HERNANDO DE 80TO. 239 



if- *r?uld be difficult to conceive how in thirty or forty years 

 tbree or four hundred thousand Indians could entirely dis- 

 appear. The war with the Cacique Hatuey was short, ana 

 was confined to the most eastern part of the island. Few 

 complaints arose against the administration of the two first 

 Spanish governors, Diego Velasquez and Pedro de Barba. 

 The oppression of the natives dates from the arrival of the 

 cruel Hernando de Soto, about the year 1539. Supposing, 

 with Gomara, that fifteen years later, under the government 

 of Diego de Majariegos (1554-1564)), there were no longer 

 any Indians in Cuba, we must necessarily admit that con- 

 siderable remains of that people saved themselves by means 

 of canoes in Florida, believing, according to ancient tradi- 

 tions, that they were returning to the country of their 

 ancestors. The mortality of the negro slaves, observed in 

 our days in the West Indies, can alone throw some light on 

 these numerous contradictions. To Columbus and Velas- 

 quez, the island of Cuba must have appeared well peopled,* 



Juan Nuix, y traducido al castellano por Don Pedro Varela y Ulloa, del 

 Consejo de S. M., 1782." [Impartial reflections on the humanity of the 

 Spaniards, intended to contravert pretended philosophers and politicians, 

 and to illustrate the histories of Raynal and Robertson ; written in Italian 

 by the Abate Don Juan Nuix, and translated into Castilian by Don Pedro 

 Varela y Ulloa, member of His Majesty's Council.] The author, who 

 calls the expulsion of the Moors under Philip III, a meritorious and 

 religious act, terminates his work by congratulating the Indians of Ame- 

 rica " on having fallen into the hands of the Spaniards, whose conduct has 

 been at all times the most humane, and their government the wisest." 

 Several pages of this book recall " the salutary rigour of the Draeonades ;" 

 and that odious passage, in which a man distinguished for his talents and 

 his private virtues, the Count de Maistre (Soirees de St. Petersbourg, 

 torn, ii, p. 121), justifies the Inquisition of Portugal, " which he observes 

 has only caused some drops of guilty blood to flow." To what sophisms 

 must they have recourse, who would defend religion, national honour, or 

 the stability of governments, by exculpating all that is offensive to huma- 

 nity in the actions of the clergy, the people, or kings ! It is vain to seek 

 to destroy the power most firmly established on earth, riz. : the testi- 

 mony of history. 



* Columbus relates that the island of Hayti was sometimes attacked by 

 a race of black men, (gente negra), who lived more to the south or south, 

 west. He hoped to visit them in his third voyage, because those black 

 men possessed a metal, of which the admiral had procured some pieces in 

 his second voyage. These pieces were sent to Spain, and found to he 

 composed of *63 of gold, *14 of silver, and '19 of copper. In tact. 



