father, order that a convalescent ward be made in the
royal hospital of the Spaniards. Since my predecessors did not carry
out this plan, I began it with two thousand pesos, of which a governor
of the Sangleys of the Parian made your Majesty a gracious gift. It was
advisable to have this ward pass through certain small cells which the
brothers and religious chaplain had in the said hospital. I courteously
requested the provincial to withdraw them to his convent while the said
ward was being built; but he refused to do so. I again requested him
to remove the most holy sacrament--which was deposited in a ward under
the principal one of the infirmary and exposed to indecency, because
the filth and water from the sick, fell from above--to a place above,
where mass was said to the said sick. He also refused to do that; on
the other hand, he went to the archbishop, who began a suit before the
ordinary. Although the royal Audiencia (the said archbishop refusing
to give the regimental chaplain-in-chief permission to administer
the holy sacraments to the soldiers and others, and refusing to
give it, and [the chaplain] having appealed to royal aid from the
fuerza), declared that he should do what I had asked, the archbishop,
nevertheless, refused to give the said permission--until that, after
he had been exiled from these kingdoms for having refused to obey
the decrees of your Majesty (as I shall recount in another letter),
the bishop of Camarines, who came by act of the royal Audiencia to
govern during his absence, granted to the said chaplain-in-chief
the said permission to administer the sacraments. For these and many
other reasons, of which I shall give your Majesty an account, I made
the said religious leave the royal hospital of the Spaniards, and the
regimental chaplain-in-chief ministers to the sick for the present,
until a chapel is finished (which I ordered to be built in which to
bury the soldiers), and quarters [for them], at the expense of their
pay, which they have graciously given, without any expense to the
treasury of your Majesty. And when the said chaplain-in-chief shall
go to exercise his duty in the said chapel, another chaplain shall be
appointed for the said royal hospital. Sire, the reasons which have
existed for changing the religious of this hospital are those which
your Majesty will please have examined in the papers which I herewith
enclose. At the same time, I petition your Majesty, with all humility,