BENEVOLENT ESTABLISHMENTS. 



the viceroy, count Superunda, and his successors, to promote 

 the ere£tion 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 construdled in the distri6t 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 instru61:ions. 

 Many necessitous persons were colle6ted, condudted thither, 

 and treated by the pious administrator with a paternal love and 

 a generous compassion. By one of those miracles which have 

 frequently attra6ted the public admiration, the blind suddenly 

 recovered their sight, the cripples walked, and the impotent 

 found the use of their limbs. The mask of fidtion and false- 

 hood was thrown off ; and the vile vagabonds, the lazy im- 

 postors, the feigned sick, were quickly healed, and converted 

 into useful subje6ls 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 fif- 

 teen hundred piastres assigned to the foundation by the sove- 

 reign, 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*. By a refe- 

 rence to the third table of the demonstrative plan of the popu- 



* 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. 



CO lation 



