people loaded with chains, and whose relatives and countrymen had been but that instant butchered before their eyes. Father Mola in vain threw himself at the commander's feet; represented to him the innocence and simplicity of these poor Indians; conjured him by all that was most sacred, to set bounds to the fury of the soldiers; and at last, threatened them with the indignation of heaven: but these savages answered him, that it was enough to be baptized again to be admitted into heaven, and that they would make their way into it though God himself should oppose their entrance.[1] They carried away into slavery two thousand five hundred Indians.
Some of the prisoners escaped, and returned to join Father Mola and such of their brethren as had fled to the woods. The father, they found amid the ruins of his Reduction sunk in the deepest sorrow. However, he roused himself and persuaded them to retire with him to the Reduction of the Incarnation. The Reductions of St. Michael and of Jesus-Maria, were speedily treated in the same manner; and they set out for Santo Paulo, driving their victims before them as so many cattle. Nine months the march continued. The merciless wretches urged them for-
- ↑ Charlevoix gives another instance of that sort of Catholic piety which such ruffians as these find quite compatible with the commission of the blackest crimes. During these expeditions these man-hunters surprised the Reduction of St. Theresa, and carried off all the inhabitants. This happened a few days before Christmas; yet on Christmas day these banditti came to church, every man with a taper in his hand, in order to hear mass. The minute the Jesuit had finished, he mounted the pulpit, and reproached them in the bitterest terms for their injustice and cruelty; to all which they listened with as much calmness as if it did not at all concern them.
