Southey may well close this strange and melancholy history.
"Bucarelli shipped off the Jesuits of La Plata, Tucuman, and Paraguay, one hundred and fifty-five in number, before he attacked the Reductions. This part of the business he chose to perform in person; and the precautions which he took for arresting seventy-eight defenceless missionaries, will be regarded with contempt, or with indignation, as they may be supposed to have proceeded from ignorance of the real state of things, or from fear, basely affected for the purpose of courting favour by countenancing successful calumnies. He had previously sent for all the Caciques and Corregidores to Buenos Ayres, and persuaded them that the king was about to make a great change for their advantage. Two hundred soldiers from Paraguay were ordered to guard the pass of the Tebiquary; two hundred Corrientines to take post in the vicinity of St. Miguel; and he defended the Uruguay with threescore dragoons, and three companies of grenadiers. They landed at the Falls; one detachment proceeded to join the Paraguay party, and seize the Parana Jesuits; another incorporated itself with the Corrientines, and marched against those on the eastern side of the Uruguay; and the Viceroy himself advanced upon Yapeyen, and those which lay between the two rivers. The Reductions were peaceably delivered up. The Jesuits, without a murmur, followed their brethren into banishment; and Bucarelli was vile enough to take credit in his dispatches for the address with which he had so happily performed a dangerous service; and to seek favour by loading the persecuted Company with charges of the grossest and foulest calumnies.
