general the Spanish settlers looked upon as beasts. That it was the best policy they could have possibly pursued under the circumstances is proved abundantly by the code of instructions laid down by Don Francisco Bucareli, the Viceroy of Buenos Ayres, under whose auspices the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1760 was carried out. In that code occurs the following article:[262] ‘You will not allow any strangers, of whatever estate, quality, or condition they may be, to reside in the town (that is, of the missions), even if they be artisans,[263] and much less that they deal or take contracts in them either for themselves or for others, and you shall take especial care that the Laws of the Indies be executed, and specially those which are contained in Article 27 of Book IX.;[264] and also if any Portuguese deserters or other persons of whatever conditions should come to the towns, you will instantly conduct them to this city, taking every precaution to prevent their escape.’ Still, though their policy was pursued, it did not stop the opponents of the Jesuits from denouncing that very policy, both at the cession of the seven towns and at the expulsion of the Order from America. The commissioners, after innumerable delays, having found themselves in 1753 at Santa Tecla, a village near the Uruguay, it becomes necessary to cast a glance at what the Jesuits themselves were doing, and how they tried to do their duty as they saw it both to their Sovereign, their Order, and the Indians over whom they ruled. It seems as if, whilst the superiors of the Order recognised at once the futility of striving against Portugal and Spain, some of the inferior members secretly set on the Indians to armed resistance to the impolitic decree. The council of the province (Paraguay)[265] assembled at the Jesuit college in Cordoba, composed of Fathers Masala, Horos, Caballero, Lopez, and Lozano, sent a memorial[266] both to the Viceroy of Peru and to the High Court of Charcas. In the memorial they first set forth their loyalty, and then exposed the deceit to which the ministers of Spain and Portugal had been subjected by their advisers in America. They pointed out most justly that the treaty was damaging to both the countries concerned,[267] and that in regard to the Indians of the seven towns peculiarly unjust. Both at Charcas and at Lima their memorial (though diffuse) was favourably received, and a copy remitted to the King and Council at Madrid. Ibañez, in his ‘Republica Jesuitica’, qualifies the action of the Jesuits in this matter as a ‘great crime’. Dean Funes only sees duplicity of language, but seems to excuse it in the circumstances in which the Jesuits were placed. Certainly, after efforts extending over almost two hundred years, it was hard on them to see seven of their most flourishing missions arbitrarily broken up, the Indians driven from their homes, and their territory occupied by those very Portuguese who for a hundred years had been their persecutors.