these, the victims of war in the royal camps, where five, and sometimes six thousand men were detained. In 1767, when we bade America farewell, there were about an hundred thousand numbered in these towns. M. Louis Antoine de Bougainville, in his work entitled _Voyage autour du Monde_, printed at Neufchatel, in the year 1772, must be read with caution. He loads the Jesuits with egregious praises, but by and bye relates a thousand things as contrary to truth as dishonourable to us and the Guarany colonies. _Pessimum inimicorum genus laudantes_, says Tacitus, in the life of Agricola. I would not, however, willingly believe that an author, the distinguished favourite of Mars, of Neptune, and, unless I am deceived, of all the Muses, is to be classed with these knaves. True it is, he wrote falsely concerning us and the Guaranies; but rather deceived by the narrations of others, than through envy or malice. He never even saw the Guarany towns from a distance. I wish he had seen them! he would have painted the Indians and their missionaries in fairer colours. A little while, and but a little while, he remained in Buenos-Ayres, the port and threshold of Paraguay. There he drew the very worst notions, from the very worst sources, and gave them to Europe as the undoubted truth. Alas! alas! the friendliest well-wisher could not then, without danger, advocate our cause. The rising, not the setting sun is praised by the multitude, and such was then our fate. A Spaniard of no despicable authority has opened his mind in these words: "If every thing else which M. de Bougainville has written on the other provinces be as false as what he has said concerning Paraguay, let his history be carried to the spice shop to wrap pepper; yea, to a meaner office."