APPENDIX TO Vol. III. 961 



This new labour of cane-planting, added to digging in mines, and a 

 thoufand other drudgeries, contributed to wear out the poor Indians, 

 who were every where treated as abjeft (laves ; befides, their bodies 

 were not athletic, nor capable of enduring the fatigue of hard labour, 

 and their fpirits were quickly broke with rigorous ufage. The Spanifh 

 occupiers of land, therefore, increaiing as fad as thefe Indians de- 

 creafed, recourfe was had to the Portuguefe factories on the coaft of 

 Africa for Negroe labourers; and thus fprung up the Guiney trade 

 with this part of the Weft Indies, The climate of Mifpaniola proved 

 fo benign and natural to the Blacks, as to have it commonly faid, 

 " that unlefs one of them happened to be hanged, none ever died 

 " there." 



The manufacture of fugar, and traffic for Negroes, found their way 

 doubtleis into Jamaica likewife, as foon as the colony was opulent 

 enough to enter upon the one, and pay for the other j for, by degrees,- 

 the Indian inhabitants, partly by efcaping to the continent, partly by 

 the harfh ufage of their new lords, and by the natural effefls of de- 

 fpondence under fo grievous and oppreffive a change in their condltion,- 

 became almoft extinguifhed in every one of thefe larger Iflands. 



The foundation of St. Jago de la Vega by the vice-roy Jago, or 

 Diego Columbus, has been fixed about the year 1520, or 1521, not 

 long before his deceafe, which happened in Spain about the year 1525. 

 It feems, I think, evident, from the foregoing dedu(^ion, that this w\as 

 never confidered ^ proprietary government, in the fcnfe we underftand. 

 of Georgia, Pennfylvania, and other provinces in North America. 

 No territorial grant was made to Columbus of any of thefe difcovered. 

 countries; the fovereign referved to himfelf the dominion and figno- 

 rial right of foil, with nine fhares in ten of all its produftlons. At- 

 the period, confequently, when it became an Engllfh conqueft, it was 

 a member of the Spanifh empire, in the fame predicament as Cuba and 

 Hifpaniola, over which the heirs of Columbus held only the fame titu- 

 lar offices of admiral, vice-roy, and governor in chief. 



Peter Martir beftows many compliments on the climate of thefe 

 iflands ; he dwells upon the fubjed with rapture ; but as 1 fear that L 

 have trefpafitd too far already on the reader's indulgence, I fliall quote 

 only one of his fine fpeeches, which may ferve by way of conclufion. 



Vol. m. 6G " What 



