that had been subjugated in _Paraguay_ lived an age before in a state of liberty, without knowing of such community of goods, without the necessity of being directed by any person, nor of being incited or forced to labour, and without a public storehouse or distribution of the harvest; and that, too, notwithstanding they had to support the charge of the commanderies that took the sixth part of their annual labour. It seems, then, they were not such children, nor were they so incapable as the Fathers tried to make them appear. But were such incapacity certain, from their not having sufficient time in a century and a half to correct such defects, one of the two following causes appears reasonable,--either the administration of the Jesuits was contrary to the civilization of the Indians, or they were such a people as were incapable of emerging from their primitive state of infancy.” Previously to the foundation of the Jesuit _reductions_, posts had been established in various parts by the Spaniards for purposes of trade and local government. Several of these were in the neighbourhood of the Jesuits’ settlements. But the order would not tolerate the presence of Europeans near them. They complained in pathetic tones of the hardships endured by the natives at the hands of the avaricious Spanish superintendents, who not only exacted from them one-sixth part of their produce, but showed them a pernicious example in the way of morality, and thus interfered with the Jesuits’ religious teaching. These complaints having been forwarded to the court of Spain, the superintendents were withdrawn and their posts abolished, thus leaving the Jesuits in sole control of the territory of _Misiones_. This decision is the more remarkable, inasmuch as the Jesuits were not only not under Spanish rule, but were not even for the most part of the nation which had produced their founder. Nor did they pay tax or tribute to the crown. But the exercise of absolute power within their own territory did not satisfy the ambitious order. They sought to make their influence felt and visible everywhere, and in so seeking paved the way for their downfall. Their first idea was to gain control over the rising generation by giving gratuitous instruction to the youth of wealthy families; and, warned by their previous experience, they prepared themselves against future reverses by raising from amongst their neophytes a very considerable standing army. They could at a very early period of their reign bring into the field a force of some seven thousand men. CHAPTER XVII. _ENGLISH NAVIGATORS IN SOUTH AMERICA, HAWKINS, DRAKE, AND RALEIGH._ 1564-1618.