“Bucarelli replaced the exiled missionaries by priests from the different Mendicant orders; but the temporal authority was not vested in their hands—this was vested in lay-administrators.... Here ended the prosperity of these celebrated communities—here ended the tranquillity and welfare of the Guaranies. The administrators, hungry ruffians from the Plata, or fresh from Spain, neither knew the language nor had patience to acquire it. It sufficed for them that they could make their commands intelligible by the whip. The priests had no authority to check the enormities of these wretches; nor were they always irreproachable themselves. A year had scarce elapsed before the Viceroy discovered that the Guaranies, for the sake of escaping from this intolerable state of oppression, were beginning to emigrate into the Portuguese territories, and actually soliciting protection from their old enemies. Upon the first alarm of so unexpected an occurrence, Bucarelli displaced all the administrators; but the new administrators were as brutal and rapacious as their predecessors; the governor was presently involved in a violent struggle with the priests, touching their respective powers, and the confusion which ensued, evinced how wisely the Jesuits had acted in combining the spiritual and temporal authorities.... The Viceroy then instituted a new form of administration. The Indians were declared exempt from all personal service, not subject to the Encomienda system, and entitled to possess property—a right of which, Bucarelli said, they had been deprived by the Jesuits; for this governor affected to emancipate the Guaranies, and talked of placing them under the safeguard of the law, and purifying the Reductions from tyranny! They were to labour for the community under the direction of the administrators; and as an encouragement to industry, the Reductions were opened to traders during the months of February, March, and April. The end of all this was, that compulsory and cruel labour left the Indians neither time nor inclination—neither heart nor strength—to labour for themselves. The arts which the Jesuits had introduced, were neglected and forgotten; their gardens lay waste; their looms fell to pieces; and in these communities, where the inhabitants for many generations had enjoyed a greater exemption from physical and moral evil than any other inhabitants of the globe, the people were now made vicious and miserable. Their only alternative was to remain, and to be treated like slaves, or fly to the woods, and take their chance as savages.”