20 LETTER V. 



did not furnish you with a pen-knife for making your 

 pen, it would be no easy matter to find a substitute for 

 that small but useful article ; and consequently that 

 without this valuable substance, neither letters nor 

 any of the arts and sciences which improve the mind, 

 and produce the conveniences and embellishments of 

 civilized life, would have ever been invented. 



You cannot, my dear sir, read without astonish- 

 ment the exploits'of the Spaniards is the conquest of 

 Mexico and Peru; but if you consider the advantage* 

 possessed by troops though few in number, but disci- 

 plined and armed in the European manner over nu- 

 merous armies furnished with no better weapons than 

 painted stakes, or at the best, headed with sharp flints, 

 you will regard with less surprise these important 

 achievements. We shall, in its proper place, remark 

 the disadvantages under which the Americans labored 

 in wanting the horse, as well as the rest of our do- 

 mestic animals ; here, however, we must make this 

 important observation, that although many parts of 

 IS'orth America abound with iron-mines, yet a"s they 

 li<ad not been discovered, an insurmountable obstacle 

 had always opposed itself to the improvement of the 

 inhabitants of the new world ; and until it was re- 

 moved must have prevented them from making any 

 great progress in civilization, or equalling the Euro- 

 peans either in arts or arms. The natives of the South 

 Sea isles are precisely in the sanre situation. In pe- 

 rusing the relations of Captain Cook's voyages, and 

 those of other modern circumnavigators, you will find 

 how well the Otaheiteans and others had, from expe- 

 riencing the want of iron, learned to appreciate its 

 utility, although they were acquainted with but few 

 of the various purposes to which it may be applied. 

 With them, as soon as they had acquired the know- 

 ledge of a very few of its most simple us s, it was 

 considered as an estimable article for which they 

 were ever ready to barter their most valuable com- 

 modities. A wedge of gold would by these savages, 

 have been esteemed a treasure far less valuable than 

 a nail, which they used chiefly for the purpose of 



