On the 24th of December, 1726, was founded the city proper of Montevideo. Its inception was sufficiently modest. Indeed, the spot commenced its urban existence on a human diet of seven families translated from Buenos Aires for the purpose. A little later twenty families were brought from the Canary Islands to add to the humble population. It is not a little curious to read how, even in those early days, the spirit of colonial enterprise was already manifest in the way that is now considered most up-to-date. Intending immigrants to Montevideo were each offered free transport from Buenos Aires, plots in the city and holdings in the Campo, two hundred head of cattle, one hundred sheep, and free cartage of building material. They were offered, beyond, tools, agricultural implements, and a remission of taxes for a certain period. The whole savours strongly of a modern immigration department. In any case, the inducements offered were considerable. Two years after its foundation Montevideo received an important reinforcement of citizens, when thirty families from the Canary Islands and from Galicia were introduced into the place. Thus the small town was already beginning to make its mark upon the surrounding country, and at the end of 1728 it could count over two hundred inhabitants, four hundred troops, and a thousand Indians employed principally in the works of fortification. A couple of years later it was deemed worthy of a corporation. Nevertheless, in this very year the growing settlement all but came to a bloody and untimely end. A rising of the Charrúa Indians in the immediate neighbourhood of Montevideo resisted all the efforts made to subdue it. Over one hundred Spaniards were slain and the royal forces put to rout. The natives, drunk with success, were on the eve of entering Montevideo and of slaughtering the inhabitants, when a Jesuit missionary, Padre Herán, intervened, and prevailed on the Indians to desist from their purpose. Scarcely had this danger passed when another, and remoter, came into being to take its place. The restless Portuguese having given peace to the Banda Oriental for ten years, doubtless considered the period unduly prolonged, and thus invaded the Rio Grande on the northern frontier. Lavala's successor, Don Miguel de Salcedo, a ruler as impotent as the first had been strong, contented himself with besieging Colonia as a counter-stroke, while the Portuguese forces were left free to complete the conquest of Rio Grande. This they continued to hold, despite the terms of an armistice arranged in 1737 between Spain and Portugal.