CHAPTER XX. 



Spanish Perfidy and Cruelty. The Natives by Force and Fraud are Ca/r- 

 ried to Hispaniola and Perish in its Mines. The Islands without inhabitants. 

 An English Captain Discovers New Providence. George III of England 

 makes a Royal Grant of the Bahamas to six Proprietors. Pirates Infest the 

 Islands. Black Beard. Hs EjixbUsJies Himsslf Upon New Providence. The 

 Early Governors. Summary Punishment inflicted by the Spaniards, and by 

 the French and Spaniards. Nassau Built and Named in 1694. The British 

 Government Purchase the Proprietary Title to the Islands. Nassau is Cap- 

 tured and Abandoned by the Americans Under Commodore Hopkins. In 1781 

 it is Captured and Garrisoned by the Spaniards. It is He-taken by American 

 Loyalists. Th£ Abolition of Slaxiery. 



" O nature! what hadst thou to do in hell, 

 When thou didst bovver the spirit of a fiend 

 In such a paradise?"— Shakespeaee. 



"I do not give you to Posterity as a pattern to iroitate, but an 

 example to deter." — Juxius. 



CoLUMBrs was a zealous member of the Church of Rome, and 

 his mind seemed ever imbued with a strong religious sentiment. 

 Religious zeal did much to encourage him to undertake and prose- 

 cute with tireless energy and unwavering faith his voyages of 

 discovery. He believed himself raised up by Divine Providence 

 for the purpose of communicating to the heathen a knowledge 

 of the true God. But his royal master, Ferdinand of Spain, 

 saw in the amiable, credulous and confiding Bahama Indians 

 not men having immortal souls to be savci, but only living 

 mechanisms capable of being stolen and utilized in money mak- 

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