Just at this moment Altamirano, the commissary, arrived, and found the state of things most serious.[275] The commissary Altamirano set to work at once to place before the Jesuits of the seven towns the danger they exposed themselves to if they refused to help him to carry out the orders of the crown. Almost immediately on his arrival he wrote[276] to Don José de Caruajal y Lancastre to send more troops, and to the various priests[277] to destroy their powder, and cease to manufacture any more.[278] It is most likely that, if Altamirano had no secret understanding with his brother Jesuits, his letters must have considerably amazed them, and certainly they gave offence to the Indians, who declared he could not be a Jesuit at all. Six hundred Indians, under a chief called Sepe Tyaragu, marched upon Santo Thomé, where Altamirano had taken up his residence, with the avowed purpose of discussing whether he was a Jesuit or not, and, if the latter supposition proved correct, of throwing him into the river Uruguay;[279] but Altamirano did not wait their coming, and returned precipitately to Buenos Ayres. The commission which had set out to mark the limits between the countries,[280] buried in the woods, or marching along the river, was absolutely unaware of what was going on amongst the Indians till they arrived in Santa Tecla on February 26, 1753. The first notice that they had of it was when they found themselves surrounded by a strong force of Indians. One of the commissaries, Don Juan de Echevarria, is known to have left a curious account of the proceedings, from which Dean Funes, Ibañez, and most of the writers on the subject must have copied.[281] Historians, like lawyers in conveyancing, catch errors one from another, and transmit them as truths or titles to posterity. Certain it is that Echevarria sent for the nearest Jesuit priest to mediate, and he luckily, or unluckily, proved to be that Father Thadeus Ennis, who played so prominent a part in the futile rising which the enemies of the Jesuits have chosen to dignify with the high-sounding title of the ‘Jesuit War’.