BENEVOLENT ESTABLISHMENTS.
On tracing the moral system of Peru, down to the epoch of the conquest, it will be found that those who made the earliest settlements, amid the horrors of war, the attractions of riches, and the bad example of a few dissolute adventurers by whom they were accompanied, were earnest to display a spirit of christian charity and compassion. However unjustly they may have been treated by foreign pens, inimical to the Spanish name, it must be acknowledged that many of them were as renowned for their valour and constancy, as for the sentiments of that fraternal and generous tenderness, which the philosophers of our times extol so much, and practise so little. We may trace in every direction the trophies of the piety of our ancestors. Hospitals, colleges, churches, asylums for orphans, endowments for young indigent females, &c. are the first monuments which present themselves to the view of the observer, when he investigates philosophically the principles of the Peruvian population. It is to be lamented that the historians who have written so copiously on Peru, have not bestowed on this subject all the attention it merits.
A receptacle for orphans, established in a capital such as Lima, not only supposes in its inhabitants a great fund of humanity, but likewise affords a reasonable ground of belief that the true application of alms was known to them at an early date. In reality, there is not any object which has a greater tendency to interest the affections of a sensible heart, than the poor orphan, the offspring of frailty and love, who has no other parents beside the compassion and benevolence of the public.
The college for female orphans, properly named the college of Santa Cruz for female foundlings, in the house of Our Lady of Atocha, was founded by Mateo Pastor De Velasco, by birth a Spaniard, an apothecary by profession, and agent of the Inquisition. His pious intention received a new stimulus from the virtue of his wife. Donna Francisca Velez Michael. Being both of them animated by the same spirit of humanity, they were desirous to make a useful application of the means which Providence had bestowed on them, without subjecting their determination to the alterations of an indolent or covetous executor. As a charitable gift loses much of its value, when it is swayed by the impulse of terror, or by the weakness of the contrary passion in the hour of death, they made their testament when in the enjoyment of perfe6t health, in the month of June 1654.
The fifth clause of this instrument enacted the foundation of the asylum or college in question, in which young girls, of the description of those who, having been left destitute, from their early infancy, through the cruelty or indigence of their parents, are wont to be the victims of their unprotected state, were to be clothed, fed, and educated. To form from its origin an establishment of such a nature, it was ordered in the above, and in the subsequent clauses, that the licentiate Garcia Martinez Gabeza, inquisitor of these realms, and, in the case of his demise or absence, the tribunal of the Holy Office, should frame such laws and constitutions as might appear to be best adapted to its good government, advancement, and preservation. Finally, the aforesaid tribunal was nominated perpetual patron, with indeterminate powers to dispose at its pleasure both of the college and its government.
On the death, in August 1655, of Mateo Pastor, who survived his virtuous consort but a short time, and by virtue of the above dispositions, the necessary measures were taken to carry into effe6t the testament of the deceased. The foundation of the college received the approbation of the supreme authority in June 1659, at which time the count of Alba was viceroy; and in the same year the constitutions for its directive and economical order, were drawn up by the inquisitor, Don Cristobal De Castilla, who had been commissioned by the tribunal to that effect.
The college was governed according to the spirit of these constitutions until the year 1756, at which time it was found indispensably necessary to new model them in some parts, and to make additions and corrections to them in others, according as was required by the lapse of time, and the alteration of circumstances[1]. This was effected by the inquisitors Don Mateo De Amusquibar, and Don Diego Delgado. The constitutions having been modified in this manner, were reprinted at the above time, and have since sufficed for the government of the college, without the necessity of any further innovations. What they strictly require, for the reception of a female infant, is, that she shall be a foundling and a Spaniard[2]. On these heads the most precise information is taken.
The number of the college girls educated, fed, and clothed, has varied with the increase or diminution of the funds of the establishment. It consists at present of twenty-four of these females, whose bringing up, in whatever concerns their moral and physical duties, is confided to a rectoress and a mistress. The administrator, and the principal chaplain of the college, are, by virtue of their offices, to see that the constitutions are rigorously complied with; and if they notice any thing that requires amendment, they are to lay the same before the tribunal, which is to apply the remedy. A general visitation is annually made on St. Matthew's day, chosen in commemoration of the name of the pious founder of this useful work of charity, unless it should be procrastinated on account of any business of urgent necessity.
The funds of the college have varied; but, through the integrity, zeal, and skilful management of the tribunal, the variations have been constantly in favour of the establishment. At the commencement they consisted of the principal sum of three hundred and forty-one thousand six hundred and twenty-six piastres, laid out in quit-rents and other capitals; but amount at present to three hundred and ninety-four thousand five hundred and two piastres, which, combined with the rents of a few houses belonging to the foundation, produce annually fourteen thousand nine hundred and thirty-two piastres. In the maintenance and clothing of the girls, and of the rectoress and mistress, together with the salaries of the two latter, those of the two chaplains, of the surgeon, administrator, female domestics, advocate, procurator, &c. eight thousand seven hundred piastres are annually expended. The remainder is applied to the repairs of the building and dependencies, and to the portions of the college girls, who are destined either for a married state, or for the convent. The amount of these portions is settled by the tribunal, according to their vocations, to qualify them for which they receive a suitable education.
From the above details, many consequences, which, to avoid prolixity, we leave to the penetration of the enlightened reader, may be deduced. We shall simply add, that a zealous, well supported, and respcctable administration, appears to us to be the true principle of the aggrandizement and utility of a pious work.
Another establishment of the same nature, is that of the hospital for male foundlings of Our Lady of Atocha, the account of which is introduced by the following curious historical facts.
Humanity towards foundlings and helpless infants was exercised in Peru, even before the epoch of its falling under the yoke of Spain[3]. At the time of that memorable revolution, our ancestors were seen wielding with the right hand the conquering sword, and extending the left to the poor sick man, and unprotected female. This spirit of charity having been transmitted to our times, it cannot be said that, among the Peruvians, beneficence has been fashionable for a season, as has usually happened in France with relation to opinions as well as to dress[4]. When not the smallest idea was entertained in Paris, that children illegitimately born, and orphans, were deserving of the protection of the public[5], they had found in Lima an asylum in which they were reared and supported. These data could not certainly have been in the possession of the historians who have since represented us as the negligent offspring of cruel parents.
In the year 1597, there dwelt in Lima a pious and philosophical man, according to the true acceptation of Christianity, named Luis Pecador[6]. The sole object of his desires was the establishment of a receptacle for the infants, who, having been abandoned from the earliest moments of their existence, were found lying before the doors of the dwellings, and were there exposed to the attacks of dogs, by whom they had, in many instances, been devoured. The innocence of these tender victims claiming his most earnest solicitude, he obtained the permission of the Sovereign Pontiff, to found, for the above benevolent purpose, an order of hospitallers, of which he himself became the prior. With the aid of liberal public subscriptions, a suitable edifice was erected, and likewise a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Atocha, who was chosen patroness of the institution. For the reception of the infants, a turning box, having a double communication with the street and the building, was provided. Those who were the most conspicuous in following this virtuous example, were the royal notaries, and the receivers of the royal audience. These two bodies of civilians, whose profession has been so unjustly attacked by Quevedo, Torres, and other writers, manifested by their conduct, that probity, philosophy, and heroism even, are indifferent characteristics, accessible to all the conditions of society. They obtained the permission of the viceroy, Don Luis De Velasco, to establish a fraternity for the succour of orphans and children abandoned by their parents. The above-mentioned Pecado was declared the principal founder and abbot of this new institution, which took the denomination of the brotherhood of lost and deserted infants and orphans, of Our Lady of Atocha. In 1603 it was patronized by his Catholic Majesty.
A provision was shortly after made in favour of the orphans and abandoned children belonging to the different casts, who were continually exposed in the turning box of the hospital, but whose admission had not before been deemed necessary. It was accordingly determined that the children of colour should be educated separately from the whites; that they should be obliged to perform domestic services until the age of eighteen years; and that they should be given to the respe6lable inhabitants who should apply for them, on the latter contributing a small sum to the funds of the hospital, in aid of the expenditures, and as a recompense for what had been laid out in their board, clothing, and education.
The public was not satisfied with paying a tribute of steril admiration to the progress made by this charitable institution, in the admission and rearing of the poor orphans, and to the excellent conduct of the brotherhood by whom they were protected. The alms were augmented yearly, and many pious legacies bequeathed, until at length, in 1637, a particular fund was assigned by the sovereign to the purposes of the establishment. In 1648, the infants who had been admitted were so numerous as to find employment for seventy nurses, together with two masters for the young girls who were of an age to receive instructions, and a master for the youths. It should be noticed, that at the above time the population of Lima scarcely amounted to the one half of what it does at present; but the children of spurious birth were proportionally more numerous.
In 1657, the brotherhood became extremely opulent, the privilege of becoming a member being no longer confined to the class of notaries and receivers, but extended to every virtuous member of society, whatever his profession might be, on payment of the customary sum of thirty piastres. The buildings and chapel having suffered greatly from the injuries of time, and from the shocks of the earthquakes which have been in every age the scourge of Peru, it was resolved to rebuild them. The established rents not sufficing, however, for this undertaking, the inhabitants voluntarily came forward, and subscribed in a few days ten thousand piastres. A pension of three thousand piastres was settled, in 1669, on the hospital, by the count of Lemos, the viceroy; and this sum was afterwards augmented to four thousand piastres.
Such was the prosperous state of the establishment in question, when the great earthquake of 1687 buried the orphan-house in the deplorable ruins of the whole of the capital. The funds were annihilated; the brotherhood dispersed; and the wretched children, in want of an asylum, and of food, wandered about the plains, to ask charity at the doors of the huts and buildings which served as the temporary habitations of those who had survived the ruins of their beloved country. This calamitous event would have been attended by the most fatal consequences to the establishment of orphan children, but for the prudent measures adopted by the viceroy, one of whose earliest precautions was to place in security the little that still belonged to the hospital, whether resulting from the remnants of the extinguished brotherhood, or from the arrears belonging to the funds of the house. Several administrators, selected from among the distinguished class of the citizens, were at the same time appointed to succeed those who had belonged to the religious community. In 1718, the hospital found a new benefactor in the person of Don Antonio De Zolpaga, the archbishop of Lima, who, observing the extreme poverty of the institution, among other donations, ordered the, sum of eight hundred and forty piastres to be annually taken from his revenues, for the support of ten nurses.
The establishment was once more in a flourishing condition, when another earthquake, which occurred on the 28th of October 1746, renewed the disastrous scenes that had accompanied the preceding one of 1687. The same devastations Vere productive of a similar desertion of the dwellings; but this catastrophe was not attended by equally fatal consequences to the orphans. Their administrator, Don Joseph De Herrara, made every possible effort to afford them succour, and witnessed the re-establishment of the hospital, before he was snatched off by death, to reap the fruits of his compassion and christian charity.
The viceroy, count Superunda, obtained, in 1755, a royal schedule which assigned the sum of thirty-two thousand piastres to the orphan fund. The walls of the church were erected on the ancient site; and the buildings annexed to it, together with the interior of the hospital, edified and restored.
The establishment, at the present time, may be said to be in a very flourishing state. The children are commodiously lodged; and nothing has been neglected that can contribute to the preservation of their health. The strictest attention is at the same time bestowed on the inculcation of their religious and moral duties. In a word, it may be said that the hospital has received a new existence, both with respect to its construction, and the form of its discipline. In addition to its numerous rents, other fixed incomes, and the adventitious alms, it enjoys the clear produce of the press established within its precincts, and entitled that of the foundlings, or orphans. In this press, which is incomparably the best in the capital, the Peruvian Mercury is printed. The very heavy charges incurred by its publication contribute in part to the support of these innocent creatures, the sight of whom, in the intercourse which we have necessarily to maintain with them, inspires us with the deepest compassion. We feel a lively pleasure when we reflect that our Mercury renders this small service to humanity, and to the country. This is one of the motives by which we have been influenced in fulfilling the engagement into which we have entered, to carry on our periodical work, the indispensable charges attendant on which are frequently not compensated by the public contributions, in payment and in gratitude, towards our unfortunate lucubrations.
The hospital has in its pay from eighty-five to ninety wet-nurses, each of whom receives a salary of six piastres per month. Within the establishment itself there are upwards of twenty wet-nurses, and as many dry-nurses, including several grown up female orphans, who respectively attend to the necessities of the unfortunate infants. There are thirty-three Spanish youths belonging to the foundation, all of whom are taught to read, write, &c. to be afterwards brought up to useful professions, according to the disposition of each of them. There are likewise five foundlings of colour destined for the service of the house.
The following is a concise account of the monastery and hospital of charity established at Lima.
During the viceroyalty of the marquis of Canete, in the year 1559, an epidemical disease broke out in that capital, and made a dreadful havoc among the inhabitants, as well as in the surrounding territory. Amid this general affliction, christian charity displayed all the ardor of which it is susceptible. Among those whose zeal was most conspicuous in affording relief to the sufferers, was friar Ambrosio De Guerra, whose exhortations, and, still more, whose example, stimulated Don Alonzo De Paredes, a distinguished Castillian, to erect a monastery under the denomination of the fellowship of compassion, the principal institute of which was to afford relief, in their own houses, to the unfortunate sick who might otherwise perish destitute of every aid. The archbishop, Don Geronimo Loaysa, approved of the establishment of this pious society, and united with, it another monastery named the brotherhood of charity, which had been founded in 1552[7], and the constitutions of which were directed to the same object. The union of these two bodies was denominated the fellowship of charity and compassion.
The virtuous Paredes was soon joined by two associates, Don Gonzalo Lopez, and Don Diego De Guzman, both of them of noble descent, and, which is still more, animated by the same spirit of humanity and religion. This pious triumvirate, impelled by the ardent desire of succouring their fellow creatures, and not by the infuriate ambition of governing them, drew up their code of constitutions, which having received the royal approbation, and that of the Sovereign Pontiff, the brotherhood took possession of the cathedral church, which became their monastery.
The objects of the primitive institution were multiplied, and extended to the relief of such indigent families as were ashamed to ask charity, to the healing of the sick, to the burial of the dead, to the education of orphans until a provision should be made for them, and to the necessity of accompanying criminals to the place of execution, and providing for the interment of their bodies. These precepts were faithfully complied with, to the full extent of their meaning and purport. The lapse of time demanded a new compilation of the code, the regulations of which were adapted to the immediate circumstances. By this reform, the admission into the house of compassion, and subsequent adoption, of any cast that should not be either Spaniard, Mestizo, or Quarteron, were strictly prohibited.
Many donations were bestowed on this charitable establishment, which excited the lively interest of the public. Donna Anna Rodriguez De Solorzano, a rich and virtuous widow, endowed the monastery with two houses, one of them as an, hospital for poor sick women, the other as a college for the education of young females left without protection. She became the first abbess, and presided over each of these institutions. On the site of these possessions the hospital of charity was built, and has since had many benefactors, whose donations, combined with those of the primitive founders, yield at the present time an annual income of upwards of twelve thousand piastres.
His Catholic Majesty has, from the commencement, patronized both the monastery and the hospital. Several of the viceroys have been admitted into the fellowship of the latter; and the Popes have bestowed on it many indulgences, among which may be reckoned that of the forty hours[8]. The first solemnity of this description which took place in Lima was in favour of this hospital, and was the only one, throughout the kingdom, granted at that epoch to poor women. The college of charity, which depended originally on the same institution, is under the direction of an abbess and a prior, who are at this time charged with the education of eighteen young girls, that being the determinate number belonging to the foundation. The latter are maintained and reared at the expence of the establishment; and, in addition to them, a certain number of young ladies belonging to Lima receive their education in the college. Of this description there are at present seven.
Up to the year 1784, the number of female patients under cure in the hospital never exceeded seventy at any one given time, and might, on a mean calculation, be rated at forty. Since that date there has been an extraordinary increase in the total number of cures. The entries and discharges of the patients being calculated on an average of two years, give a result of one thousand one hundred and thirty-six cured annually. During a space of twelve months, reckoning from the commencement of July 1786, on account of the great prevalence of malignant sore throats and measles among the people, one thousand five hundred and eighty-two patients were admitted. In the month of May 1790, ninety beds were occupied, eighty-four by sick, and the others by insane women.
In this hospital the utmost decency is observed. The patients are well attended, and have every convenience they can wish. Notwithstanding the above cited rents are so small, the establishment has to sustain an annual expence of about nineteen thousand piastres. There have, indeed, been years when the expenditures have amounted to twenty-four thousand. The alms of the citizens, and the bounties of the noblemen who act as administrators, fill up the yearly deficiency.
The general hospital for the poor is a recent establishment, which is indebted for its origin to Don Diego De Guevara, an opulent merchant of Lima. He had long entertained a persuasion that the most effectual mode of exterminating an importunate mendicity, consisted in the erection of a general hospital, in which invalids and infirm persons having been collected, should be provided with food and lodging, employed in some easy mechanical labours to render them industrious, and assisted with spiritual exhortations to eradicate their vices, and stimulate them to the pursuits of virtue. Accordingly, in 1757, he presented a memorial to the viceroy, in which, with the most efficacious reasonings, and the greatest weight of authority, he exposed the necessities of the poor and their vices; together with the frauds which were committed on the real objects of charity by those who, being able to live by their labour, were led by their vicious inclinations to become mendicants. He proposed the plan of an hospital in which the necessitous poor should be assembled; and described the useful and moderate labours in which they might be employed, tendering to this efFe6l his person and his fortune. He pointed out at the same time several expedients calculated to defray the indispensable expences of the hospital.
A royal schedule, dated in November 1758, not only granted the license requisite to this establishment, but likewise charged the viceroy, count Superunda, and his successors, to promote the erection of the building by every possible means. The hospital was not completed until 1770, at which time the viceroys were constituted sole patrons, and the administration vested in the above-mentioned Don Joseph De Guevara. It was constructed in the district del Cercado, in the vicinity of a religious community having the spiritual care of the Indians, to the end that the poor might profit by their instructions. Many necessitous persons were collected, conducted thither, and treated by the pious administrator with a paternal love and a generous compassion. By one of those miracles which have frequently attracted the public admiration, the blind suddenly recovered their sight, the cripples walked, and the impotent found the use of their limbs. The mask of fiction and falsehood was thrown off; and the vile vagabonds, the lazy impostors, the feigned sick, were quickly healed, and converted into useful subjects who laboured in the service of the public for their support. The number of truly necessitous poor, and invalids, was so much reduced, that ninety-six only could be found to occupy the hospital. With the exception of the fifteen hundred piastres assigned to the foundation by the sovereign, Don Diego De Guevara, the administrator, did not receive any aid, but maintained the establishment until his death, by a sacrifice of his own private property, to the amount of more than thirty thousand piastres[9]. By a reference to the third table of the demonstrative plan of the population of Lima, it will be seen that the hospital, in 1790, supplied an asylum to twenty-nine poor.
The asylum for repentant females was founded in 1669, under the viceroyalty of the count of Lemos, by father Francisco Del Castillo, who became the confessor. It was not an institution subject to canonical regulations, but a voluntary retreat for poor, repentant, and abandoned females, the design of which was in opposition to solemn vows. It afforded the advantages of a monastic state to those whose situation and poverty would neither allow them to remain in society without a risk of their honour and salvation, nor to obtain the dowry requisite to take the veil. A code of suitable constitutions having been drawn up, the dress which was to be worn by these females, who were denominated the protegees (amparadas) of la Concepcion, was made to agree with the particular nature of their vocation; and this was expressed by a silver medal hanging from the neck. Their occupations, and the mode of life they were to lead, were pointed out; and they were subjected to the immediate government of a canoness, whom they were themselves to elect. These dispositions having been made, the public entry into the house which had been provided for them, took place in the month of March 1670, with all the solemnity and manifestations of joy customary on such pious occasions. The ceremonies lasted for three days, the viceroy, his lady, the tribunals, the nobility, clergy, &c. accompanying the processions. On this occasion, which will be an eternal monument of his liberality, and of his zeal in the cause of the unfortunate, the count of Lemos appeared more glorious than when he entered the capital in triumph, at the head of his victorious army[10].
During his beneficent administration, the protegées, twenty of whom were in the first instance assembled, augmented considerably in their number, which was not limited. They depended chiefly on the generosity of the count, by the effect of whose bounties the institution made a rapid progress. The countess daily sent them food from the palace, and, in concert with her husband, solicited alms throughout the kingdom, in addition to those that were collected at Lima. These were their only sources of subsistence until 1670, when two thousand ducats were paid into the fund of the charity, by virtue of an order from Madrid.
The death of the viceroy, which occurred two years after, threw the burthen of the support of the establishment almost exclusively on the charitable priests to whom its spiritual direction was confided. A representation of its very destitute state having been made to the court of Madrid, another royal donation, of four thousand piastres, was made in 1679. By a very economical system of management, and a rigid observance of the statutes, so successful a progress was made, that in 1790, the viceroy, count Monclova, added to the original institution a new one, for public women who led a scandalous life. They were to live separately from the others, but to be subject to the same directress, whose duty it was to correct their manners and habits, and thus free society from the motives of prostitution and criminal disorders. Both the classes of females were supported by the zeal and assiduity of their chaplain, Don Nicholas De La Cruz, notwithstanding the principal part of the building in which they resided had been destroyed by the memorable earthquake of the 20th of 0ctober 1687. Partly at his own expence, and partly by the alms he collected, the repairs were completed in two years. At the time of his death, the number of repentant females and young girls for education amounted to two hundred; and the recluses, or abandoned women, were nearly tantamount. The alms and donations, however, gradually fell off, through the want of persons to collect them, until at length it was found impossible to administer to the calls of so large an establishment.
It was in a manner annihilated in 1708, by the cupidity of certain individuals of Lima, interested in promoting the views of a community of nuns, whose convent had been destroyed by the earthquake above-mentioned. They had the address to bring the viceroy, the marquis of Casteldosrius, over to their side; and, in consequence, the house, together with the church belonging to it, the goods, chattels, and other appurtenances, were adjudged to the foundation of the convent. The unfortunate protegees of la Concepcion were dispersed, and were not united until 1720, when Philip V. granted them an asylum in a building which was, however, but ill calculated for their reception, and so small, that the recluses, who formed a very interesting part of the establishment, could not be received. The directress now governed those who were under her care according to the rules of piety and honour, but without the forms and order which were before observed. The protegées employed themselves in instructing young girls, whose parents paid a certain stipend, which, added to a yearly income of less than four hundred piastres, the sole remnant of their ancient funds, and the alms they begged from door to door, administered to the urgent calls of Nature. Their condition was still more deplorable in 1746, when, on the 28th day of 0ctober, another earthquake demolished their house, on the ruins of which they dwelt in a few huts built for the occasion.
They were for several years indebted for their support to a charitable ecclesiastic, Dr. Joaquin De Irujo, who voluntarily came forward to serve them in quality of chaplain. At length, in 1766, his Catholic Majesty, Charles III. bestowed on them a perpetual annuity of two thousand piastres. He declared their institution to be of great public utility, both in a spiritual and temporal point of view; and ordered the viceroy to revise the documents which had a reference to the primitive foundation. The latter was at the same time enjoined to regulate the subsistence of the protegées, their pupils, and the recluses; to determine whatever might relate to their good government; and to superintend their welfare and progress, until the establishment should be rendered as perfect as possible.
With these views, the proteg{ées and their companions were removed to the hospital of San Pedro, a large and commodious building, which had formerly belonged to the priests of the oratory. A new college for female Indians, and an hospital for poor women, were annexed to the institution by order of the viceroy, by whose direction the recluses were re-established according to the original intention. The advantages which have resulted from these regulations, may be estimated by the following comparative statement. In 1766, the period above alluded to, thirty-four females only were to be numbered, and much difficulty was found in keeping up that small establishment. At the present time, the commencement of April 1792, the number is considerably more than quadrupled. The females who are commonly known by the name of beatas (devotees) were then confined to fourteen only; but now amount to twenty-four, that being the number limited by the viceroy, with two supernumeraries. There are besides twenty-nine poor girls and orphans, fifteen repentant females, fifty boarders for education, eleven females who have voluntarily sought an asylum in the establishment, and thirty-six others belonging to the different casts, partly for education, and partly as domestics, forming in the whole a total of one hundred and sixty-seven persons[11], without reckoning either the recluses, whose stay is merely temporary, or the married women who retire thither to commence the legal proceedings for a divorce.
- ↑ Legislation, as well as all other sublunary things, grows old with the progress of time. In that state its force is languid, and it resists its infractions but feebly. If we were to endeavour to govern men at this time according to the ordinances of the Romans, or the Goths, there would be a perpetual contradiction between the antiquity of the law and the force of custom; at the same time that the influence of opinion would be invariably in opposition to the accomplishment of what should be commanded.—Political Reflections, MS.
- ↑ All those born in South America of Spanish parents, are reputed Spaniards.
- ↑ The Indians afforded an example of humanity which must surprize those who have the presumption to style them barbarians. By order of the Ynca, the lands belonging to the orphans and widows, were cultivated at the expence of the community, immediately after those appertaining to the royal inheritance. A magistrate, who was named Llactacamayu, and whose office was similar to that of a tribune of the poor, was particularly charged with this operation.
- ↑ The mode of thinking is a fashion among the French, like the apparel. When the public are impressed with an opinion, it becomes their idol, and obliges every other consideration to give way.—Treatise on Political Bodies.
- ↑ Until the year 1638 there was not in Paris a receptacle for orphans. At that time a rich and virtuous widow laid the foundation of an establishment of this nature, the maintenance of which required all her constancy and heroism. It was not until 1675 that it attracted the notice and consideration of the sovereign, who assigned to it a rent of twenty thousand livres.
- ↑ His real name was Oxeda, which he changed for that of Pecator (sinner), conformably to the spirit of humility by which devout persons were then influenced.
- ↑ It may be observed, in a cursory way, that although, at the above time, the spirit of conquest was still very fervent among our ancestors, they already directed their attention to pious foundations, which they planted, not only with their money, but with their personal co-operation. The nations which are the most vehement in reproaching the conquest of the Americas, on the specious pretext of the cruelties by which it was accompanied, have scarcely done so much in times of profound tranquillity, and of their greatest splendour.
- ↑ This name is bestowed on the extraordinary prayers, of forty hours continuance, which are offered up to Heaven on urgent occasions.
- ↑ By his will, he bequeathed, on the demise of his two nephews, to the orphan charity, and that of the poor, the whole of his extensive property.
- ↑ He had just returned from quelling the alarming insurrection of the military and inhabitants of Puno.
- ↑ By consulting the first table of the demonstrative plan of the population of Lima, it will be seen that, in the course of fifteen months, from the commencement of 1791 to the above expressed date, twenty individuals were added to the establishment.