All those houses have been thriving for many years on that silver that comes on the galleons, from which one may judge of the immense wealth that they enjoy. We will give an idea of it here in the list of the revenues 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.