The Spaniards had succeeded in destroying the purchase of the laws on the community by subverting the customs which sustained them; they had destroyed the rule of law by setting up separate courts both for the barony and for the priesthood and by allowing into the legal system entire categories of exemptions and exceptions so that no one could predict the outcome of a case or know which part of the law applied to him.

Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking…, loc. 1838