of their offices, and pay everything which may be adjudged against
them in the matter, and also in the suits which may be instituted
against them. They are also warned that after the said term of office
has expired, they shall exercise the said offices no longer, which
shall be immediately declared vacant, and other persons appointed
thereto. Likewise, within the said term and under the said penalty,
they shall give bonds for all the time during which they have already
exercised the said offices in the royal Audiencia, for which they have
not given them. In the future, they shall be notified and ordered to
renew the said bonds at the beginning of every year, under the said
penalty. By this act they so provided, enacted, and decreed.

Before me:

_Pedro Hurtado Desquibel_




_An act decreeing that cases of twenty pesos or less shall not be
brought to trial; and that the notary shall not take a larger fee
than one-half peso from each party._

In the city of Manila, on the twenty-first day of the month of January,
one thousand five hundred and ninety-nine, the president and auditors
of the royal Audiencia and Chancillería of the Philipinas Islands
declared that, whereas so many suits involving twenty pesos or less
are wont to be begun, and as much time is consumed therein as if they
were affairs of greater magnitude, whence there results to the parties
concerned great harm and damage by reason of the great cost and expense