Manila. Monsieur de Caseins [81]
took them all to Cadiz in 1770, on the "Santa Rosa," except five
or six who remained, and whom Don Joseph de Cordova took with him
the following year on the "Astrea," and with whom I journeyed from
the isle of France to Cadiz. The Augustinians have inherited their
possessions. The college of San Ignacio is a very beautiful building;
[82] in spite of its defects, it is without doubt the best built and
the most regular in Manila. The exterior of the church (which fronts
on the Calle Real) offers an order of architecture very rustic,
be it understood. The front, by way of retaliation, is frightful,
without order or proportion. The interior of the church is very well
planned; but the principal altar, although overloaded with gildings,
does not correspond at all to the building; it is as poorly executed as
the front. [83] There was a university, to which Pope Clement XII had
granted, by a brief of December 6, 1735, rights without number. Beside
the college of San Ignacio is that of San Jose; it was founded in 1585,
by Felipe II, for the teaching of Latin. But since the existence of
the two universities, that college is almost deserted.

The marquis de Ovando [84]--to whom navigation owes so much at
Manila, as I have said--having seen that there was no attention
paid to navigation in the center of two universities (although
those universities were in a maritime and commercial city), founded
a chair of mathematics in 1750, for the utility and progress of
navigation. He died in 1754, and his school died with him. As long
as he lived it maintained its standing, but after him it declined;
in 1767 that school was no longer frequented. Manila gets the pilots
for its galleons from Nueva Espana.

The Dominicans went to Manila in 1587, in order to found a mission
there. They have a fine convent, with about thirty religious. Their
university dates from 1610. The Dominicans have only a dozen livings
in the archbishopric of Manila.

The college of San Juan de Letran owes its institution to a Spaniard
of singularly exemplary life, who took charge of the orphan children
of the Spaniards, and those whose fathers and mothers were poor. He
supported them and taught them at the expense of his own income,
and when that did not suffice, he collected alms to assist the lack
in his own funds. The king, in order to make it easier for him to
exercise his humane acts, gave him an encomienda in the province of
Ilo