The aggressive and bloody policy of Parilla, Mendoza, and Cuervo undoubtedly widened the divergence between the civil and ecclesiastical authorities, and brought to nought the pacific policy of the latter. Inspired by fervid zeal, the good padres stretched the mantle of charity to its utmost over their converts, bringing into the fold all whom they could coax or coerce, and clinging unto all whom they could subsidize or suppress. Uninformed or misinformed concerning the extent of Seriland and the numbers and real traits of its inhabitants on their native heath, and professionally prone to see the most favorable side of the situation, they imagined themselves making conquest over a cruel and refractory tribe; yet careful review of the records indicates that they deluded themselves, and in some measure distorted history, through overweening notions concerning their progress in evangelizing the Seri. Actually, their converts were the lame and halt and blind left behind in the harder-pressed raids, captives taken in battle by the intrepid Escalante and other soldiers, apostates and outlaws ostracized and driven off by their fellows, spies sent out to find the way for further rapacity,[113] and the general riffraff and offscouring of the tribe, who esteemed parasitism above the hereditary independence of their kin. This condition is attested by later examples; it is also attested by the rapidly growing divergence of the ecclesiastical and civil policies; it is equally attested by at least partial recognition of the situation on the part of several of the padres: Villa-Señor, writing about 1745, parades the mission and two pueblos of the tribe, and says, “All the Ceris Indians are Christians” (“Todos los Indios Ceris, son Cristianos”);[114] yet he adds that “it is rare to find one who does not cling to the idolatry of their paganism”, and elsewhere describes the great “despoblado” extending to the coast as inhabited by pagan Seri and Tepoka Indians (“habitado de los Indios Seris, y Tepoca, Gentiles”).[115] Venegas, writing about 1750, refers to “the Seris and Tepocas, who are either infidels or imperfectly reduced, and tho’ Father Salva Tierra civilized them and the missionaries have baptized many, they still retain such a love for their liberty and customs as all the labours of the missionaries have not been able to obliterate, so that it is impossible to incorporate them with the missions by mildness”;[116] and his last word of them notes their massacre of Padres Tello and Rohen in Caborca, and ends with an invocation “for the complete reduction of these unhappy savages, now involved in the shadow of death”.[117] So, also, the talented author of “Rudo Ensayo”, writing in 1763, says of the Seri: