551. In the year 1717, his Majesty (may God preserve him) sent three professors to the city of Manila, with suitable salaries, to erect and conduct three professorships--of canons, institutes, and laws: these were in fact, erected and conducted in this city, in one of its most notable and roomy houses. In the year 1724, because of the promotion by the king of Don Julian de Velasco, one of the professors, to the royal Audiencia of Mexico, and as there were no suitable persons [for these chairs] the royal Audiencia of these islands communicated that fact to his Majesty on June 10, 1726, as well as the small results and increased expenses that were experienced from those professorships. Therefore, the royal Audiencia had made provision, while awaiting a new royal order, for maintaining the two professorships, with the same two lecturers who held them. However, there was some change, the professorship of canons being given to the very reverend father Pedro Murillo Velarde, of the holy Society of Jesus; while the place where the lectures were given was changed to the college of San Ignacio, of the same Society, where its provincial generously assigned a room for the exercise [of these lectureships] and for literary functions. In view of that, the king ordained, by his decree of July 26, 1730, the suspension of everything enacted therein by that Audiencia--doing away, for the time being, with the foundation of the royal university; and saving the royal treasury more than ten thousand pesos per annum, which had been fruitlessly spent. Now, very recently, his Majesty, by a decree dated San Lorenzo, October 23, 1733, has determined that there shall be a chair of canons and another of institutes in the college of San Ignacio; and he also determines that there shall be the same at the university of Santo Thomas. Such is the present condition of the king's professorships, until a new order is given. Royal seminary of Santa Potenciana