The King. To Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera, knight of the Order of
Alcantara, my governor and captain-general of the Filipinas Islands,
and president of my royal Audiencia therein: in a letter which the
abbess and nuns of the convent of St. Clare in that city wrote me
on the thirtieth of June, 636, they make the following statements:
That the said convent was established so that they could live in it,
with all decorum and humility, with certain alms from the citizens;
and their house and church were built close to the wall of the said
city that lies next the river--a place that seemed most separated from
the business quarter, and so closely shut in that little save the
sky could be seen. That in front, on the other side of the street,
is the royal hospital for the Spaniards, which from the time of its
foundation has been administered by the religious of St. Francis;
and that in the hospital the religious who was vicar of the said
convent [of St. Clare], and administered the holy sacraments to the
nuns, had a cell, and they helped to support this religious out of
the alms bestowed upon them. That you, without any occasion or just
cause, drove out the religious from the said hospital by force and
violence, with armed soldiers--saying that the hospital should be
managed by a secular priest whom you took thither with you. That the
said vicar was thereby compelled to find shelter in the convent of
St. Francis, which is at a great distance from that of St. Clare;
and consequently, with the inconveniences of the excessive heat
and the violence of the rains in the wet season, he cannot go to
hear confessions and administer the holy sacraments at St. Clare,
especially at night. That their greatest annoyance is, that you are
constructing in the hospital a ward for convalescents, on the side
that faces the said convent; and that it is so high that it looks
down upon the convent, notwithstanding the enclosure of the latter,
and from the windows of that ward may be seen the beds of the nuns
in their infirmary and dormitory--a matter which requires thorough
reparation. They say that on the other side of their house is a
space between the houses and the wall (which was formerly a street),
which is a passage to the convent, and is useful to it; but that you
have closed this way, and are building another house, which abuts
upon their own ground-plot, for barracks and stables for the cavalry
troops. They entreat me that I will be pleased to command that a check
be placed upon this undertaking, and that, considering their poverty,
I order you to pay them the amount of one hundred and twenty pesos
in certified pay-warrants on the treasury there, which they hold,
which sum will be a great benefit and charity to them. The complaint
of these nuns has been considered in my royal Council of the Indias,
and the damage which they say has been caused to them by closing up
the street and by their being in sight of the ward that was built in
the cells [at the hospital], and by the stables and barracks that have
been placed so close to their house. I have therefore thought it best
to ordain and command you, as I do, that you shall not in any way cause
injury or inconvenience to the said nuns; and that the pay-warrants
which they say they hold, you shall cause to be paid--provided they
are duly certified--in their due value and at such time as the said
nuns desire; for such is my will. [Madrid, October 2, 1638.]