5G ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



taking the fads as Charlevoix has given them, it is evident that two 

 millions of people were deftroyed in the fmgle ifland of Hifpani- 

 ola: And if fo, how is it poflible to fuppofe, that in the fmgle 

 ifland of Hifpaniola there were deftroyed two millions; and yet, 

 in all the other iflands, in that Archepelago, belonging to the Spa- 

 niards, one of which, namely Cuba, is very much larger than Hifpa- 

 niola, and in the great empires of Mexico and Peru, there fhould 

 not have been deftroyed, according to Charlevoix's account, more 

 than 13 millions? If, therefore, Las Cafas has exceeded the truth, 

 I think it is evident that Charlevoix, by his own account, muft 

 have fallen very much fhort of it^ 



But, befides this general account which Charlevoix gives us of 

 the depopulation of Hifpaniola, he relates particular fads, which 

 ihow that the Spaniards took every method pofTible to deftroy this 

 poor people. Befides what they deftroyed of them in war, and 

 in working their mines, they, in cold blood, maffacred a prodigious 

 number of them ; of which he gives one remarkable inftance, when 

 a Queen of theirs, with all her vaflals and dependants, were in- 

 vited to a feaft, and butchered in fo horrible a manner, that the 

 very relation of it muft make a man of common humanity ftiudder. 

 The number, he fays, which periftied that day cannot be counted *. 

 In another place he relates how cruelly they made them work, more 

 cruelly than any man of common humanity would make his horfes 

 or cattle work ; and he fays they pradifed cruelties upon them to 

 make them work, which are related by Spanifh writers who were 

 eye witnelTes, and are fuch that no man can read them without hor- 

 ror t ; and when they fled from the work, up to the hills, the Spa- 

 niards 

 * Page 233. 234. 



+ Page 206. In confirmation of what Charlevoix fays, I will tranfcrlbe, from Las 

 Cafas, a fmgle pafiage which is quoted by Edwards in his hiftory of the Weft Indies, 



vo]. 



