cals who pressed closer day by day would tear away from the mission shelter and enslave.
Here lay the broad spread of cultivated lands, the impounded waters of rivers led into them to make them glad and green, developed by foresight and wisdom, and unremitting toil. It was so much easier for the adventurers to reach out and take what other hands had brought to this state of fruitfulness than to expend long years in building plantations out of the raw land; much easier, also, to sit and grow rich from the profit of an enslaved people's labor than to trim their own vineyards and hackle their own hemp.
It was charged, indeed, that the Indians were slaves under the padres, that they suffered abuses and cruelties, and punishments which revolted the hearts of the humanitarians who complained. That was one of the charges which the governor had come to investigate. True, Padre Ignacio owned in the honesty of his unequivocal mind, the Indians must be disciplined at times, as children of parents never so kind and generous must be held within bounds and administered corrections. There was no denying that these measures had been applied with little judgment at times; the present state of things at San Fernando was evidence of that. Yet this was far from the general rule. Even under the harsh authority of Don Geronimo the Indians had been happy at San Fernando. Padre Ignacio sighed. There had been disturbing days, there had been insubordination and rebellion. But it was
