I can truly say, that my most earnest endeavour was to inspire the Abipones with love and confidence towards the Spaniards. "Had they not come to Paraguay," said I, "you would still be unacquainted with horses, oxen, and dogs, all which you take such delight in. You would have been obliged to creep along like tortoises. You could never have tasted the flesh of oxen, but must have subsisted entirely on that of wild animals. How laborious would you think it to hunt otters without hounds, which likewise by their barking prevent you from being surprized by the enemy in your sleep! Horses, your delight, your deities, if I may be allowed to make use of the expression, your chief instruments of war, hunting, travelling, and sportive contests, have been bestowed on you by the Spaniards. But all this is nothing in comparison with the light of divine religion kindled for you by that people, whose anxiety for your happiness has led them to offer you teachers of Christianity brought from Europe in their ships, and at their expense. From all this, it is evident what love and fidelity you ought to show to the Spaniards, who have conferred such benefits on you, and are so studious of your welfare. I do not mean to deny that they once turned their arms against yourselves and your ancestors, but you, not they, were the aggressors. The Spaniards will henceforward return love for love, if, ceasing to cherish hatred and suspicion towards them, you will cultivate their friendship by all the means in your power." These ideas I constantly strove to inculcate into the minds of my disciples, but though none of them ventured openly to contradict me, they gave more credit to their eyes than their ears, to the deeds of the Spaniards than to the words of the Missionaries, and sometimes in familiar conversation during our absence whispered their sentiments with regard to the Spaniards, who, they said, attend solely to their own interests, and care little for the convenience of the Indians; preserve peace only so long as they fear war; and are most to be dreaded when they speak the fairest; whose deeds correspond not with their words, and whose conduct is inconsistent with the law they profess to observe. When reproved for stealing horses from the estates of the Spaniards, they denied it to be a theft, affirming that their country was usurped by the Spaniards, and that whatever was produced there belonged of right to them. Your whole stock of rhetoric was exhausted before you could eradicate these erroneous notions from the minds of the Indians, which, however, by excessive toil was at length effected; for all of them knew that, unless they promised peace and sincere friendship to the Spaniards, they would never be received into our colonies, and have the benefit of our instructions. All the Indians in America intrusted to our care were soldiers and tributaries of the Spanish Monarch, not slaves of private individuals. This is to be