missionary fathers will not allow any of the inhabitants of Peru, whether Spaniards or others, Mestizos or even Indians, to come within their missions in Paraguay. Not with a view of concealing their transactions from the world; or that they are afraid lest others should supplant them of part of the products and manufactures; nor for any of those causes, which, even with less foundation, envy has dared to suggest; but for this reason, and a very prudent one it is, that their Indians, who being as it were new born from savageness and brutality, and initiated into morality and religion, may be kept steady in this state of innocence and simplicity. These Indians are strangers to sedition, pride, malice, envy, and other passions, which are so fatal to society. But, were strangers admitted to come among them, their bad examples would teach them what at present they are happily ignorant of; but should modesty, and the attention they pay to the instructions of their teachers, be once laid aside, the shining advantages of these settlements would soon come
to nothing; and such a number of souls, who now worship the true God in the beauty of holiness, and live in tranquillity and love (of which such slender traces are seen among civilized nations), would be again seduced into the paths of disorder and perdition."—"Hence it is, that the Jesuits have inflexibly adhered to their maxim of not admitting any foreigners among them: and in this they are certainly justified by the melancholy example of the other missions of Peru, whose decline from their former happiness and piety is the effect of an open intercourse[[62]]." It is also true, that the Indians did revolt, if that term can be applied to an act rendered unavoidable by the horrid avarice and despotism, which had conspired to sacrifice these happy and innocent tribes; but so far were the Jesuits from being instigators of the revolt, that they were in danger of being the victims of it, of which they were well aware. The facts would form a long and interesting
narrative; but it is only necessary, at present, to state a few particulars. A notion had been generated in the imagination of Pombal, the Portugueze minister, that, in the region of those happy settlements, there were mines of gold, unknown to the inhabitants. On these he cast his eyes, and commenced an intrigue for exchanging that territory with Spain, for others, at the immense distance of three hundred leagues. This being effected, he resolved, that the whole Indian population of Paraguay should be transported. The Jesuits were ordered to dispose the people to transmigrate. They, at first, ventured to represent modestly the difficulty of such a removal, and to conjure the officers of government to consider, what an undertaking it was, to transport, over such wildernesses, thirty thousand souls, with their cattle and effects, to a distance of nearly a thousand miles: they were sharply told, that obedience and not expostulation was expected. The consequences present a history, that might draw tears from the most obdurate. Now would have been the time for the
Jesuits to establish their empire, had the project imputed to them been founded. What was their conduct? Rather than become rebels, these faithful and humble subjects laboured earnestly to prevail upon the Indians to obey the mandate. Their exertions, however great, were not satisfactory, and new commands for haste were issued; a few months were allowed for an undertaking, which, if it could be executed at all, required years. This precipitation ruined the whole. The poor creatures, who were to be torn from their habitations, driven to extremities, began to distrust their own missionaries, and suspected them of acting in concert with the officers of Spain and Portugal. From that moment they looked upon them only as so many traitors, who were seeking to deliver them up to their old inveterate enemies. In the course of a short time, peace, order, and happiness, gave way to war, confusion, and misery. Those Indians, previously so flexible, so docile, insensibly lost that spirit of submission and simplicity, which had distinguished them,
and they every where prepared to make a vigorous resistance. The contest lasted a considerable time, during which the Indians experienced some success, but were ultimately defeated; some of them burnt their towns and betook themselves in thousands to the woods and mountains, where they perished miserably. After surveying all the plains, searching all the forests, digging all the mountains, sounding all the lakes and rivers, to establish the limits of the country, no mines were found, and the director of the scheme, Gomez, finding himself the dupe of his mad imagination and puerile credulity, wished it possible to conceal his shame and prevent his disgrace, by having the treaty between the two courts annulled. He even descended so low as to beseech the Jesuits themselves to endeavour to effect the annulling of it. They, of course, paid no attention to the entreaties of a man, whose insatiable avidity had caused the ruin of thirty thousand of their fellow creatures; and it was not till Charles III succeeded to the crown of Spain, that the treaty,
of which he had never approved, was annulled. There was now an end to the war in Paraguay, so fatal to its once happy, pious, and virtuous population, who, in consequence of it, lost not only their property, but their innocence, their piety, their docility, their gentleness, their simplicity, which were superseded by European debauchery, hypocrisy, and perfidy; vices that formed a new and almost insurmountable obstacle to the progress of religion, in those immense regions, where, for so many years, it had flourished[[63]].
Having shown the pious nature of the ambition, which inflamed the zeal of the Jesuits; the paternal nature of the commerce, which consisted in necessary commodities, taken in barter for the provision of their establishments, and not in rich products, of various countries, freighted on wealthy speculations; and having
shown also that their conduct, in excluding Europeans from the Paraguay settlements, was not the effect of a seditious disposition, I should now conclude this chapter, did I not, as I proceed, feel more and more a desire to remove the prejudices, which an extraordinary combination of passions and talents, operating on the progress of human affairs, has spread over the character of men, who appear to me to have been actuated by the sublimest motives, such as might be attributed to angels; the glory of God, and the benefit of mankind. The picture drawn by the abbé Barruel of one of the ex-Jesuits, who was murdered at Avignon, in one of the revolutionary massacres, is a genuine and convincing representation of a celestial spirit, which never could have been nourished in a corrupt society, which must have owed its qualities to an exalted one. This portrait cannot but be viewed with love and admiration, and the reader would think an apology for placing it before him superfluous.
"Avignon and the Comtat had been declared, by the assembly, united to France. Jourdan, surnamed Coup-tête, was at Avignon with his banditti. The unfortunate persons shut up in the prisons were devoted by him to death. An immense pit was opened to serve as their grave, and loads of sand were carried thither to cover the bodies. There were six hundred prisoners in the castle: the hour was fixed for putting them to death and throwing them, one after the other, into the pit. There was, at Avignon, a virtuous priest, one of those men for whom we feel, on earth, a veneration, like that paid to the saints in heaven. His name was Nolhac; he had formerly been rector of the noviciat of the Jesuits at Thoulouse, and was now eighty years old. For thirty years he had been the parish priest of St. Symphorien, a parish, which he had taken in preference, from its being that of the poor. During all these years, spent in the town, he had been the father and refuge of the indigent, the consoler of the afflicted, the adviser and friend of the