have also another
college, that of San Juan de Letran, with more than a hundred orphan
boys, the sons of poor soldiers who have died in the service of your
Majesty--giving them all that is necessary for their support, and
instructing them in reading, writing, religious conduct, and virtue;
while those boys who are not inclined to study are aided in obtaining
positions as soldiers, artillerists, mariners, and in other occupations
in which they are employed to the service of your Majesty. Another
enterprise is also at the expense and charge of the said religious
order and province--the Parian, which is the silk-market of the
Chinese; it is close to the walls of Manila, and from five to six
thousand Chinamen usually reside in it. For the Christians preaching in
their own language is furnished every feast-day in their own church,
and there is continual preaching to the heathen through the streets;
with this labor they have made a great many conversions, and gained an
enormous number of souls. For this same nation those fathers maintain
a hospital, in which, with the good example of those religious, and
their instruction and continual assistance in the sicknesses of the
Chinese, they have gained so great a harvest that from its foundation
(which was in the former year of 1588) to the present year of 1677,
[29] seldom has a patient died without receiving the water of holy
baptism. This religious order also have at San Juan del Monte a
sanctuary which is the object of devotion of all that colony; and
at the port of Cavite, three leguas distant from Manila--where the
galleons and other vessels of smaller size are built--they have the
convent of San Thelmo, the religious of which assist the soldiers,
mariners, and sailors with their preaching and instruction, so that
all of them may live Christian and orderly lives.

This religious province administers the functions entrusted to
it without any worldly advantage, receiving neither imposts nor
fees for burials, marriages, feast-days, or sermons--its religious
being supported only by the stipend which your Majesty assigns to
the ministers in the mission villages; and from this amount they
spend much and distribute [alms] among the poor and needy Indians of
their districts. Nor is there in any convent of the said province any
fixed income; nor has the province ever accepted deposits or valuable
articles, or permitted its individual religious to keep these things
in their cells, or