The Abipones sometimes alone, sometimes in conjunction with the Mocobios, distressed the city of Sta. Fè, which lay nearest them, with daily incursions, and very nearly destroyed it. Many of the country people were slain, and not a few led into captivity. Numbers, fearing that the same fortune awaited them, migrated, with their families, into safer places. Things came to such an extremity, that the inhabitants began to deliberate publicly about deserting the city. Amongst many others, the rich estate of St. Antonio was entirely ruined. Innumerable cattle, of every description, were seized and dispersed, and their owners slain. The waggons were plundered of the goods which they contained. When the security of trade, the only source of riches, was destroyed at one blow, what could ensue but famine and scarcity? The roads were so beset with savages, both by day and by night, that no one could stir out of his own house with safety, or fetch provisions from the country for the use of the city. The citizens themselves were kept in daily fear, they so often beheld troops of Abipones and Mocobios in their streets. The very market-place was stained with the blood of the unarmed. In the year 1754, on the 10th of April, as I was revisiting this city, a noble matron, venerable for her years, and ancient family, accosted me, saying, "Oh! Fathers, what gratitude do we owe to you, who have tamed these ferocious nations, on whose account we hardly dared to breathe for so many years! I scarcely ever remember this week," pursued she, "namely the last in Lent, passed without slaughters in this city. When a pious crowd of supplicants passed in procession through the streets, how often did the armed savages rush on them, like lightning! And they seldom departed without bloody hands. I still have to lament a brother, slain as he trimmed the altar, in the court before those buildings; such was the face of affairs at that time. For the tranquillity and security, which we at present enjoy, we are indebted to you, by whom the Abipones and Mocobios have been appeased and civilized."