_An act decreeing that orders shall be given regarding the sworn
memoranda of the collector of fines._
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 and Chancillería of these Philipinas Islands declared that,
whereas Pedro Fernandez de Sanctofimia, attorney in the cases of
the Audiencia, is appointed by this royal Audiencia to collect its
fines, and ordered to assess the fines imposed upon its officials and
other persons who do not observe the royal ordinances, and all other
ordinances, decrees, and provisions, to the amount that must be levied
for each fine--for, by not executing the penalties thereof daily,
there are many oversights and no little remissness in the fulfilment
of each one's obligations: therefore, in order that the requisite
system be observed in everything, they decreed that, by giving the
said Pedro Fernandez de Sanctofimia the present sworn memorandum
of fines to be imposed upon everyone, he shall immediately receive
his orders thereby regarding what he is commanded to levy for each
fine. The latter he shall do immediately, as the said memorandum shall
indicate, without any investigation or mandate preceding. The orders
that he shall so give shall be executed by the bailiff or alguazil
of this royal Audiencia, whenever they shall be issued. Whatever
the latter shall collect he shall deliver to the said collector of
fines, who shall take charge of it, and enter it carefully in a book,
that he may give strict and clear account of each fine collected. And
they charged each other's consciences with the fulfilment of all the
above. By this act they so provided, ordered, and decreed.