Peru was no more exempt than Mexico from the troubles caused by these outlying officials who felt themselves virtually independent and became intolerable pests in their districts. The object of acquiring the position was to obtain exemption from justice. They were answerable only to the tribunal, hundreds of leagues away; if laymen, the secular courts, and if ecclesiastics, the spiritual judges, could not touch them. They were above all local law; they could indulge with impunity all evil passions, they could tyrannize at will over their neighbors, and even in civil matters they could set justice at defiance. It was idle for the Suprema to urge great care in their selection and strict investigation into their conduct when visitations were made, with rigorous punishment for their excesses. The material to select from was not abundant and was mostly evil; visitations never took place as planned, and punishment was rare. The repeated orders not to appoint frailes except in case of necessity and, when it was obligatory, to prefer Dominicans, is not to be regarded as a reflection on the regular Orders, but as arising from the desire to maintain discipline in the Orders, because, when a fraile obtained a position in the Inquisition, he threw off subjection to his prelate, and the injunction not to support them in disobedience was rarely observed.[602] A memorial presented, in 1592, to the inquisitor-general, in the name of the clergy of Peru, complains of the appointment as commissioners of vicious, dishonest and turbulent persons, and confirms it by statements in detail concerning those of Cuzco, Potosí, Popayan, Camana, Arequipa, Guaymanga and Payta, while the familiars were no better. Successive inquisitors, from Cerezuela to Juan de Mañozca, admitted the fact but justified themselves by the argument that they had to take what they could get; the material to select from was too scarce to admit of selection, with the result that the officials abused their power in innumerable ways.[603] The only serious effort made to repress these evils was when Juan Ruiz de Prado was sent, in 1587, to Lima as _visitador_, clothed with full power to correct the abuses which had excited general complaint. He reported that much of his time was occupied in prosecuting commissioners and their notaries, who had committed the gravest excesses; the tribunal, while cognizant of their evil ways, had only taken action in so far as to deprive two of them of their commissions, giving as an excuse that if it punished them it could find no others to take their places. Among those whom Prado disciplined was the priest Martin Barco de Centinera, commissioner of Cochachamba, well known as the author of _La Argentina_. The charges against him were grave but Prado did not wish to bring him three hundred leagues to answer them, so they were sent to him with orders to return them with his defence. It was proved that he treated the people of his district