Note 157 — Chapter VI

Ibañez (‘Histoire du Paraguay sous les Jésuites M.D.CCIXXX.’), a great opponent of the Jesuits, says that European offenders and recalcitrant Indians in the missions were sent as a last resource to the Spanish settlements. This is not astonishing when we remember the curious letter of Don Pedro Faxardo, Bishop of Buenos Ayres (preserved by Charlevoix), written in 1721 to the King of Spain, in which he says he thinks ‘that not a mortal crime is committed in the missions in a year.’ He adds that, ‘if the Jesuits were so rich, why are their colleges so poor?’