they enjoy many and valuable prerogatives which were not contained in the temporal privileges which they exercised in former times. Then the archbishop gave them their degrees, which were recognized only in the Indias, while now these are recognized everywhere, being conferred by the rector of the college, which has other officials, insignia, and preëminences of special import. Nor do they [i.e., the Dominicans] refrain from nor content themselves with disparaging in every way the degrees and students of the Society of Jesus, whom they deprive and despoil of their just titles and rights. Such is the reason wherefore your Majesty should not give them a hearing were the subject one entitled to a hearing; such the reason wherefore the Council, although wrongly the contrary is maintained, has not declared the college of Santo Tomas to be a university--since what it did do, as is evident in the acts, was to order and declare that both colleges use their bulls. Thus the opposing party is deprived of nothing; nay, especially since, as is stated in the petition and prayer drawn up for that purpose, it was in order to obtain such powers as are held by the universities of Avila and Pamplona. They should not now seek, because of the illegal act of the secretary, to have those powers extended and enlarged to those [possessed by the colleges] of Lima and Mexico, even though his Holiness had not reduced them to the form, limits, and branches of knowledge, referred to in the said bull--to whose tenor and decision one must submit without therefore giving undue significance to the word academia used therein. For, without now raising any question as to the effects thereof, the burden of this treatise simply states that whether a college be a university or not depends on the will of him who is empowered to grant it after inquiry into the fundamental grounds of the matter. In the said lawsuit, the truth was established; accordingly it is neither expedient nor fitting to discuss new points, as whether the term academia, or that of university, or something else be used. Besides, as already stated, the city of Manila did not petition for a university as alleged by the opposite party. The petitioner to that effect in the paper referred to was the said college itself, which secured the grant with limitations as in the decree. Wherefore, even if the said bull had not been secured, there would have been no cause for complaint, inasmuch as they paid the said two thousand pesos with your Majesty's consent; nor could a new petition at any time be presented, one already having been granted, even though they had not obtained the bull.