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adds, that it is much more natural to attribute all 

 thole equivocal marks of Chriftianity and Judaifm, 

 which have been believed to fubfift in divers pro- 

 vinces of the New World, to the Devil, who has 

 always affecled to counterfeit the worfhip of the 

 true God. This remark is made by all good au- 

 thors, who have fpoken of the religion of nations 

 newly difcovered, and is be fides founded on the au- 

 thority of the fathers of the church. 



Grotius having advanced, without any hefi-ation, 

 that the Ethiopians might in time have changed 

 their colour in a climate not fo fultry as that which 

 they had quitted, Laet makes anfwer, that though 

 Whites might poffibly lofe fome of their colour, 

 by removing to a warmer climate than that where 

 they were born, yet that there is no example of the 

 defendants of the Blacks becoming white in a cold 

 country and that the colour of the Negroes pro- 

 ceeds not folely from the heat of the fun, fince the 

 Brazilians, and many others inhabiting the fame 

 latitudes, have it not. Laftly, he takes notice of 

 another error of Grotius, who fuffered his preju- 

 dices to carry him fo far, as to be perfuadeJ that 

 the Chinefe were not acquainted with the art of 

 printing before the arrival of the Portugefe in their 

 country, that he might thereby obviate an objection 

 which might have been ftarted again ft his fyitem of 

 making the Peruvians defcend from the Chinefe, 



There can nothing, in my opinion, be added to 

 the criticifm, which John de Laet has pubiifhed on 

 the hypothecs of the celebrated Grotius. We are 

 now going to fee whether he has been equally happy 

 in eftablifhing his own. He fets out with relating, 

 on the authority of fome authors quoted by Pliny, 

 but who do not- appear to have been very able geo- 

 graphers. 



