Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 08).djvu/317

 and the citizens and inhabitants thereof, and the good administration of justice therein, you should understand the system that you are to observe and follow in the hearing and determination of the suits, which were moved and were pending in the said Audiencia, or that will be moved hereafter: I declare, desire, and will that in all cases you shall hear, sentence, determine, and execute in the following form and manner. All the suits that were pending in the said Audiencia, and were not concluded on trial, you shall resume in the condition in which they were left, and they shall be prosecuted before you. You shall pass sentence upon them; and if appeal is made by the parties, or either one of them, from your decisions, you shall submit the appeal to the president and auditors of my royal Audencia residing in the city of Mexico, in Nueba España. You shall likewise refer to my said Audiencia of Mexico the suits that may have received sentence on trial in the said Audiencia, if appeal has been made from the sentence, so that the cases may be prosecuted before it, and sentenced in review. And if any suits were sentenced in review in the said Audiencia of the said Philipinas Islands, and the execution of the sentences is demanded, then you are authorized to have them executed, as well as the sentences given on trial in the said Audiencia in suits pending therein, and on which no appeal was made, and if the said sentences on trial were passed in a case where judgment was rendered. Likewise I declare, and it is my will, that you may hear and try the suits regarding Indians which shall be moved in the said islands henceforth, and those which might come before you on appeal from the corregidors that are and were in the said islands. In hearing the said suits