140 



POPULATIOlsr. 



with those contained in the demonstrative plan annexed to the 

 present refledlions, the losses which celibacy occasioned^ in 

 this particular way, will be seen. The misfortune is, that 

 the marriages have not been augmented, in proportion to the 

 decrease of the numbers of the female votaries of religion. 



Those of the monks have likewise undergone a similar di- 

 minution. In the above statement the total amount of them^ 

 was twQ thousand one hundred and fifty-five, including lay 

 brothers, slaves, &c. The Dominicans were the most nu- 

 , merous, the four houses belonging to that institution having 

 contained four hundred and twenty-eight souls. The Fran- 

 ciscans were in number three hundred and ninety-three ; the 

 Augustins, three hundred and twenty-one ; and the Merce- 

 darios, two hundred and forty-one. In, each of these state- 

 ments the domestics are constantly includedo. The charitable 

 institutions stiled Beaterios have received an augmentation of 

 eighty-four persons :. formerly the number did not exceed two 

 hundred and six ; but it amounts at present to three hundred, 

 and ten. The apartments destined to contain all this popu- 

 lation were heretofore one hundred and fifteen : they are now 

 one hundred and seventy-nine, besides the thirty to be found 

 in the quarter stiled El Cercado. 



In the year 1746, at which time Count Superunda was; 

 viceroy of these realms, by a calculation drawn from the re-- 

 gisters of the friars confessors, the population, including that 

 of the adjacent territory, was rated at sixty thousand souls*. 



The 



* As^ in the year 1700, the enumeration amounted to thirty-seven thousand two 

 hundred and fifty-nine persons only, insomuch that there is, in the above estimate,- 



an 



