Four years had now elapsed since Valdelirios had come upon his mission, but its business was yet far from having been brought to a conclusion; and so many difficulties had attended every stage of its progress that there was now no great disposition shown on either side to obviate minor obstructions. The presence of Gomes Freyre was required in _Brazil_; and thus the commission separated without having effected anything but a very large outlay of money and an immense amount of misery to the _Guaranís_, which race had been settled for one hundred and twenty-four years in the “Reductions.” [Sidenote: 1761.] Events in Europe produced yet further delays in the settlement of this question, so important to the portion of South America which was concerned in its solution. By the death of the Spanish King and Queen, the friendly feeling which had united the two courts of Spain and Portugal was at an end, and it was succeeded by one of mistrust. Both courts, however, and both Governments, were heartily weary of the question of demarcation; and, in order to put an end to it, at any rate for the meantime, they agreed to annul the Treaty of Limits--the treaties which had been superseded by it again coming into force. The Portuguese were, on the whole, satisfied with this result, because they believed that _Colonia_, which they now retained, was of greater importance to them than the proposed increase of territory in the interior. The Spaniards were likewise pleased, because they imagined that their neighbours had stolen a march upon them in the Treaty of Limits, through the influence of their Portuguese Queen. The actual result of the inglorious and wasteful war of the Seven Reductions was that the Jesuits, who had been falsely accused of fomenting the resistance of the _Guaranís_, had now imposed upon them the task of collecting the scattered remnants of that people, and of encouraging them to repair their ruined towns and recultivate their devastated country. CHAPTER XV. _BRAZIL; EXPULSION OF THE JESUITS FROM PORTUGAL AND BRAZIL._ 1759-1767. The reign of Jesuitism in Europe was drawing towards its close. For two hundred years the Society had exercised unbounded influence over kings and courts. Its machinery for governing was so perfect, and its system was so subtle that it began to appear to statesmen that unless this ambitious order were speedily and effectually opposed, it must soon dominate Christendom. The alternative to its suppression was that European civilization must be assimilated to that which the Jesuits had introduced in _China_ and in _Paraguay_. The doctrines of Ignatius Loyola admitted of nothing short of an absolute obedience of Papal authority. Kings were afraid to act without the approbation of an Order whose system of _espionage_ was so complete as even to baffle all secret confidential intercourse between sovereigns and statesmen.