HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



301 



lumniate them. Such is the excefs into which his ridi- 

 culous eagernefs to depreciate America leads him, and 

 fuch are the consequences of his unnatural logic, that he 

 conftantly deduces from particular premifes univerfal 

 conclulions ! If poffibly the Panuchefe, or any other 

 people of America, were infected with tha,t vice, is it 

 from thence to be affirmed that pederafty was much a 

 vice in all the new world ? The Americans might as 

 well defame in the fame manner the whole old continent, 

 becaufe among fome ancient people of Aiia and among 

 the Greeks and Romans it was a notorious vice. Be- 

 lides, it is not known that there is any nation at prefent 

 in America infected with that vice ; whereas we are 

 informed by feveral authors, that fome people of Alia 

 are ftill fainted with it ; and that even in Europe, if 

 what Mr. Locke and M. de Paw fay is true, among 

 Turks of a certain profeffion, another vice more execra- 

 ble, of the fame kind, is common ; and that inftead of 

 being feverely punimed for it, they are held, by that na- 

 tion, in the light of faints, and receive the higheft marks 

 of refpect and veneration. 



Amongfl: the crimes charged to the Americans by M. 

 de Paw filicide is included. It is true that at the times 

 of the conquer!: many hanged themfelves, or threw them- 

 felves down precipices, or put an end to themfelves by 

 abftinence ; but it is not the leafl wonderful that men 

 who had become defperate from continual haraflment 

 and vexations, who thought their gods had abandoned, 

 and the elements confpired againft them, fhould do that 

 which was frequent with the Romans, the Franks, and 

 ancient Spaniards, the modern Englifh (#), French, and 



Japanefe, 



(x) We have been informed by a perfon who was at the fame time in Lon- 

 don, that a fuicide left in writing, that he killed himfelf to get free of the trou>- 

 blc of dreffing and undreffing himfelf every day. 



