An anonymous Frenchman, in a book intitled, _Nouvelles Pièces intéressantes et nécessaires_, says, page 18, "I will now show you the origin of Nicholas, King of Paraguay, being supposed a lay-brother. Some Spanish countrymen happened, in the course of conversation, to mention the late insurrection on the banks of the Uruguay." "Verily," says one, "if the Jesuits be wise, they will put the government of the Indians into the hands of Joseph Fernandez, a lay-brother of theirs." This Joseph was a native of Spain, formerly lieutenant of some light-armed cavalry of the king's, and a man of great military science. We never find a story lose by carrying. The vain supposition of putting the Indians under the conduct of this lay-brother was reported in such a manner that what one said _should be_ done, another said _was_ done, and the rest giving implicit credit to their asseverations, a prodigious tale grew out of nothing. This Joseph Fernandez, during the disturbances of the Uruguay, was master of the public school at Tucuman, and necessarily remarked by the whole of this populous town, if he intermitted his attendance for a single day. Having held the office of school-master many years, he managed an estate in the neighbourhood of the city, and so diligent was he in the exercise of his calling, that I could swear to his never having seen the land of the Guaranies of which he was reported King. To corroborate my account I shall subjoin a few circumstances relative to this affair. From the seven towns which were garrisoned on their surrender by the Spaniards, upwards of thirty thousand Indians departed. Among all who witnessed these innocent exiles, their tender infants, and their feeble old men, not one but shed a tear of compassion. Fifteen thousand of the emigrants were received by the towns of the Parana, and lodged in hovels of straw,—they whose former homes had been of stone, well-built, and commodious. Nearly the same number were dispersed over the plains of the Uruguay, where numerous herds of cattle supplied the means of subsistence. The towns at length evacuated, were offered by the Spanish Governour to the Portugueze, but not accepted. Amongst other ways of accounting for this refusal on the part of the Portugueze, it was reported, that, after exploring the lands of the Uruguay, they found them destitute of the gold and silver they expected to find there. At this crisis of affairs died Barbara, Queen of Spain, a Portugueze by birth, and through an overweening attachment to her own country, a strenuous advocate for the exchange of lands in Paraguay. Not long after, Ferdinand the Sixth followed his consort to the tomb. Charles the Third succeeded his brother in right of inheritance. Whilst King of the Two Sicilies he had disapproved these treaties which settled the exchange of lands in America with Portugal; and on his succeeding to the throne, he utterly abrogated them, as fraught with danger to the monarchy.