"God preserve your Excellency, say we, the Cabildo, and all the Caciques and Indians, men, women, and children, of San Luis, as your Excellency is our father. The Corregidor Santiago Pindo and Don Pantaleon Cayuari, in their love for us, have written to us for certain birds which they desire we will send them for the King:--we are very sorry not to have them to send, inasmuch as they live where God made them--in the forests,--and fly far away from us, so that we cannot catch them. "Withal we are the vassals of God and of the King, and always desirous to fulfil the wishes of his ministers in what they desire of us. Have we not been three times as far as Colonia with our aid!--and do we not labour in order to pay tribute!--and now we pray to God that that best of birds--the Holy Ghost--may descend upon the King, and enlighten him, and may the Holy Angel preserve him! "So, confiding in your Excellency, Señor Governor, our proper father, with all humility, and with tears, we beg that the Sons of St. Ignatius, the Fathers of the Society of Jesus, may continue to live with us and remain always amongst us. This we beg your Excellency to supplicate of the King for us for the love of God:--all this people,--men, women, and young persons, and especially the poor,--pray for the same with tears in their eyes. "As for the friars and priests sent to replace them, we love them not. The Apostle St. Thomas, the minister of God, so taught our forefathers in these same parts,--for these friars and priests have no care for us. The Sons of San Ignatius, yes,--they, from the very first, took care of our forefathers, and taught them, and baptized them, and preserved them for God and the King:--but for these friars and priests, in no manner do we wish for them. "The Fathers of the Society of Jesus know how to bear with our weaknesses, and we were happy under them for God's sake and the King's:--if your Excellency, good Señor Governor, will listen to our prayer, and grant our request, we will pay larger tribute in the _yerba caa-mini_.[54] "We are not slaves, and we desire to say that the Spanish custom is not to our liking,--for every one to take care of himself, instead of assisting one another in their daily labours.[55] This is the plain truth which we say to your Excellency, that it may be attended to:--if it is not, this people, like the rest, will be lost. This to your Excellency, to the King, and to God,--we shall go to the Devil!--and at the hour of our death where will be our help? "Our children, who are in the country and in the towns, when they return and find not the Sons of San Ignatius, will flee away to the deserts and to the forests to do evil. Already it would seem that the people of San Joaquim, San Estanislaus, San Ferdinand, and Tymbo, are lost,--we know it well, and we say so to your Excellency:--neither can the Cabildos ever restore these people for God and the King as they were.