Since I am ordered, in your Majesty’s name, to give a minute of the convents in this province of San Gregorio, of the discalced friars and religious in it, and the number of souls to whom they administer the holy sacraments and instruction, by virtue of that command I declare that this province has forty-eight convents with their visitas, where religious live; and four convents where they do not minister to Indians—­namely, Sant Francisco of Manila, Sant Francisco del Monte, Sant Francisco of Caceres and Sant Diego of Cavite.  Further it has six [sic] hospitals:  the royal hospital of Manila; that for the natives; that of La Misericordia; that at Los Banos ["the baths"]; and that at Cavite.  There are one hundred and one priests, counting well, sick, and old.  There are thirty-eight lay-brethren, who serve and act as nurses at the hospitals, infirmaries, and convents generally.  We have in charge as many as eighty thousand souls or so.  In Maluco there is one convent where the native Indian Christians are instructed, both those living there and those who go thither from these regions.  There is also a hospital where the soldiers are cured.  From the aforesaid convents twelve religious have been taken since last year (when some came here), and religious of our order are requested in many other places.

In [the districts of] some of these convents there are few Indians, because they refuse to join the chief settlements; nor can those people be well instructed, as they are very remote, unless they have religious.  Moreover, there are fifteen priests in Japon and six lay-brethren, busied in the conversion and in hospital work.

Fray Marcos de Lisboa, [52] vice-provincial.

Order of St. Dominic.

List of the houses and missions of the Order of St. Dominic in these Philipinas Islands.

It has one convent in the city of Manila, with sixteen friars—­six priests and six lay brethren.

It has a mission [doctrina] in the town of Binondoc and Baybay with two ministers for six hundred Sangleys, or a trifle less.  For the hospital of San Gabriel it has two religious—­one a priest and the other a lay-brother—­and there the Sangley infidels are nursed and instructed.

It has a mission in the district of Batan with four priests for one thousand six hundred Indians.

It has four missions in the province of Pangasinan.  The first is called Bina Lato-gan and has four religious, three of whom are lay-brethren, and one who is not, for one thousand three hundred Indians.

The second is in Calasiao and has two ministers for one thousand and thirty Indians.  The third is Magaldan and has two ministers for nine hundred Indians.  The fourth is Mauazuag and has two religious, one a lay-brother and one who is not, for four hundred Indians, or a trifle less, and the new conversion in the tingues.