ers,
and other workmen who receive pay will give, and a small cattle-farm
that it owns, with some more that can be obtained from some encomienda
when it falls vacant, the said hospital will be sustained without any
expense to your Majesty's treasury. And in order that that of Manila
may do the same, an excellent cattle-farm costing eight thousand pesos
has been bought at the advice of the treasury council with the money
contributed for it. With those ranches that it had, and the three
pesos per year from each soldier, and an encomienda of one thousand
three hundred tributes which has been granted to the convalescent ward
in the name of your Majesty, in virtue of your royal decree despatched
to Governor Gomez Perez Das marinas (and I petition your Majesty to be
pleased to confirm to it the encomienda of the village of Macabebe,
in the province of Pampanga)--with all the above and other things
which I shall endeavor to secure for it, I shall relieve your Majesty's
royal treasury from expense. The expense which I have made in only the
said hospital in ten months, without its being possible to avoid it,
amounts in money to seven thousand pesos for the aforesaid, and more
than that amount in kind. Since your Majesty has so many encomiendas
here, it is right that we relieve the treasury of this expense; and we
shall put to rights many things which I confess to your Majesty have
never been regulated until now. With it the hospitals of the natives,
that of Los Banos, that of Camarines, and others, I have left to the
religious until your Majesty orders what is your pleasure. But it is
not advisable that they should administer them, but the brothers of
[St.] John of God, or secular priests and lay stewards. This is the
truth, as I assure your Majesty as your vassal and minister, whereby
I discharge my conscience of all that shall be placed on it; and,
if opportunity offer, I shall give a detailed account and one to the
royal Council of the Yndias. May our Lord preserve the Catholic person
of your Majesty, as is necessary to Christendom. Manila, the last of
June, 1636.

Sire, your Majesty's vassal kisses your feet,

Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera

_Comments of the Council_

In regard to the deductions [from their pay] that are levied on the
soldiers and sailors, since it is with their good-will, as is supposed,
his having introduced this plan is approved.

Since that aid amounts to seven thousand pesos annually, and since