ACCOUNT OF BOOKS. 



104^ 



to op6n their spiritual campaign, io' 

 •which the governors of the pro- 

 vinces, by order of the court, were 

 not to interfere in any shape rela- 

 tive to the establishment, nor -was 

 any Spaniard whatever to enter 

 their districts without leave obtain- 

 ed. 



" They were to be provided 

 ■with necessaries of every kind for 

 the arduous undertaking ; and to 

 be supplied from time to time with 

 articles of clothing, furniture, and 

 every other thing which the exigen- 

 cy of their situation might require. 

 " The missionaries, on their 

 part, agreed to pay to the crown 

 annually a sort of capitation tax, 

 of a piastre per liead for every in- 

 dividual they might bring over to 

 the faith of Christ; and, in pro- 

 portion as their proselytes increas- 

 ed, to send a certain number to the 

 royal works or army whenever the 

 state should think proper to make 

 the demand, provided the converted 

 Indians were sufficiently numerous 

 to admit of drafts being made for 

 that purpose, which was to be done, 

 if I conceive the matter right, in 

 much the same manner as the militia 

 is drawn for -with us ; but with this 

 dilfcrence, that the Indians are 

 drafted for !ife ; and the services 

 required of them arc severe in the 

 extreme when compared to the 

 employ of our militia, who are never 

 called into action but on extraordi- 

 nary occasions, and disbanded at 

 the end of the war to return, if 

 they think proper, to their native 

 towns and families: but the poor 

 Indians once sent from their peace- 

 ful settlements never return to them 

 more ; they arc condemned for 

 the rest of their lives to toil and 

 misery, either to work in the mines, 

 or to form a kind of auxiliary 



troop to fight against their unsub- 

 dued brethren, Avho even now 

 make frequent inroads on the Span- 

 ish settlements. Others are doom- 

 od to labour incessantly at the pub- 

 lic \rorks, and many arc consigned 

 to the different offices of state, and 

 pass like heirlooms from one master 

 to another with the post to Avhich 

 they are attached. The present 

 major-general, who lives adjacent 

 to the fort and has the command in 

 all military matters in this part of 

 the world, has several hundreds of 

 these wretched people at his dis- 

 posal ; and I wish I could add that 

 his treatment of them is such as re- 

 dounds to his credit as a humane 

 man and a judicious officer ; but 



truth compels me to say, that, on 

 the contrary, the severity Avhich is 

 exercised over them is such as must 

 shock the understanding and paio 

 the heart of every person endowed 

 with merely the common feelings 

 of justice and humanity. 



" No wonder then that to serve a 

 Spaniard is deemed by the natives 

 the most dreadful of all calamities ; 

 every Indian shrinks from the sound 

 of a Spaniard's voice, and among 

 the unreduced, his religion is held 

 in the utmost abhorrence. 



" The dispersion, or rather ex- 

 pulsion, of the crafty Jesuits was 

 become an act of state necessity, 

 sinoe they had established in the 

 very centre of the southern pro- 

 vinces an immense theocracy, which 

 even threatened to overturn, at 

 some future period, the power of 

 the crown, if the various accounts 

 I have received miiy be relied on ; 

 for, at the time of their expulsion, 

 they could command, as spiritual 

 guides, several hundred thousand 

 families, and among them no less an 

 array of welKdisciplined troops than 

 3X3 iVoBt 



