s
by any other tariffs, under penalty of a fine of one hundred pesos
for the treasury of his Majesty and the expenses of justice. By this
act they so provided, ordered, and decreed.

_Don Francisco Tello_
_Doctor Antonio de Morga_
The licentiate _Tellez de Almazan_
The licentiate _Zambrano_

Before me:

_Pedro Hurtado Desquibel_

_Proclamation_: In the city of Manila, on the twenty-second of January,
one thousand five hundred and ninety-nine, the president and auditors
of the royal Audiencia of the Philipinas Islands, who signed their
names to the above act, declared and proclaimed it in public session.

_Pedro Hurtado Desquibel_

_An act decreeing that there shall be no suits without the filing of
a sworn memorandum of the fees that the parties have paid._

In the city of Manila, on the seventh of January, one thousand five
hundred and ninety-nine, the president and auditors of the royal
Audiencia, Court, and Chancilleria of these Philipinas Islands
declared that, whereas it has come to their knowledge that certain
persons--not only Spaniards, but Indians and Sangleys--who bring
suits in this royal Audiencia and outside of it, in the provincial
and ordinary tribunals, complain of the large sums that are charged
by the courts, in great excess of what they are ordered to charge
by the royal tariffs; and that the notaries of the said tribunals,
contrary to orders, send the appealed suits to this royal Audiencia,
without placing at the end of them the fees they have paid; therefore,
in order to remedy the aforesaid evil, and to put an end to complaints
of similar acts of injustice, they ordered, and they did so order, both
the officials of this royal Audiencia and the others in the provincial
and the ordinary tribunals, and those outside of this city, now and
henceforth, not to bring or send any suit to be reviewed in the court
of this royal Audiencia, unaccompanied by a memorandum, signed and
sworn to by the parties to the suit, of what they have spent thereon,
and to what persons they have given the money; and not to bring any
suit for revision in any other manner, under penalty of a fine, for
each time when they shall disobey this order, of ten pesos for his
Majesty's treasury, to be equally divided between the treasury and the
court--to which, from that moment, they are considered as condemned. By
this act they so provided and ordered, and they signed the same.

_Don Francisco Tello_
_Doctor Antonio de