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 wasted therein, beside the long and tedious delays in the collection of their debts: therefore, to remedy that, they agreed and ordered that, now and henceforth, no trial shall be made of cases amounting to twenty pesos or less, unless they are briefly and summarily disposed of; and that the notary before whom they are brought shall not take for his fee more than four reals only from each party, even if they make many investigations in the matter--under penalty that all that they take above that sum they shall return to the parties concerned, together with four times as much for his Majesty's treasury. By this act they so provided, ordered, and decreed; and the notaries whom its fulfilment concerns shall be notified. Before me: _Pedro Hurtado Desquibel_ _An act concerning the order that the alcaldes-mayor are to follow in trying Indian suits._ In the city of Manila, on the twenty-first of January, one thousand five hundred and ninety-nine, the president and auditors of the royal Audiencia of these Philipinas Islands declared that, whereas his Majesty has ordered, in his royal decrees and ordinances, that the suits of the Indians shall be treated summarily, and that processes issued within the limit of the law shall not be so conducted that the said Indians waste their substance by incurring too heavy costs: therefore, in order that the royal will of the king our sovereign might be exactly fulfilled, they resolved and ordered that the alcaldes-in-ordinary and the alcaldes-mayor and other magistrates and notaries, in suits of the Indians, shall observe their instructions and the following articles.