90 HISTORY OF THE [BOOK i. 



in the mines, without rest or intermission, until death, 

 their only refuge; put a period to their sufferings. 

 Such as attempted resistance or escape, their merci- 

 less tyrants hunted down with dogs, which were fed 

 on their flesh. They disregarded sex and age, and 

 with impious and frantic bigotry even called in religion 

 to sanctify their cruelties ! Some, more zealous than 

 the rest, forced their miserable captives into the wa- 

 ter, and after administering to them the rite of bap- 

 tism, cut their throats the next moment, to prevent 

 their apostacy! Others made a vow to hang or burn 

 thirteen every morning, in honour of our Saviour 

 and the twelve Apostles! Nor were these the excess- 

 es only of a blind and remorseless fanaticism, which 

 exciting our abhorrence, excites also our pity: The 

 Spaniards were actuated in many instances by such 

 wantonness of malice, as is wholly unexampled in the 

 wide history of human depravity. Martyr relates, 

 that it was a frequent practice among them to mur- 

 der the Indians of Hispaniola in sport, or merely, 

 he observes, to keep their hands in use. They had 

 an emulation which of them could most dexterously 

 strike off the head of a man at a blow; and wagers 

 frequently depended on this hellish exercise. f To 

 fill up the measure of this iniquity, and demonstrate 

 to the world, that the nation at large participated in 

 the guilt of individuals, the court of Spain not only 

 neglected to punish these enormities in its subjects, 

 but when rapacity and avarice had nearly defeated 

 their own purposes, by the utter extirpation of the 



f P. Martyr, decad. i. lib. 



