nues of La Misericordia. The girls at Santa Isabela have a
mother superior and a portress. When they are married, they leave the
college with a dowry; and La Misericordia, in order to dower them,
has established a fund of 16,000 piastres (84,000 livres). There
were about fifty girls aided by La Misericordia when I was at
Manila. Santa Isabela also receives boarders; and for the expenses
of all the necessary supplies for the support of the orphans, for
the domestics, etc., La Misericordia gives 10,700 piastres (56,175
livres). Besides that, that confraternity has disbursed in alms
according to a statement that I have seen for the years 1599-1726,
3,448,506 piastres (181,046,656 livres), which amounts to 142,556
livres of French money per year. Furthermore, La Misericordia has
assisted the public in cases of extreme necessity, and when the city
has been threatened by an invasion on the part of enemies--as happened
in the years 1646, 1650, 1653-1663, 1668, and 1735. According to an
exact account, it has given 1,069,099 piastres (5,612,769 livres). I
say nothing of the considerable sum that it furnished in 1762, when
the English captured Manila.

The house of La Misericordia has its peculiar statutes, according
to which it is governed. It has many privileges and, above all,
indulgences, which the popes have successively heaped on it. Finally,
in 1733, the king took it under his protection.

One may judge, from the sample, of the wealth of all the convents
of Manila, which, during the more than one hundred and fifty years
while they have been established there, have profited from the money
for charitable works, without having diffused it outside.

The calced Augustinians were the first religious estate to appear
at Manila; they went there in 1565. The convent has about fifty
religious, and furnishes laborers to all the provinces where those
fathers have livings. They have forty-five or fifty in the bishopric
of Manila alone. The church of the Augustinians is a very beautiful
edifice, being built of cut stone. It has suffered considerably
from earthquakes.

The fathers of the Society went to the Philippines in 1581. Their
principal residence was at Manila, and was named the college of San
Ignacio. Those fathers had so prospered in the Philippines that they
had eight other residences scattered throughout the islands. They
were the spiritual masters of the Marianas. They had twenty or thirty
livings in the archbishopric of