[267] Though Ibañez (‘Republica Jesuitica’, tome i., cap. i.) says: ‘This treaty caused entire satisfaction to all the world except the English, who feared their commerce would suffer by it (i.e., by the closing of the Colonia del Sacramento as an entry for smuggled goods), and the Jesuits.’
Raynal, also an ex-Jesuit, but a man of far higher character than Ibañez, says (tome iii., lib. 97): ‘This treaty met censure on both sides, the ministers in Lisbon themselves alleging that it was a false policy to sacrifice the Colonia del Sacramento, the clandestine commerce of which amounted to two millions of dollars a year . . . for possessions whose advantages were uncertain and position remote. The outcries were even stronger in Madrid. There they imagined that the Portuguese would soon rule all along the Uruguay . . . and from thence penetrate up the rivers into Tucuman, Chile, and Potosi.’
[268] Quoting the Pope who advised St. Augustine on his first mission visit to England, to convert the natives to Christianity, to go slowly.
[269] D. Martin de Echaria, Don Rafael de Menedo, and Don Marcos de Lauazabel.
[270] From a letter preserved at Simancas (Legajo 7,447), written by P. Diego Palacios to P. Luiz de Altamirano, dated San Miguel, June 20, 1752, it appears that there were in the territory of the seven towns plantations of yerba trees, cotton, and valuable woods.
[271] Archivo de Simancas, Legajo 7,378, folio 17—a long and curious letter.
[272] ‘Stroner’ may have been ‘Stoner’, in which case he must have been an Englishman. There were few English names amongst the Paraguayan Jesuits, if one except Juan Bruno de Yorca (John Brown of York), Padre Esmid (Smith), the supposititious ‘Stoner’, and the doubtful Taddeo Ennis, who, though said to be a Bohemian, was not impossibly a Milesian.
[273] Dean Funes, ‘Ensayo de la Historia Civil de Paraguay’, etc., book v., p. 52.
[274] They also said, in a memorial presented to the Marquis of Valdelirios by the Provincial Barreda, preserved at Simancas (Legajo 7,447), ‘That they had voluntarily made themselves vassals of the King of Spain—despues de Christianarnos, nos hizimos voluntariamente vasallos de nuestro Catholico Rey de España para que amparandonos con su poder fomentase nuestra devota Christiandad.’ It was not likely, therefore, that they would voluntarily become subject to the Portuguese, their most bitter persecutors.
[275] José Barreda, the Father Provincial of the missions, in a curious letter under date of August 2nd, 1753, tells the Marquis of Valdelirios that he fears not only that the 30,000 Indians resident in the seven towns may rebel, but that they may be joined by the Indians of the other reductions, and that it is possible they may all apostatize and return to the woods. Brabo, in the notes to his ‘Atlas de Cartas Geograficas de los Paises de la America Meridianal’ (Madrid, 1872), gives a synopsis of this letter, which formed part of his collection, and contained the greatest quantity of interesting papers on the Jesuits in Paraguay and Bolivia which has ever been brought together. In 1872, after publishing his ‘Atlas’, his ‘Coleccion de Documentos’, and his ‘Inventarios’, he presented his papers (more than 30,000 in number) to the Archivo Historico Nacional of Madrid. There they remain, and form a rich mine for dogged scholars who have not passed their youth on horseback with the lazo in their hands.