_An act decreeing that the Christian Sangleys, and all those who
may become Christians in the future, shall practice and exercise the
occupations that they had before they became Christians._

In the city of Manila, on the seventeenth of May, one thousand five
hundred and ninety-nine, the president and auditors of the royal
Audiencia, Court, and Chancillería of the Philipinas Islands, having
examined this information which was remitted to this royal Audiencia
by Estevan de Marquina, alcalde-mayor of the village of Tondo and its
presidio, concerning the advisability and importance that the Christian
Sangleys living in the said village of Tondo, and in the other villages
of its jurisdiction, and those who become Christians in the future,
shall not abandon the occupations which they had before they became
Christians, as they have been accustomed to do, but shall continue
to exercise and practice them in the same manner as before--for,
by thus abandoning their occupations, that people are unoccupied
and slothful, and spend their time in games and vicious amusements,
whence result the harm and trouble which may be considered: they
declared that, in order to remedy that state of affairs, they ought
to order, and they did so order, that, now and henceforth, the said
Sangleys shall practice and exercise the occupations which they had
practiced and exercised before they became Christians, and shall,
under no consideration, abandon them--this being understood to apply
to those becoming Christians in the future, and to those who have
been Christians for six years previous to the present--under penalty
that whoever disobeys this decree shall be sentenced to row in the
galleys for four years, in a place prescribed, without pay, to which
they declared that they delivered them, and they did so deliver them,