in perquisites, as marriages,
baptisms, etc. Not more than forty years ago, one of the two parish
priests had charge of the Spaniards, while the other attended only to
the Indians. Today this ridiculous distinction no longer exists. The
parish priests alternate month by month in their duties as curates,
and during that time they minister indiscriminately to Spaniards
and Indians.

The cathedral of Manila was erected into a metropolitan in 1595. The
bishoprics of Zebu, Camarines, and Nueva Segovia are of the same date,
and were made suffragan to Manila. This archbishopric has more than
two hundred livings, of which only thirteen are served by secular
priests--who are subject, say the friars, to visitation; the other
livings, to the number of about two hundred, are administered by the
religious, who, as they say, are not at all subject to the visitation
of the archbishop. We shall discuss this subject and the rebellion
occasioned by this matter in Manila in 1767, while I was still there.

Tenth Article

Of the ecclesiastical tribunals established at Manila

These tribunals are three in number: that of the archbishop; that of
the Inquisition; and that of the Holy Crusade.

The tribunal of justice of the archbishop is composed of a
vicar-general, one notary, and two fiscals. The archbishop has his
prison, where there are lodgings for lewd women.

There is not, properly speaking, a tribunal of the Inquisition at
Manila, but only a commissary of the Holy Office, appointed to this
place by the tribunal of Mexico. He is the chief or superior of all
the other commissaries scattered throughout the provinces. It is
worthy of remark that the fathers of the Society had a private and
special commissary, who was always a secular priest. The office of
commissary-superintendent has always been filled in the convent of the
Jacobins [_i.e._, Dominicans]. There has been only one interruption, of
seven years, during which a father of the convent of the Augustinians
had the commission, because the Jacobin father who was then commissary
was deposed, as we were told, for having unjustly brought suit against
the governor of Manila, and having had him arrested. [79]

At present these commissaries have no right to bring suit against
anyone at all, nor even to cause any arrest. They are under obligation
to write to Mexico, in order to inform the tribunal of charges and
accusations. Thereupon the tribunal renders a sentence, which it