he might enact what should be just in the matter. By this act they
so enacted, ordered, and decreed. Before me:


_Pedro Muñoz de Herrera_


_Appeal of Don Fernando from the said act_

Most potent Sire:

I, Don Fernando de Silva, knight of the Order of Santiago, your
former governor and captain-general in these islands, and president
of the royal Audiencia, appeal from the act of the Audiencia of the
twenty-fourth of this month of July, only in regard to their ordering
returned to your governor and captain-general the cause which your
fiscal of this royal Audiencia is prosecuting, by which they order me
to give bonds that I will furnish residencia of the said offices and
pay the sum to which I shall be adjudged and sentenced in it, as I am
about to go to Nueva España. It was declared in the said act that the
said your governor and captain-general was a competent judge to try
the said cause. That said act, only as far as the said declaration
is concerned (and speaking with due respect), must be revoked as a
general rule, and because I am, by having exercised the said offices
of president, governor, and captain-general, immediately subordinate
to your royal person and to your supreme Council of the Indias; and no
other judge or tribunal can take it upon themselves to try anything
pertaining to the residencia of the said offices or to security for
residencia. Thus, until the present time, the said bonds have not been
required in this city for this royal Audiencia or for your governors,