158 HISTORY OF THE [BOOK ir. 



tugas, where the English were inhumanly and most 

 barbarously treated by the Spaniards, who to this day 

 watch for their best advantage to cast us out of all 

 our plantations, and say, that all the islands as well as 

 the main belong to them. And in conscience, it is 

 lawful to cast that enemy or troublesome neighbour 

 out of his dominions, that would, and hath attempt- 

 ed to cast us out of ours." He then proceeds to de- 

 monstrate, that it is not a work of difficulty to dis- 

 lodge the Spaniards from some of their most valuable 

 possessions, and recommends the first attack to be 

 made on Hispaniola or Cuba; the former, he observes, 

 f: was the Spaniards' first plantation, and therefore it 

 would be to them a bad omen, to begin to lose that 

 which they first enjoyed." " This island (he adds) 

 is not one quarter of it inhabited, and so the more 

 easy to take." Gage, some years before, had pub- 

 lished a book, w r hich is now before me; intitled " A 

 new Survey of the West Indies." It contains much 

 curious information respecting the state of Spanish 

 America, at the time that he resided there. In the 

 dedication to Fairfax, general of the parliament's 

 forces, he combats \vith great strength of reasoning, 

 the pretensions of the Spanish crown to an exclusive 

 right to the countries of the new world: "I know of 

 " no title," he observes, " that the Spaniard hath (the 

 Pope's donation excepted) but force, which, by the 

 same title may be repelled. And, as to the .first 

 discovery, to me it seems as little reason, that the 

 sailing of a Spanish ship upon the coast of India, 

 should entitle the king of Spain to that country, as 

 the sailing of an Indian or English ship upon the 



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