29G
APPENDIX.
he could fully confide in him, but could not repose so great a trust at a venture in his children and successors.
T o this Don Diego rejoined, that
it was contrary to all justice and reason to make him suffer for the sins of his children who might never be born.* Still, though he had reason and justice on his side, the young admiral found it impossible to bring the wary monarch to a compliance.
Finding
all appeal to all his ideas of equity or sentiments of generosity in vain, he solicited permission to pursue his claim in the ordinary course of law. T h e king could not refuse so reasonable a request, and Don Diego com足 menced a process against king Ferdinand before the council of the Indies, founded on the repeated capitulations between the crown and his father, and embracing all the dignities and immunities ceded by them. One ground of opposition to these claims was, that if the capitulation, made by the sovereigns in 1 4 9 2 , had granted a perpetual viceroyalty to the admiral and his heirs, such grant could not stand ; being contrary to the interest of the state, and to an express law promulgated in Toledo in 1480 ; wherein it was ordained that no office, involving the administration of justice, should be given in perpetuity ; that therefore, the viceroyalty granted to the admiral could only have been for his life ; and that even, during that term, it had justly been taken from him for his misconduct. That such concessions were contrary to the inherent prerogatives of the crown, of which the government could not divest itself.
T o this Don
Diego replied, that as to the validity of the capitulation, it was a binding contract, and none of its privileges ought to be restricted.
That as by
royal schedules dated in Villa Franca, June 2d, 1506, and Almazan, A u g . 2 8 , 1507, it had been ordered that he, Don Diego, should receive the tenths, so equally ought the other privileges to be accorded to him.
As
to the allegation that his father had been deprived of his viceroyalty for his demerits, it was contrary to all truth.
It had been audacity on the
part of Bobadilla to send him a prisoner to Spain in 1 5 0 0 , and contrary to the will and command of the sovereigns, as was proved by their letter, dated from Valencia de la Torre in 1 5 0 2 , in which they expressed grief at his arrest, and assured him that it should be redressed, and his privileges guarded entire to himself and his children.! This memorable suit was commenced in 1508, and continued for seve足 ral years.
In the course of it the claims of Don Diego were disputed,
* Herrera, Hist. Ind. decad. ii. lib. vii. cap. 4. t Extracts from the minutes of the process taken by the historian Munoz, M S .