142 OF AN HOLY WAR. 



and mothers out of their possessions, and put them to 

 their pensions : for these cases, of women to govern 

 men, sons the fathers, slaves freemen, are much in 

 the same degree ; all being total violations and per 

 versions of the laws of nature and nations. For the 

 West-Indies, I perceive, Martius, you have read 

 Garcilazzo de Viega, who himself was descended of 

 the race of the Incas, a Mestizo, and is willing to 

 make the best of the virtues and manners of his coun 

 try : and yet in troth he doth it soberly and credibly 

 enough. Yet you shall hardly edify me, that those 

 nations might not by the law of nature have been 

 subdued by any nation, that had only policy and 

 moral virtue ; though the propagation of the faith, 

 whereof we shall speak in the proper place, were set 

 by, and not made part of the case. Surely their 

 nakedness, being with them, in most parts of that 

 country, without all vail or covering, was a great 

 defacement : for in the acknowledgment of naked 

 ness was the first sense of sin ; and the heresy of the 

 Adamites was ever accounted an affront of nature. 

 But upon these I stand not ; nor yet upon their 

 idiocy, in thinking that horses did eat their bits, and 

 letters speak, and the like : nor yet upon their sorce 

 ries, which are, almost, common to all idolatrous na 

 tions. But, I say, their sacrificing, and more espe 

 cially their eating of men, is such an abomination, as, 

 methinks, a man s face should be a little con/used, to 

 deny, that this custom, joined with the rest, did not 

 make it lawful for the Spaniards to invade their terri- 



