In the jurisdiction of the Governour of Buenos-Ayres, are also thirty Guarany towns, on or near the banks of the Parana, the Uruguay, and the Paraguay. By geographers they are called Doctrines, or the land of Missions; but the ignorant or malicious style them, in their books, the kingdom of the Jesuits, a republic rebellious to the Catholic King, painting them in the blackest colours which envy and unbridled calumny can suggest. Let me be excused, if to manifest the falsehood of their calumnies, I mention the following facts: – That the Jesuit missionaries have ever left Europe at the expense of the Catholic King, for the purpose of founding new colonies, and preserving the old – that they are supported by an annual stipend from the royal purse – that the Guaranies pay yearly tribute to the King – that a century before as many thousands as were appointed, fought in the royal camps without any stipend, whenever they were called upon by the royal governour – that the parishes are visited by the Bishops as often as seems good – that the Bishops are honourably received, and splendidly entertained, it may be for many weeks – that the castles of Buenos-Ayres and Monte-Video were built under the direction, indeed, of the Spaniards, but by the labour of the Guaranies – that the royal army consists chiefly of the Guaranies, under our authority, which were ruled by a few Spaniards, as the body by the soul, in every undertaking against the warlike savages, against the Portugueze and their town of Nova Colonia, so often attacked and taken, or against the insurgents of the city of Concepcion. The Guaranies were governed by the Jesuits, to whose care they were intrusted by the Catholic kings, not as slaves by their masters, but as children by their parents; and these towns were conducted in a manner precisely conformable to the royal laws.
By the labours of nearly two centuries, the Guaranies, formerly wandering cannibals and obstinate enemies to the Spaniards, have been reduced to civilization, to religion, and to the sceptre of the Catholic King. With what labour, what expense of lives the Jesuits have effected this – how infinitely these thirty towns surpass the other American tribes in the number of their inhabitants, in Christian morality, in the splendour of their churches, in their prompt loyalty, in mechanical skill, in arts, and in military activity, you may learn from the letters every where published of the kings, the royal governours, and the Spanish bishops; from the works of Doctor D. Francisco Xarque, Dean of Albarrazin, an eye-witness, of the learned Abbot Antonio Muratori, and an anonymous Englishman, whose book was translated from English into German, at Hamburgh, in the year 1768. This work gave me great pleasure, though it sometimes made me smile, especially where the author says, "We Europeans doat when we blame the Jesuits of Paraguay. It were better to deliberate how we may bring about in Europe, what they effect among the Guarany Indians without violence and without money. In their towns, each labours for all, and all for each. Without needing to buy or sell, every one possesses the necessaries of a comfortable subsistence, victuals, lodging, medicine, and education. Money wanting, all is wanting, say the Europeans; the Guaranies, on the other hand, though destitute of gold and silver, though unacquainted with any kind of money, daily experience the truth of the aphorism, Dii laboribus omnia vendunt, God gives every thing to labour. Proportioning the task to their age, their sex, and their strength, they are always employed, never oppressed with labour. Of luxuries they are ignorant, superfluity they know not, yet are happier in their contentment than the wealthiest in their opulence. He is not prosperous to whom much abounds, but whom little suffices. The Jesuit priests are curates not of the souls, but of the bodies of the Guaranies." Being in subjection only to the Catholic King and the royal governours, not in dreaded slavery amongst private Spaniards, like the other Indians, the towns increase wonderfully every year in population under our care, and fresh towns were now and then added to the old ones. In the year 1732, 141,252 inhabitants were reckoned in the thirty colonies of the Guaranies; but the small-pox breaking out soon after, cut off thirty thousand of them. Some time after it returned again, but in a milder form, and eleven thousand only were its victims. The measles, likewise, so fatal to Americans, made repeated ravages to a frightful extent. I write from experience in both, for in my office of priest, I attended the sick of the small-pox and measles, day and night, for many months. Famine, also, arising from the continued drought and consequent density of the land, filled the tombs with Guaranies. Add to these, the victims of war in the royal camps, where five, and sometimes six thousand men were detained. In 1767, when we bade America farewell, there were about an hundred thousand numbered in these towns. M. Louis Antoine de Bougainville, in his work entitled Voyage autour du Monde, printed at Neufchatel, in the year 1772, must be read with caution. He loads the Jesuits with egregious praises, but by and bye relates a thousand things as contrary to truth as dishonourable to us and the Guarany colonies. Pessimum inimicorum genus laudantes, says Tacitus, in the life of Agricola. I would not, however, willingly believe that an author, the distinguished favourite of Mars, of Neptune, and, unless I am deceived, of all the Muses, is to be classed with these knaves. True it is, he wrote falsely concerning us and the Guaranies; but rather deceived by the narrations of others, than through envy or malice. He never even saw the Guarany towns from a distance. I wish he had seen them! he would have painted the Indians and their missionaries in fairer colours. A little while, and but a little while, he remained in Buenos-Ayres, the port and threshold of Paraguay. There he drew the very worst notions, from the very worst sources, and gave them to Europe as the undoubted truth. Alas! alas! the friendliest well-wisher could not then, without danger, advocate our cause. The rising, not the setting sun is praised by the multitude, and such was then our fate. A Spaniard of no despicable authority has opened his mind in these words: "If every thing else which M. de Bougainville has written on the other provinces be as false as what he has said concerning Paraguay, let his history be carried to the spice shop to wrap pepper; yea, to a meaner office."
As for Paraguay being the kingdom of the Jesuits, it is the dream – the stupid fiction of Bernardo Ybañez, a Spaniard, twice expelled from our society. It would be endless to mention all whose vile detractions have calumniated the towns and the missionaries of the Guaranies. To refute them, I oppose the histories of Father Nicolas del Techo; La Conquista Espiritual of Father Antonio Ruiz de Montoya; the history of Father Pedro de Lozano; the familiar epistles of Father Antonio Sepp to his brother; the French original of Father Francis Xavier Charlevoix, (for the German translation is wretchedly mutilated and corrupted); the annual accounts of Paraguay, printed at Rome; and the letters of Philip the Fifth – his two epistles to the Jesuit missionaries of Paraguay, dated from the palace of Buen-retiro, the 28th of December, 1743; the letter, printed with them, of the illustrious Joseph de Peralta, bishop of Buenos-Ayres, in which, himself an eye-witness, he acquaints the same Philip with the state of the Guarany colonies. These important documents translated into Latin, and published in 1745, are every where on sale: – from a perusal of them you may learn, that the Guaranies are not only obedient to the Catholic King, but especially prompt in their repulsion of his enemies, exceeding the other American nations in the extent of their services. The sedition of the Guaranies dwelling near the banks of the Uruguay, may perhaps be objected; but what was the cause? Exasperation against the royal decrees, which delivered up seven of the finest towns of Paraguay to the Portugueze, and obliged thirty thousand of their inhabitants to migrate into solitude, or seek a precarious livelihood among the other colonies. Long and vigorously did