The political relations that existed among the Spanish colonies and the common dependence of the colonies on Spain presumed their possession of common ideas and purposes; and the writers who appeared in the different provinces generally observed affairs from a common point of view. The question of the time of their appearance deserves rather to be considered than the place of their residence. This is, of course, pre-eminently true of writers who were ecclesiastics. The Jesuits of Peru, New Granada, or Chile, for instance, wrote rather as Jesuits than as citizens of one province or another. The case of the soldier in this respect was not greatly different from that of the ecclesiastic, and in the first and middle period of the colonial history the larger part of the writers who were not ecclesiastics were soldiers. [Sidenote: Isolation of the colonies] [Sidenote: Missions to Spain] The long intervals between the sailings of vessels from Spain to America, or from America to Spain, made it extremely difficult for the king and the Council of the Indies to have correct information concerning the affairs of the Spanish dependencies. If the colonists wished an unworthy official removed or legislation reformed, it was necessary to send an agent to Madrid to enlighten the king and to persuade him to order the desired change. The difficulties of securing reforms by this method were very great; the long waiting for the departure of a ship, the weary weeks of the voyage from Chile around Cape Horn or over the Andes, across the Argentine plains, and by ship from Buenos Aires, or by way of Peru and the Isthmus, the interminable delays in obtaining an audience with the king or the Council of the Indies, the years sometimes spent by the authorities in reaching a decision regarding the proposition, and then the similar waiting and delays in securing the transmission of the decrees to America, in case the question was found to be of sufficient importance to warrant action by the supreme government. Priests were often found available for missions of this kind, for various reasons: they were presumed to be educated persons competent to present a case before the high authorities; they were supposed to have the confidence of the king; and it was assumed, in keeping with the rules of their profession, that they were not encumbered with families, and thus freer from bonds holding them to any given place than most secular persons. In the early part of the seventeenth century the Chileans departed from this practice, and selected a soldier, Alonso González de Nájera, to represent them before the king. [Sidenote: Nájera’s _El desengaño y reparo de la guerra del reino de Chile_]