencia had failed to understand that their functions in a colony of this character should be in any way different than those of a similar tribunal in Spain. Acuña stated that there had been occasions in which the audiencia, in possession of partial evidence in regard to a military matter, had interfered with an action which the governor had wished to take. He had thus been rendered powerless to exercise sovereignty which rightfully belonged to him, and which, if put into effect, would no doubt have been for the best interests of the colony.