Nor should you imagine, that these things, relating to the Brazilians, are calumniously represented or exaggerated by Spanish writers. The Most Faithful King Joseph I. himself confesses, in a decree issued on the 6th of July, in the year 1755, and inserted into the new code of Portugueze laws, that many millions of Indians were destroyed, and that, at the present time, very few Brazilian towns remain, and equally few inhabitants. He adds, that this was occasioned by the depriving the Indians of their liberty, contrary to the laws of Portugal. He declares the Indians free, orders the captives to be set at liberty, &c. Likewise other pious kings of Spain and Portugal, his predecessors, prohibited all robbery, sale, oppression, and persecution of the Indians whatsoever, under the severest penalties, by repeated laws. Many governours of provinces urged, but rarely brought about the observance of these decrees. For innumerable persons, who profit by the captivity and services of the Indians, care more about riches than about conscience and honour. The barbarity of these men towards the Indians was pourtrayed in lively and faithful colours by the Jesuit Father Antonio Vieyra, who preached on this subject at the Court of Lisbon, in the year 1662, when his persecutors had turned him out of the province of Maranham, on account of his defending the liberty of the Indians. As the royal laws were disregarded in Brazil, in order to eradicate this abominable custom of enslaving and ill-treating the Indians, the King found it necessary to have recourse to the threats and penalties of the Pope. Paul III., Urban VIII. and Benedict XIV. threatened to excommunicate all who should presume, in the words of the Roman Court, to reduce the Indians to a state of servitude; to sell, buy, exchange, or give them away; to separate them from their wives and children, or in any way whatsoever to deprive them of their liberty, or retain them in servitude; or to do the aforesaid under any pretext whatsoever of lending them counsel, aid, favour, or service; or to declare, or teach it to be lawful so to do, or to effect it in any way whatsoever. All this was prohibited, under pain of excommunication, in favour of all the Indians then dwelling in the provinces of Brazil and Paraguay, and at the river Plata, as well as in all other regions both of the western and southern Indies. The Pontifical and Royal letters against the oppression of the Indians were intended also to correct and intimidate the Spaniards, who, though they had formerly been less eager in captivating the Indians, were accustomed nevertheless to make use of them as slaves, in opposition to the commands of the king. It is incredible how wickedly they strove to disturb the colonies of the Chiquitos and other savages, because they feared that no Indians would be left in the woods for them to take and sell. For from this traffic of the Indians many thousands of