CHAPTER X
In which is given public satisfaction in behalf of this brotherhood for a chapter of a manifesto which has been published denouncing the rectitude and faithful administration of the brothers; and it is proved that the annuities of the house of the Misericordia not only are not lost, as is supposed, but that, on the contrary, they are in much better condition than at any other time.
[A manifesto published against the brotherhood charges lack of business ability and neglect in the handling of its funds, so that much of the money entrusted to it has been lost; and proposes that the brotherhood be made subject to inspection by the authorities—by the ecclesiastical ordinary, if the association be considered a pious body, or by the ordinary with a royal minister, if the association be regarded as under royal protection. Discussing the manifesto our author shows that the affairs of the brotherhood have never been more prosperous. As compared with the religious orders, their capitals and the returns therefrom show better results, and not nearly so many arrears. The brothers are good managers and look after their business carefully. Those who have been benefited by the brotherhood are so numerous that there are but few in the community who have not been helped. From the year 1677 when the first fund was established, the brotherhood has distributed 657,383 pesos, 6 tomins, 6 granos. The purposes for which this sum has been applied are for masses for souls in purgatory, alms for the religious orders and royal colleges, dowries to poor girls, alms to widows, prisoners, and confraternities and their processions, aid to the sick, and for divine worship, the support and clothing of its collegiate daughters, support for women in retreat, and aid for the buildings of their house and chaplaincies, etc. The complaints against the brotherhood have emanated from those who have not obtained all the aid that they desired because their credit is not sufficiently good. If the brotherhood attempt to please everyone they will end by pleasing no one. No partiality is shown, but affairs are managed in a businesslike manner. Even were the brotherhood subject to inspection, it could act with no greater rectitude.]
CHAPTER XI
In which a relation is given of the government and order observed by the house of the Santa Misericordia
I do not believe that any of the many houses of the Misericordia throughout Christendom, can be declared to be governed with better rules or have better accounts than that of this city of Manila. I am not speaking without sufficient foundation, since I have read with special attention the great order which rules in the house of the capital of Lisboa. That house is the mother and pattern and source of them all, to whose teaching this faithful daughter of hers, not only has not kept its great talents which I expect from her zealous care, idle, but also has been able ingeniously to exceed her in the pious indulgences of increasing and treasuring up more copious annual reënforcements for the relief of the needs of her neighbor.
1 am very certain that this truth would run no danger amid the extensive shoals of self-love, for it navigates governed by the demonstrable reality which removes all kind of doubt; it is current knowledge that the alms which are annually distributed by the royal house of Santa Misericordia of Lisboa amount to forty thousand pesos more or less; but it is not less well-known and certain that those distributed by this house of Manila, when no shipwreck happens, or other misfortunes, amount on the average to seventy thousand pesos annually, making one mass of the benefit which the funds of the sea yield, in addition to those which are produced by those which are founded in bonds, possessions, monopoly, encomienda of his Majesty, chaplaincies of which he is patron, and other sources of wealth which are added to the huge mass of the said sum. This truth is so well known to all this city that it need no further support than the same certainty in which it is founded.
The order with which this house of Santa Misericordia is governed is that on November 21, the day of the presentation of our Lady, the Virgin Mary, and the day on which the brothers who have formed the board for that year, and which begins the election of other new members, the election is made by ten electors, whom all the brotherhood appoint, in the manner provided by our rules. They number in all thirteen brothers, the first being the new purveyor. [Next are the] secretary and the treasurer, the latter being the one who was secretary the previous year, who remains in that office in order to give account of the dependencies and affairs of the house since he has handled them all most intimately. After the above are the majordomo of the chapel, the general manager of the house, and all annexed to it; majordomo of prisoners; steward of the dish in which the alms are collected; while the rest of the brothers are occupied in other important duties of the house, such as visits of the treasury and of the prisons, the distributions of alms, secret investigations which are committed to them by the board, and others of like tenor.