Chap. I. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 57 



niards purfued them with packs of dogs, and tore them to pieces as 

 if they had been fo many wild beafts. This, fays our author, ma ie 

 them do what favages are never known to do ; they put themfclves 

 to death by drinking the juice of a poifonous herb, or by hang'ng 

 themfelves*. And, not content with thus deftroying them, they let 

 loofe upon them a body of German , who, landing upon the Con- 

 tinent, committed there the moft horrid cruelties, fax exceeding any 

 thing the Spaniards had done f . 



The confequence of this fevere treatment of the natives of Kifpa- 

 niola, by the Spaniards, was, that they came at laft to want people 

 to work in their mines. To fupply, therefore, the numbers they 

 had deflroyed, they went about among the other iflands and upon 

 the Continent, feizing what Indians they could meet with, and mak- 

 ing flaves of them, under pretence that they were man-eaters f . 



If it be afked how it happened that the Spaniards, by their con- 

 quefts in the New World, deflroyed fo many more people than the 

 Aflyrians, Perfians, Macedonians, Romans, or any other conquer- 

 ors we read of in hiftory; the anfwer is, that avarice was the motive 

 of their conquefts, not glory, ambition, or the defire of extending 

 their dominions. Now, avarice is not only the moft infatiable of 

 all our paflions, but the moft cruel and unrelenting, more cruel than 

 ambition, anger, or revenge. As, therefore, the love of money 



Vol. V. H makes 



vol. I. p. 88. ** I once beheld four or five principal Indians roafted alive at a flow 

 ** fire ; and as the miferable vi(flims poured forth dreadful fcreams, which difturbed 

 « the commanding officer in his afternoon flumbers, he fent word that they Ihould be 

 « ftrangled : But the officer on guard ( I knoiv his name, and I know his relations in'Se- 

 <* ville) would not fuffer it ; but cauiing their mouths to be gagged, that their cries 

 " might not be heard, he ftirred up the fire with his own hands, and roafted them 

 " dcHberately till they expired. Ifaiv it m^elf I ! .'" 



* Page 328. 339. t p. 452- 453- t p. 34?. 



