González de Nájera arrived in Chile in 1601, and passed almost immediately into service on the frontier, to a fort constructed on the Bio-Bio. He remained five years in this service, and during this period acquired extensive information concerning the most vital affairs of the province. In Madrid he rendered to the authorities an account of his observations and experience, and in this manner set forth the conditions of society and the government in Chile. From Spain he was sent to Italy where he completed his work called _El desengaño y reparo de la guerra del reino de Chile_. Regarding this work he affirms that he has not written a history as a consecutive narrative, but reasoned opinions and discourses on the points most essential for the support of the conquest in the kingdom of Chile.[94] The title given by Nájera to his writing indicates his opinion that the directors of Chilean affairs had been deceived, and that he would undertake to show them their error. He presents a review of the state of the war, and proposes the means that appear to him most suitable for terminating it. In inquiring into these means he finds it especially important that the decree providing for the enslavement of the Araucanians should be maintained in force. Nájera’s work was finally published in Madrid, in 1866, in the Volume XLVIII of the _Colección de documentos inéditos para la historia de España_.[95] II [Sidenote: Pineda y Bascuñán] Among the soldiers of the early part of the seventeenth century who became writers, Francisco Núñez de Pineda y Bascuñán, a native of Chile, acquired a position of distinction. He was born in 1607. His father was a soldier, who for more than forty years was engaged in military campaigns on the frontier. Francisco’s school years prior to the age of sixteen were passed in the house of the Jesuits at Arauco. During these years he received instruction in Latin and such elements of philosophy as were then given in the schools. At the age of sixteen he left the school and was given a place in a company of Spanish infantry. In a battle with the Indians he was severely wounded and captured. During the seven months of his captivity his amiability and his friendly intercourse with the Indians immediately in charge of him saved him from the machinations of those who wished to take his life. He returned to the troops and was later promoted to the rank of maestre de campo. After his long military service he found himself in extreme poverty in the last years of his life. Finally he received from the viceroy an appointment as corregidor in Peru, where he died in 1682, before he had derived any advantage from the office that had been conferred upon him. [Sidenote: _Cautiverio feliz_] [Sidenote: Quality of Bascuñán’s book]