Albi's comprehensive biography outlines the long-term success of a Guadalajara-born creole in an age of reform in which the Spanish monarchy's centralization efforts often favored peninsulares. His professional life was guided by his steadfast defense of consultation, negotiation, and conciliation and his opposition to reductions in the jurisdiction of the high courts on which he served.

Francisco Xavier de Gamboa's life story (1717–1794) exposes his links to powerful men and institutional interests that led to his accomplishments. His merchant father may have introduced him to the mining industry, the knowledge of which later served him as a steppingstone to an audiencia judgeship. The Jesuits educated the young Gamboa with the support of a patron, an oidor (royal court judge) named José Mesía de la Cerda y Vargas. He finished a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1734 and continued then to study and practice law. Over his long career as a lawyer, he represented the Carmelites, and he supervised the pet project of the Basque religious confraternity Nuestra Señora de Aránzazu: to establish an independent residential school for girls. The school was opposed by the archbishop of Mexico City, Manuel Rubio y Salinas; therefore, the project was not completed until 1767 when the Pope exempted the school from episcopal jurisdiction.

In 1755, Gamboa sailed for Spain as the representative of the Consulado, an organization of wholesale export merchants. There he wrote the Comentarios a las ordenanzas de minas, a bleak assessment of the mining industry with proposals for reform, and began an effort to be appointed a judge in the Audiencia. He returned to Mexico in 1764 to assume a seat in the Audiencia as a judge who heard criminal cases. His defense of the court's jurisdiction pitted him against Viceroy Carlos Francisco de Croix, who in 1766 gave jurisdiction over the police to the Tribunal de la Acordada, which was originally created to fight rural banditry. The viceroy further insisted in 1767 that prisoners be sent to presidios, ending a practice called the collera, which had assigned prisoners to serve in private establishments, thus generating funds for the court. Gamboa criticized the viceroy and José de Gálvez, who arrived in 1765 to begin a general inspection of the government and institute reforms.

Gálvez's Discurso y reflexiones de un vasallo sobre la decadencia de nuestras Indias (1759) revealed his belief that the problems in the Indies could be blamed on creoles. In his years in power, both as a visitor and later as Minister of the Indies, Gálvez proposed and/or initiated a mining tribunal, expanded the militia, oversaw the tobacco monopoly, raised taxes, created a captaincy-general in Alta and Baja California, and established an intendancy system that would replace the corregidores (district governors). Gamboa's opposition to some of these reforms earned him a reputation as a threat and obstacle to change, so he was exiled to Spain in 1768. He was offered a position in the Audiencia of Barcelona, but he refused it. He eventually returned to New Spain, where he collaborated with Viceroy Antonio María de Bucarelli (1772–79).

Gamboa took his place in the Sala de Crimen, and, a year later, he was promoted to the Sala de lo Civil. In this capacity, he supervised the Temporalidades, two former Jesuit schools for native children, and a state lottery. To eliminate Gamboa as a threat, Gálvez named him a regent (chief judge) of the Audiencia of Santo Domingo, the least prestigious high court at the time. Gamboa eventually returned to Mexico in 1788 as regent of its audiencia.

Albi shows that throughout Gamboa's career he championed the jurisdiction of the high court, despite the increasing jurisdictional complexity of the times and the Bourbon shift from judicial to executive supremacy as a way to better control the Indies. His biography and the social networks he forged with rich and powerful merchants and miners, the Jesuits, and others expose the personal ties that influenced policy decisions and their implementation on both sides of the Atlantic. In summary, this is not solely the history of one individual, but offers a wider panorama on the workings of a colonial governing system and the personalities that forged its operations.