and performs the duties required by the police, without being exempted from military service when occasion requires; and from these companies recruits are drawn to supply vacancies in the regular militia.  Every one capable of bearing arms is thus enrolled either in these companies or in the regular militia, except such as are indispensably necessary for cultivating the land and taking care of the cattle.  Besides this militia, the crown maintains a regular force of veteran troops part at St Jago and part at Conception for the protection of the Araucanian frontier.  In 1792, all the veteran troops in Chili amounted to 1976 men, divided into two companies of artillery, nine troops of horse, including a regiment of dragoons at St Jago, and the rest infantry.  The cavalry is commanded by a brigadier-general, who is quarter-master-general of the kingdom, and intendant of Conception.  The infantry and artillery are under the command of two lieutenant-colonels.  Besides these royal troops, the city of St Jago keeps several troops of dragoons in constant pay for its particular protection.

In regard to ecclesiastical polity, Chili is divided into two extensive bishoprics, those of St Jago and of Conception, the bishops of these dioceses being suffragans to the archbishop of Lima.  The bishopric of St Jago extends from the confines of Peru to the river Maule, and includes the province of Cujo on the east side of the Andes.  The bishopric of Conception comprises all the rest of Chili and the islands; but the greater part of this extent is inhabited by pagans, being the confederacy of Araucania and its auxiliaries.  The two cathedrals have a competent number of canons or prebendaries, whose revenues as well as those of the bishops depend upon the tythes.  The holy tribunal of the inquisition at Lima, has a commissary and several subaltern officers or familiars resident at St Jago.  Upon his first coming into Chili, Valdivia brought with him several monks of the order of Mercy.  About the year 1553, the Dominicans and Franciscans were established in the country, the Augustins in 1593, and the Hospitallers of St John of God in 1615.  These orders all have a number of convents, and the three first form distinct jurisdictions under their respective provincials.  The brothers of St John have the charge of the hospitals, under the direction of a commissary, dependent on the provincial of their order in Peru.  The Jesuits came likewise into Chili in 1593, along with Don Martin Loyola, nephew to their founder, and formed a separate province, but were afterwards suppressed along with the rest of their order in all parts of christendom.  Other orders have several times attempted to form establishments in Chili, but have always been resisted by the inhabitants.  There are several convents of nuns in the cities of St Jago and Conception, but none are contained in the other cities of the kingdom.