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THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
[Vol. 9
- so doing the decree will be fulfilled and the expense to your Majesty's royal exchequer will also be diminished. [In the margin: "Have this decree renewed."]
- Further, he declares that at the convent of San Augustin de Manila the novices are taught, and that the arts and theology have been and will be regularly studied there. It is a seminary whence they go, and will continue to go, to other districts to preach to and convert those natives, and to instruct those already converted, and to administer the sacraments of our holy Catholic faith. There they receive and lodge the religious going to those islands from this kingdom to engage in the apostolic work of the conversion of those natives. The house is poor, so that with its present resources it is impossible to support eight friars, without the alms that your Majesty ordered to be given for four—there being, as a general rule, more than twenty religious in the said convent. He begs and entreats your Majesty, in consideration of the aforesaid, to order the grant increased to the number of twelve religious, more or less, as may be your Majesty's pleasure. They will receive this as a great help and bounty. [In the margin: "That which is provided for the second section above."]
- Item: He begs and entreats your Majesty, in consideration of the aforesaid and of the fact that the convent at Manila is an infirmary for all that province, where all those engaged in the conversion and administration of the sacraments in the Indian villages come for treatment when sick, to grant bounty and alms to the said convent, by ordering that the physician and the medical supplies necessary for the treatment of the said religious be at the cost of your
