In the city of Caceres there is a hospital where the religious of St. Francis attend with much charity to the treatment of the sick, Spaniards as well as natives.  It is very poor, and on the verge of ruin.  May your Majesty be pleased to extend to it some alms, to erect another building for it, and provide it with some income, that it may aid in the maintenance of the sick who are being treated in it, particularly the natives, who suffer great want on account of having no income.  The city furnishes very little to the aid of the said hospital, because the citizens are few and poor.  Accordingly, I know of no other remedy but to have recourse to your Majesty, that, as you are so Catholic a king and a patron of all the churches and hospitals of these islands, you may supply this need, and give them the aid which may appear most fitting to your Majesty, particularly in the case of this hospital, which suffers such dire need.  Although I am desirous of alleviating this, I cannot, as I also am poor.  Accordingly I beg and beseech your Majesty to have pity upon it and aid it, and give it what your Majesty may judge sufficient.  It seems to me that your Majesty might order the governor of these islands to assign some of the Indians from vacant encomiendas, to apply to this purpose, and give to this hospital to aid it.  In this your Majesty will do a great service to our Lord, and a very gracious favor and good to the said hospital, and to me who am seeking this in its name.  As it is a work of such piety and service for our Lord, I have dared to make this request.  May He protect your Majesty many happy years, for the good of His church.  Manila, the twentieth of July, of the year one thousand six hundred and eleven.

Fray Pedro Arce, bishop-elect of Nueva Caceres.

[Endorsed:  “Manila; to his Majesty, 1611; the bishop-elect of Nueva Caceres, July 22.  Let the governor and royal officials of Manila send information, together with their opinion.  June 15, 1612.”]

LETTERS FROM FELIPE III TO SILVA

The King:  To Don Juan de Silva, knight of the Order of Santiago, my governor and captain-general of the Filipinas Islands, and president of my royal Audiencia there.  Your letter of July 24, 609, was received and examined in my Council of the Yndias, and I was glad to learn by it of your arrival in those islands, and that you had a prosperous voyage.  As for what you say concerning the anxious efforts of certain religious to cause the governmental and military offices in their districts to pass through their hands, and the disturbances and troubles which have occurred among the natives, and the assemblages of people, and the reduction of villages which has been accomplished, when there was an opportunity for the same to hinder the royal jurisdiction by opposing the corregidors and others who are governing—­as happened a short time before you arrived, in a district