May our Lord guard the Catholic person of your Majesty, as Christendom has need. At Cavite, July 11, 636. Sire, your vassal kisses your Majesty’s feet.
The Hospitals and Hospital Contributions
Letter to the king from Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera
Sire:
1. Your Majesty was pleased to entrust to my predecessor, Don Juan Niño de Tabora, as he was the person who had the matter in hand, the regulation of the comfort of the hospitals, the care of treating the sick, both soldiers and citizens, and the administration of the revenues of the said hospitals, so that the expenditures would be well employed and your Majesty’s treasury have some relief.
[In the margin: “That the purpose in having established the convalescent ward is approved.”]
2. The first thing which I heard on my arrival in this government was this [matter of the hospitals], in which I have found that your Majesty spends more money than you ought to spend; and, in the endeavor to apply a suitable remedy, I ordered the royal officials to note on their pay-rolls that the soldiers must give two reals from each month’s pay, and the sailors four—as is done in the States of Flandes with the royal hospital of your Majesty’s army, where the soldiers give one real from each month’s pay, and the officers, higher and lower, according to their pay. This amounts to more than seven thousand pesos per year, as your Majesty will have seen by the certifications which I enclose.
3. The religious of the Order of St. Francis—to whose brothers the government and several of your Majesty’s decrees have entrusted for some years back the duty of nurses in these hospitals, and to their religious priests that of chaplains therein—have both [brothers and priests] contrived to make an ill use of the orders of your Majesty and of the government; for besides the comforts that are brought from Castilla at so heavy an expense to the treasury of your Majesty, such as wines, raisins, almonds, and quince preserves, and other things which are not found here, and are indispensable for the hospitals—and although these things and the medicines were delivered to the steward and apothecary, the said officials did what the religious ordered them; and, to keep the devotees of religion contented, dispersed and spent many of those things outside of the hospitals. I made the steward whom I found in the hospital of the Spaniards settle his accounts, which were in very bad condition; but it will cost him his property. I appointed a new steward to whom all the aforesaid articles which came from Nueva España were delivered, on his responsibility and account. This man asked for the keys to the pantries, in order to keep them, but the religious refused; consequently, I was obliged to issue strict order that the keys be given up. The provincial of that order gave way to anger, saying that the taking the keys of the pantries to keep them was to his discredit. With the devotion which I have always had toward that order, and my love for its religious, I requested the said provincial to charge himself with, or have given to some religious, the said articles, with the obligation to give account of his expense at the end of the year to the person whom I should order to do that. He replied that I could not do that, according to his rule; nor could he subject himself to give account of anything; the steward, however, continues to exercise his duty and care.