BENEVOLENT ESTABLISHMENTS. 



nour, but without the forms and order which were before ob- 

 served. The protegees 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 1 746, 

 when, on the 28th day of October, another earthquake de- 

 molished 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 founda- 

 tion. The latter was at the same time enjoined to regulate 

 the subsistence of the protegees, their pupils, and the re- 

 cluses ; to determine whatever might relate to their good go- 

 vernment ; and to superintend their welfare and progress, 

 until the establishment should be rendered as perfe6l as pos- 

 sible. 



With these views, the protegees and their companions were 

 removed to the hospital of San Pedro, a large and commo- 

 dious building, which had formerly belonged to the priests of 

 the oratory. A new college for female Indians, and an hospi- 

 tal for poor women, were annexed to the institution by order 

 of the viceroy, by whose dire6tion the recluses were re-esta- 

 blished 



