general [studies],
the said university is to be transferred to them, in which may be
taught three other branches of learning--namely, canon law, civil
law, and medicine, as more fully set forth in the said memorial,
the meaning whereof to be taken for granted. Your Majesty will be
pleased to order that the same be stricken from the judicial acts,
and furthermore, that no other petition of similar import be admitted,
with the declaration to the opposing party that, inasmuch as the matter
has already been decided [cosa juzgada] in favor of the college of San
Ignacio, which the Society conducts in the said city, they are barred
from further relief. All which I petition for, for reasons to be more
fully described hereafter, whereon I found the necessary petitions
and prayers, which, as is evident and appears, will be acknowledged
throughout the whole line of reasoning and the acts of the suit that
has been entered by the said college, as well as from the allegations
and claims deduced therein. The claim of the college of Santo Tomas,
in brief, is the establishment of a university in order to nullify
the right and privileges of the Society and of the said college of
San Ignacio, whereon the Audiencia of Manila has acted and delivered
judgment--which acts, on being brought before the Council on appeal,
were ended definitively in the trial and review of the said suit. The
case, therefore, is finished and closed, and for no reason can or
should it be reopened, either in whole or part. Wherefore it results
that the claim now introduced is faulty with no other purpose than to
burden the said Society with new suits and expenses; as the case, as
stated, has been decided and closed, and the reopening of it barred,
as being a matter already determined. The said memorial therefore
should not be admitted, nor a hearing granted to the claim advanced
therein, which should be refused further consideration. And to the
end that his plea be drawn up according to the requirements of law,
and for the better confutation of the reasons advanced in the said
memorial, he [i.e., Solana] maintains that what was petitioned for and
obtained by the opponents in the warrant (which was secured through
the aid of money) was the establishment of a university like those
at Avila and Pamplona. But in order to avoid raising the question
of temporal privileges with the necessary expenses therefor, as well
as because the paper to be sent to Rome had to be of sim