The second charge made against the Inquisition was that it allowed itself to be influenced, utilized, and possessed by individuals and private interests for their own selfish ends. Under these conditions the audiencia was powerless; the Inquisition openly fought the government and vanquished it entirely on various notable occasions. There may be found no better illustration of this than the Salcedo affair in 1667 and 1668, during which the commissary of the Inquisition was the instrument of the governor's enemies, proceeding to such excesses in his zeal that he ultimately proved to be the agent of his own downfall. [864] The various sacerdotal historians of the Philippines, in treating of the Salcedo affair, agree that the failure of the audiencia to do its duty in checking the so-called excesses of the governor led the prelate and the ecclesiastical dignitaries of the colony to turn to the Inquisition for relief. [865] Among the acts of treason and heresy of which Governor Salcedo was said to have been guilty, the most conspicuous were his negotiations with the Dutch at Batavia for the conquest by them of the city of Manila. [866] This was the leading pretext for his arrest. We have already mentioned in a former chapter that the conduct of the oidores was not above reproach on this occasion. Immediately after the removal of the governor, a dispute arose between magistrates Coloma and Montemayor for the control of affairs, only to be settled by the usurpation of the government by the ecclesiastical candidate, Bónifaz. With Salcedo out of the way and the audiencia intimidated and powerless, the Inquisition and the ecclesiastics ruled with a high hand for a period of three years, until the arrival of the new governor, Manuel de León, in 1671. [867] The audiencia, after it had been reconstructed by Governor León, gave some account to the king of the excesses of "Fray Joseph de Paternina, religious of the order of San Agustín, and commissary of the Holy Inquisition, who has been so vain and haughty since the imprisonment of Governor Salcedo, a thing very unfortunate for these Islands." [868] The most harmful result of the affair, in the estimation of the audiencia, was the growing feeling on the part of the people of the Philippines "that the Inquisition (was) the most powerful agency there, and that every person in the colony was subject to it." The effrontery of the commissary was said to have gone so far on one occasion that he entered the acuerdo session of the audiencia and violently interfered with its proceedings, forcibly arresting and carrying away persons attendant thereupon. This defiant and insolent act was the greatest offense that could be offered to the royal authority, and the audiencia felt that if a continuance of these excesses were tolerated the royal tribunal would be despised and held at naught by the very citizens who should regard it with the most veneration.