CHAP, ii.] WEST INDIES. 167 



of the elegancies of life, nor were they acquainted even 

 with many of those gratifications which, in civilized 

 states, are considered as necessary to the comfort and 

 convenience of it. They were neither polished by 

 social intercourse, nor improved by education; but 

 passed their days in gloomy langour, enfeebled by 

 sloth and depressed by poverty. Having at the same 

 time but little or no connection with Europe, nor the 

 means of sending their children thither for education, 

 (a circumstance that might have introduced among 

 them from time to time some portion of civility and 

 science), they had been for many years in a state of 

 progressive degeneracy, and would probably, in a short 

 time, have expiated the guilt of their ancestors, by fall- 

 ing victims themselves to the vengeance of their slaves. 

 Time indeed had wrought a wonderful change in the 

 manners and dispositions of all the Spanish Americans, 

 It must, however, be acknowledged, that if they 

 possessed not the abilities of their forefathers, they 

 were unstained with their crimes. If we find among 

 them no traces of that enterprising genius; that un- 

 conquerable perseverance, that contempt of toil, dan- 

 ger and death, which so wonderfully distinguished 

 the great adventurers, who first explored and added a 

 new hemisphere to the Spanish dominion ; we must 

 own at the same time, that they were happily free 

 from their guilty ambition; their remorseless fanati- 

 cism and frantic cruelty. But, whatever was their 

 character, it is impossible to justify the hard terms 

 imposed by the English commanders on the poor set- 

 tlers in Jamaica, in requiring them to deliver up their 

 slaves and effects, and quit the country altogether. 



