The English translation is of the year 1822.
--

English is singularly barren in regard to the Jesuits in Paraguay.
Father Falconer, an English Jesuit, has left a curious and interesting book
(printed at Hereford in 1774), but he treats exclusively of what is now
the province of Buenos Ayres, the Falkland Islands, and of Patagonia.
As an Englishman and a Jesuit (a somewhat rare combination
in the eighteenth century), and as one who doubtless knew
many of the Paraguayan priests, his testimony would have been most important,
especially as he was a man of great information, much education,
an intrepid traveller, and, moreover, only entered the Company of Jesus
at a comparatively advanced age.

It is in Spanish, or in Latin by Spanish authors, that the greater portion
of the contemporary histories and accounts are to be found.*
Literatures, like other things, have their times of fashion.
At one time a knowledge of Spanish was as requisite as
some tincture of French is at present, and almost as universal.
Men from Germany, England, and Holland who met in a foreign country
communicated in that language. In the early portion of the century
Ticknor, Prescott, and Washington Irving rendered Spanish literature
fashionable to some degree.

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* It is to be remembered that the Spanish colonists were as a rule
antagonistic to the Jesuits, and that, therefore, Spanish writers
do not of necessity hold a brief for the Jesuits in Paraguay.
Moreover, the names of Esmid (Smith), Fildo (Fields), Dobrizhoffer,
Cataldini and Tomas Bruno (Brown, who is mentioned as being