The anxieties of his old age in poverty appear to have been relieved by his recollection of the kindness he had received at the hands of his captors, and in this period he wrote of the adventures of his youth, and of his reflexions on the Spanish military system as applied in Chile. These were the general topics of his book called _Cautiverio feliz y razón de las guerras dilatadas de Chile_. This book was “one of the works most extensively read in Chile and even in Peru during the colonial period.”[96] It contains a record of the honourable service of a valiant and faithful soldier, and was rendered especially attractive by the story of the author’s captivity. But, in keeping with the spirit of his time, he departed from the plan of a simple narrative and undertook to impart moral and religious instruction and to make a display of erudition. This defect is recognized by Medina, who affirms that if the author had limited himself simply to relating in his admirably simple and true style the story of his adventures among the Indians of Arauco, his work would have merited a place in the literature of any of the most cultivated nations of any time.[97] Still he has been able to give a dramatic interest to his narrative by keeping alive in the reader’s mind the inquiry whether Maulicán who promised to secure his escape, or the caciques who proposed to kill him, will be successful. One of the objects of the author in writing this book was to set forth the manner in which the war was conducted in Chile and the fate of those who became victims of the injustice committed in this war, and at the same time to show the causes that made the Araucanian war interminable. In this part of the work he made use of his own experience, revealing by his narrative the repeated abuses and instances of neglect that contributed to keep the Indians on a war footing. This feature of the narrative throws an especially important side light on the Spanish administration of Chilean affairs. [Sidenote: The verse in _Cautiverio feliz_] Throughout the _Cautiverio feliz_ there are various passages in verse, some of which are translations from the poetical books of the Bible, or from Virgil, Horace, Ovid, or other poets, or are original verses written by Bascuñán. Eyzaguirre calls attention to the fact that while in some of these original verses there are “elevated ideas and a sublime conception,” in “almost none of them does the author sustain the elevation of thought to the end,” and cites as an instance the sonnet to the Virgin on his release from captivity. “At the first glance,” he writes, “one recognizes the notable difference between the last part, ordinary and commonplace in its conceptions as well as disagreeable in its rhythm and the rest of the composition which is certainly beautiful and majestic.”[98] The following is the sonnet in question (Discurso V, cap. xiv): [Sidenote: Illustrative sonnet]