remunerated them for their assistance in the excursions undertaken against Chaco; but the savage tribes, thus torn from their native soil, conceived new hatred of the Spanish name, and have persisted to this very day in revenging the injury done them by the Governor, continuing ever hostile, ever mischievous to the whole province. It cannot be doubted but that this colony was planted by the Governor in a most inauspicious season; for at the very time that he committed the Mocobios to the religious instructions of the Fathers, he persecuted their countrymen in Chaco with the utmost bitterness; nor was the situation of the colony approved by prudent persons. The city Esteco, which was a few years after destroyed by an earthquake, abounded in public vices proportionable to its wealth and power. The neighbouring Mocobios, who were more powerfully impelled to vice by the example of the licentious and intemperate, than to virtue by the exhortations of the Fathers, thought themselves justified in doing what they saw practised openly and with impunity by the Christian inhabitants of the city. This, amongst others, was the principal reason why the town of St. Xavier, founded in our times, was removed to thirty leagues distance from the city of Sta. Fè, that examples of wickedness, which are never wanting in the most virtuous cities, might not meet the eyes of the Mocobios. The Fathers were obliged to be extremely careful in preventing their Indian disciples from associating promiscuously with other Christians, in many of whom they would discover vices and impurities which they themselves were utterly ignorant of, or regarded with execration: for Spaniards are not the sole inhabitants of Paraguay; a mixed breed of Spaniards, Negroes, and Indians, are commonly to be seen there. Persons of good character, and respectable family, are never denied access to our colonies; on the contrary, they are well received by us, and permitted to lodge in our houses, sit at our tables, and survey any part of the town at their pleasure. But it was ordered by royal enactments that none of the dregs of society should gain admittance into the Indian towns, such being the very men most calculated to pervert or delude the stupid Indians. To keep the town clear of these nuisances, no care and vigilance on the part of the Fathers could be deemed superfluous. Fellows of this description, though perhaps devoid of any evil intent in their coming, seldom depart without the commission of mischief: for they either cajole the Indians out of their clothes, and other property, or corrupt them by indecent jokes and actions, or, as is frequently the case, steal and carry home young men, marriageable girls, and even married women, to serve as domestic slaves, and often for worse purposes. Within two years seventy boys and girls were carried into captivity from the town of St. Stanislaus. The Bishop and Governor, when informed by me of the fact, threatened the raptors