In the city of Manila, on the nineteenth of December, one thousand five hundred and ninety-eight, the president and auditors of the royal Audiencia of the Philipinas Islands declared that, whereas the king our sovereign, in one of his royal ordinances, ordains and commands that the said president and auditors shall take a residencia every two months of the faithful administrators of the city in which this his royal Audiencia shall reside: therefore, in order that the said royal ordinance may be exactly enforced, and his Majesty's royal will observed and enforced in everything, they ordered, and they did so order, that from the first day of January of the coming year, one thousand five hundred and ninety-nine, and thenceforth, the said decree shall take effect. They appointed therefor the licentiate Albaro Çambrano, auditor of this royal Audiencia, to take the said residencia of the said regidors and faithful administrators who have filled the said offices, and to take from them an account of how they employed their time in the past, and up to the said day. This shall be done in due form, and in conformity with the law. And they gave him power and full commission therefor, as far as the law required. In the future, the said residencia shall continue to be taken every two months by the said auditors--the licentiate Tellez Almaçan, and Doctor Antonio de Morga, each in his turn, and in the aforesaid manner, to succeed the licentiate Albaro Çambrano. By this act they so provided, ordered, and appointed. _Don Francisco Tello_ _Doctor Antonio de Morga_ The licentiate _Tellez Almaçan_ The licentiate _Albaro Çambrano_ Before me: _Pedro Hurtado Desquibel_ An act decreeing that the auditors shall keep a record of the suits concerning the royal exchequer.