Such are the broad features of the American missions. We may as well add, that the Jesuits thought it prudent to refuse admittance into the Company to all the aborigines, in order that they might not lose the prestige which they exercised over them. We must also warn our readers not to imagine that the Jesuits had confined their establishment to the Reductions of Paraguay. Paraguay was their own private kingdom, we may say, but they had also magnificent establishments of all kinds throughout all South America. Particular incidents, minute details, miracles, wonders, as related by the Jesuits in their histories, and in their letters, _annuæl_ or _edifiantes_, we shall not repeat; nor shall we record some partial acts of cruelty and wickedness with which some of the Jesuits have been reproached. We think we have given as fair an idea as possible of the general character of the missions, and this is all that can be done in a general history of the order. As we shall afterwards have occasion to speak at some length of the commercial operations of the Jesuits, and of the ultimate fate of the Reductions, we shall now bring this chapter to an end. CHAPTER XIV. 1617-1700. INTERNAL CAUSES OF DECLINE. We have seen in one of our former chapters, that during Acquaviva’s _generalate_, there broke out several partial insurrections against the exorbitant power of the General, and that, although they were quelled, they had left in the community seeds of disobedience and a spirit of independence, which it was to be feared would manifest itself again at the first favourable moment. In fact, the instant it was no more restrained by the iron hand of the inflexible Acquaviva, it pervaded all the classes of the order, especially the highest, that of the professed, and a turbulent and haughty aristocracy took, in the management of the Society, the place reserved by Loyola for the all-powerful General. The character of the immediate successors of Acquaviva greatly facilitated such an innovation, which ultimately produced the ruin of the order. Vitelleschi, Caraffa, Piccolomini, Gottifredi, were not the proper men to govern this brotherhood, now ascended to the height of its power and pride. They were neither saints nor rogues enough to succeed in the undertaking. They did not inspire veneration enough by their pious and saintly life as did Borgia, nor respect and admiration by their superior genius in governing the community, as Lainez and Acquaviva had done, and the consciousness of their own insufficiency rendered them still less suited to the task.