Another Irish Jesuit, Father Thaddeus Ennis, appears in authority in Misiones shortly before the downfall.  In 1756, when Spain ceded San Miguel and other missions to Portugal, Father Ennis was entrusted with the removal lower down to Parana of such tribes as refused to become Portuguese subjects.

Yet another Jesuit, Father Falkiner, son of an Irish Protestant doctor in Manchester, who had himself studied medicine, was one of the most successful travellers and missionaries of the 18th century.  Among his friends in London was a ship-captain who traded from the coast of Guinea to Brazil, carrying slaves for the company recently established by Queen Anne’s patent, and he it doubtless was who prevailed on the young physician to try a seafaring life.  In one of his voyages as ship surgeon, from Guinea to Buenos Ayres, he fell ill at the latter port, and, there being no hotels, he had the good fortune to enjoy the hospitality of the Jesuit superior, Father Mahony, whose name proclaims his Irish nationality.  Such was the impression made on Falkiner by the kindness of the Jesuits that he shortly afterwards was received into the Church and entered as a novice in the College of St. Ignatius at Buenos Ayres.  He spent the first years of his missionary career in Misiones and Tucuman.  Later on he was despatched by his superior to Patagonia, and his success there during 27 years was almost equal to what has already been mentioned of Father Field in Paraguay.  He converted many tribes, and traversed nearly every part of Patagonia from Rio Negro to Magellan’s Straits, and as far inland as the Andes.  He knew most of the Indian tongues, and by his winning manners and knowledge of medicine gained a great influence over the savages.  When he published his life and travels, such was the effect of his book upon the king of Spain that he at once ordered surveys and settlements to be made along the Patagonian coast, which Father Falkiner represented as exposed to seizure by the first adventurer who should land there.  Father Falkiner’s book has been translated into French, German, and Spanish.  He returned to England and died at Spetchly, Worcestershire, near the end of the 18th century.

In 1774 the bishop of Ayachucho was Dr. James O’Phelan, who rebuilt the old Cathedral of Pasco.  His father was an Irish officer in the Spanish army.

II.—­THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

Towards the close of the 18th century the Pitt administration lent a willing ear to a Venezuelan patriot, General Miranda, who proposed that Great Britain should aid South America to expel the Spanish rulers and set up a number of independent states.  Spain being the ally of France and paying an annual subsidy to Napoleon, it became moreover the object of England to seize the treasure-ships periodically arriving from the River Plate.