weight and at fixed rates, under penalty of confiscation of whatever
is found on sale in any other way--which shall go to the alguazil or
judge executing this decree--and twenty lashes applied to the seller.

_Price at which hens, chickens, and capons shall be bought and
sold. Item_: In order that the dearness of the price of fowls may cease
(for they are the principal sustenance of this land), and because it
is just that there shall be a common and general price for all, they
ordered that no person--Spanish, Sangley, native, or other, of any
quality, rank, or condition whatever--may sell or cause to be sold in
this city, or within a radius of five leagues thereof, hens, capons,
and chickens, whether of their own breeding, or of their income,
profit, or property, in any way whatsoever, at a higher price than
the following: a laying Sangley hen, two and one-half reals; a Moro
hen, two reals; a male chicken, one real; a pullet, one and one-half
reals; a Sangley capon, three and one-half reals--under this penalty,
that whoever shall be found selling at a higher price shall lose the
fowls which are thus sold, which shall be divided into three parts,
among the hospitals of this city, and the informer or the judge who
shall execute this decree. At this price those who have fowls shall be
obliged to give them to anyone who would buy. The justices are charged
and ordered to take care to have this scale observed and enforced in
their jurisdictions, with the utmost strictness. It shall be proclaimed
and published therein, that no one may plead ignorance thereof.

_That provisions shall be allowed to be sold freely._ Further, they
ordered that all provisions shall be freely offered, and those who
bring them shall sell them at their pleasure and free will: and no
person in this city, or its suburbs and settlements, shall dare to
take by force, or against their will, from the Indians or Sangleys,