All these, and many more perhaps, employed in establishing the religion of Christ amongst the various nations of Paraguay, courageously parted with their lives, or shed their blood in the cause. Happy they who were allowed to die for the sake of the Gospel! We who survived, though partakers of their toils and dangers, seemed unworthy of so noble a fate as our comrades in not being permitted to end our lives in Paraguay. The royal mandate by which we were ordered to return to Europe, for reasons still unknown to us, being, in the words of the decree, confined to the King's own breast, was bitterer to us than any death; it did in fact hasten that of many who are at this moment floating on the ocean, or who fell victims to a voyage of four, nay of five months. Out of some thirty Jesuits who were carried to Europe from the port of Buenos-Ayres, five only reached Cadiz half alive, not to mention many others who underwent the same fate in sailing from other countries of Asia or America. All well disposed persons grieved that men distinguished for piety and knowledge of various kinds, who had rendered such signal services to Christianity and to America, and who had been apostolic fishers of savage nations, should become at last the prey of sea-fishes. I, who, though exiled from Paraguay, have by God's grace been preserved till now in my native land, derive the greatest satisfaction from the recollection of the toils which I encountered for many years in endeavouring to make the Abipones and Guaranies acquainted with the will of God; though my success never answered to my wishes, especially amongst the Abipones, who, like other equestrian savages, are of an indocile and untractable disposition. Yet no one can call the labour we spent on them subject of regret, or the colonies useless in which they were placed; for besides that by them tranquillity was restored to the whole province, many of the Abipones, infants as well as adults, were initiated into the rites of the Romish church, and brought over to peace and civilization. Nor can it be doubted that many who died ere they enjoyed the use of their reason, but had been baptized beforehand, were admitted into the society of the blest; I also think that many adults who received that holy ablution obtained the same felicity. I am not acquainted with the exact number of Abipones, who were baptized in those four colonies. In the soil of the Guaranies the harvest was much more abundant. From the year 1610, till the year 1768, 702,086 Guaranies were baptized by the hands of the Jesuits, not including those who received baptism from men of our order in the ancient towns destroyed by the Mamalukes, most of which contained many thousands of Christians. About two thousand persons, infants as well as adults, were baptized by me alone.