ROYAL ORDERS REGARDING THE RELIGIOUS


_Regulating their privileges_

The King. Inasmuch as the king my sovereign and father (whom may holy
Paradise keep) was informed that the religious who resided in the
Philipinas Islands, busied in the instruction and conversion of the
Indians, were meddling in things that did not concern them, he ordered
Gomez Perez das Mariñas, then governor and captain-general of the
Philipinas Islands, or the person in whose charge the government might
be--by his decree, dated June eleven, of the former year five hundred
and ninety-four--not to allow the religious to have prisons or jails,
or to make arrests or condemn, unless they have commission from the
bishop for the things in which he can give it in accordance with law;
or not to appoint as fiscals others than those whom the bishop might
assign them, together with other declarations contained in the said
decree. Afterward the king my sovereign and father, who is in glory,
by another decree dated May six, six hundred and fourteen, ordered
the aforesaid to be obeyed and observed, according to its contents,
without violating or exceeding its tenor and form, as is contained
more at length in the said decree and its reissue, which are of the
following tenor:

"The King. To Don Juan de Silva, my governor and captain-general of