50 Of Emigration. Bk. iii. 



can well imagine they could be exposed to in their 

 parent state. The endeavour to avoid that degree 

 of unhappiness which arises from the difficulty of 

 supporting a family might long have left the new 

 world of America unpeopled by Europeans, if 

 those more powerful passions, the thirst of gain, 

 the spirit of adventure, and religious enthusiasm, 

 had not directed and animated the enterprise. 

 These passions enabled the first adventurers to 

 triumph over every obstacle ; but in many in- 

 stances, in a way to make humanity shudder, and 

 to defeat the true end of emigration. Whatever 

 may be the character of the Spanish inhabitants 

 of Mexico and Peru at the present moment, we 

 cannot read the accounts of the first conquests 

 of these countries, without feeling strongly, that 

 the race destroyed was, in moral worth as well as 

 numbers, superior to the race of their destroyers. 

 The parts of America settled by the English, 

 from being thinly peopled, were better adapted 

 to the establishment of new colonies; yet even 

 here, the most formidable difficulties presented 

 themselves. In the settlement of Virginia, begun 

 by Sir Walter Raleigh and established by Lord 

 Delaware, three attempts completely failed. 

 Nearly half of the first colony was destroyed by 

 the savages, and the rest, consumed and worn 

 down by fatigue and famine, deserted the country, 

 and returned home in despair. The second colony 

 was cut off to a man in a manner unknown ; but 

 they were supposed to be destroyed by the In- 



