Why, you will say, did not regular troops from Spain keep watch in the colonies to repress the savages? I should not approve of this either. A whole army would scarce suffice to such an extensive province, and, divided into so many parts, what could it effect against a multitude of enemies? The soldiers would indeed be superior to the Americans in the skilful management of fire-arms, but very far inferior in the arts of swimming and riding, and in tolerance of fatigue, heat, hunger, and thirst. Incumbered with tents, waggons, boats, or pontoons, which they could not dispense with, they would be unable to pursue the flying horsemen of the savages, still less to reach their hordes, which are sometimes two hundred leagues distant from the cities. Certain it is that the Spanish dragoons appointed to guard the city of Buenos-Ayres were very unwilling to go out against the southern savages, from whom they oftener gained wounds than victory. Every one knows that the regiment of foot sent as supplies to the city of Sta. Fè, when it was almost destroyed by the Abipones and Mocobios, were of no service whatever, as the savages always cunningly evaded a stationary fight with them. I do not deny that, under Pizarro and Cortez, the Europeans slew, routed, and subjugated innumerable Indians, but not equestrian Indians. Were these same heroes to return at this day to fight the Abipones, Mocobios, Tobas, and other equestrian people of Paraguay, I should augur them more trouble and less glory. Those first Spaniards who entered America, mounted on horses, emitting lightning from their swords, and thunder from their fire-arms, and furnished with whiskers, appeared to the beardless, unarmed Americans, a new race of men, exempted from death, whom they either avoided by flight, or, if that were impracticable, conciliated by submission. The savages, who now make war against the Spaniards, daily see how possible it is for them both to be conquered, and to die, and can make use of iron spears, and swift horses, to elude attacks, or make them themselves.