Visitor–General Gálvez's Plan de intendencias of 15 January 1768, described the government of New Spain as having reached a similar nadir to that of Old Spain at the time of the death of Charles II in 1700. The means of recuperation would be the establishment of Intendancies. In this way Gálvez aspired to make the government in New Spain uniform with that of the Peninsula.

Centering his attack on the Alcaldes Mayores, Gálvez explained that they doubled the Viceroy's work rather than lightening it. The real problem was that there had been no adequate authority between the Viceroy and Audiencia at the peak of the administration, and the Alcaldes Mayores in the locality. This intermediary role would be played by the Intendants, whose seats would be in the provincial capitals, such as Puebla, Oaxaca, Valladolid de Michoacan.

The problem required more than this. For, Gálvez considered, as long as the Alcaldes Mayores remained in office, no subject was safe from their oppression. Gálvez's radical solution—one that was to be much criticised—called for the total abolition of the offices of Alcalde Mayor and Corregidor, and the extirpation of their very name. One of the worst practices of all, the Visitor believed, was their custom of appointing lieutenants. Such men tended to be of low extraction, devoid of a sense of social responsibility, and unversed in the law, which it was their duty to uphold.