CHAP, in.] WEST INDIES. 93 



fore justly conclude, that no stronger proof than that 

 which arises from hence need be given of the exist- 

 ence of a future and better state, wherein the un- 

 equal distribution of misery and happiness in this life 

 shall be adjusted, " when the crooked shall be made 

 " straight, and the rough places plain /" 



In 1585 Sir Francis Drake made a descent on Hispaniola, and in his 

 account of that island, which is preserved in Hakluyt, vol. iii. he re- 

 lates, that the Spaniards, having utterly exterminated the ancient Indians, 

 (not a single descendant being, I doubt, at that time living), had never- 

 theless derived so little advantage from their cruelty, as to be obliged to 

 convert pieces of leather into money j all the silver, in the attainment of 

 which from the bowels of the earth so many thousands of poor wretches 

 had perished, having long since found its way to Europe, and the inha- 

 bitants had no means of getting a fresh supply. 



It may be proper in this place to observe, that some of the circumstan- 

 ces which I have related above, respecting the cruelties of the Spaniards, 

 are extracted from the writings of Bartholomew De Las Casas, who is ac- 

 cused by Dr. Robertson of exaggeration ; but Oviedo himself, who en- 

 deavours to palliate the monstrous barbarities of his countrymen towards 

 the natives, by asserting that they were addicted to unnatural vices, which 

 rendered them properly obnoxious to punishment, (a charge by the way, 

 which Herrera admits to be groundless), Oviedo, I say confesses, that in 

 1535, only forty-three years posterior to the discovery of Hispaniola, and 

 when he was himself on the spot, there were not left alive in that island 

 above five hundred of the original natives, old and young j for he adds, 

 that all the other Indians at that time there, had been forced or decoyed 

 into slavery, from the neighbouring iflands. (Oviedo, lib. iii. c. vi.) 

 Las Casas, it is true, when he speaks of numbers in the gross, certainly 

 over-rates the original inhabitants. But it does not appear that he 

 meant to deceive ; nor is there any just reason to suspect his veracity when 

 he treats of matters susceptive of precision ; more especially in circumstan- 

 ces of which he declares himself to have been an eye-witness. Let the 

 reader judge of Las Casas from the following narrative, in which his 

 falsehood (if the story were false) could have been very easily detected. 

 " I once beheld" (says he) <f four or five principal Indians roasted alive 



