whatever crimes or misdemeanours they were guilty of,
they were never called on to answer before any tribunals,
and that in many instances they were treated, especially in Portugal,
with great cruelty and injustice.

The burning, at the age of eighty, of the unfortunate Malagrida in Lisbon
under the auspices of Pombal, for a book which it seems improbable
he could have written in prison at so great an age, and which, moreover,
was never brought into court, only supposed extracts from it being read,
may serve as an example. In order clearly to understand
the position of the Jesuits in America, and especially
in Paraguay and Bolivia, it is necessary to glance briefly
at the history of the first conquest of the river Plate.

The discovery of America opened up to Europe, and especially to Spain,
opportunities for expansion of national territory and individual advancement
which no epoch, either before or since, has equalled.
From a cluster of small States, struggling for existence
against a powerful enemy on their own soil, in a few years
Spain became the greatest empire of the world. The result was that
a spirit of adventure and a desire to grow rich speedily possessed
all classes. In addition to this, every Spaniard in America
during the first few years of the conquest seemed to consider himself,
to some extent, not only as a conqueror, but also as a missionary.

Now, missionaries and conquerors are men, on the whole, more imbued with
their own importance and sanctity, and less disposed to consider consequences,
than almost any other classes of mankind. The conjunction of the two in one
disposed the `conquistadores' of America to imagine that,
no matter how cruel or outrageous their treatment of the Indians was,