HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



395 



Paw, in burning the greater part of the hiftorical paint- 

 ings of the Mexicans, becaufe they thought them full of 

 fuperftition. We valued (till more than M. de Paw 

 thofe paintings, and lament their lofs ; but we neither 

 defpife the authors of that unfortunate burning, nor 

 curfe their memory ; becaufe the evil which their in- 

 temperate and heedlefs zeal made them commit is not to 

 be compared with the good which they did ; befides, they 

 endeavoured to repair the lofs by their works, particu- 

 larly Motolinia, Sahagun, Olmos, and Torquemada. 



M. de Paw has gone fo far to leffen the population of 

 thofe countries, that he has dared to affirm (who could 

 believe it) in a decifive magifterial tone, that in all thofe 

 regions there was no city but Mexico. Let us attend 

 to him purely for amufement. " So that as there are 

 " not," he fays, " the lead veftiges of the Indian cities 

 " in all the kingdom of Mexico, it is manifefi: that there 

 " was no more than one place which had any appear- 

 " anceof a city, and this was Mexico, which the Spanifli 

 " writers would call the Babylon of the Indies, but it is 

 " now a long time fince they have been able to deceive 

 " us with the magnificent names they gave to the mife- 

 " rable hamlets of America.'' 



But all the authors who have written on Mexico unani- 

 moufly affirm, that all the nations of that vaft empire lived 

 in focieties; that they had many well-peopled, large, well- 

 laid out fettlements ; name the cities which they faw j 

 and they who travelled through thofe regions two cen- 

 turies and a half after the conqueft, faw the fame fettle- 

 ments in the places mentioned by thofe writers ; fo that 

 M. de Paw is either perfuaded that thofe writers pro- 

 phetically announced the future population of thofe 

 places, or he rauft confefs that they have been from that 

 time where they are at prefent. It is true that the 



Spaniards 



