Countersigned by Juan Ruiz de Contreras. Signed by the Council.
Foundation of the college of Santo Tomás of Manila. Bernardo de Santa Catalina, O.P., and others; April 28. Hospital at Nueva Cáceres. Pedro Arce, O.S.A.; July 20. Letters to Juan de Silva. Felipe III; November-December. Letters to the Dominican provincial. Felipe III; December 31.
_Sources_: All these documents save one are obtained from original MSS. in the Archivo general de Indias, Sevilla. The first one is found in a pamphlet entitled _Algunos documentos relativos á la Universidad de Manila_ (Madrid, 1892), pp. 5-20.
_Translations_: The first document is translated by James A. Robertson; the remainder, by Robert W. Haight.
FOUNDATION OF THE COLLEGE OF SANTO TOMÁS OF MANILA
In the name of God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and in honor of Mary ever-virgin, who, under the advocacy [45] of her most holy rosary, is proposed and accepted as patroness of the work which will be declared below, inasmuch as she is also patroness of the Order of Preachers of the patriarch St. Dominic, established in these Filipinas Islands and the kingdom of China; and to his honor and glory and that of the consecrated doctor [46] of the holy Church, Saint Thomas Aquinas, by whose intercessions, protection, and aid the work described in this writing will have a good beginning and means, and proceed from good to better forever without end: by virtue of which, I, father Fray Bernardo de Santa Catalina, [47] religious of the said order, and commissary-general of the Holy Office in these islands, as executor of the most illustrious and reverend archbishop of this city of Manila in the islands, Don Fray Miguel de Benavides, now defunct, and [as the one] to whom his Lordship communicated the application of the remainder of his properties for the work and foundation which will be hereunder declared--as appears from his last will and testament, which he signed in this said city of Manila before Francisco de Alanis, former notary-public in this city, on the twenty-fourth day of the month of July of the former year one thousand six hundred and five; and the clause treating of this matter, copied, corrected and collated with the said will signed by the said notary, is of the following tenor: