9® 



COMMERCE. 



many vi6lims sacrificed, for the barbarous and insensate plea- 

 sure of destroying, and committing crimes. It being at the 

 same time certain that the territories into which the Spanish 

 armies did not penetrate, constitute the most complete wastes, 

 insomuch that throughout an extent of many leagues, not the 

 slightest trace of a human dwelling is to be found ; and that, 

 under the government of the Yncas, there was not, in all Peru, 

 with the exception of Cuzco, a single place which could have 

 formed a city ; a regard to justice requires that the false ideas 

 which have been entertained relatively to the ruin and destruc- 

 tion of America, should be laid aside. 



This destru61:ion would have been horrible, if the calcula- 

 tion which makes its aborigines amount to three hundred mil- 

 lions, were not destitute of all probability. The absurd au- 

 thor*, however, of this contemptible estimate, has not been 

 supported in his extravagances. Those who come the nearest 

 to him, do not rate the population of America, running from 

 south to north, with all the islands in its dependency, at 

 more than a hundred millions ; and, with this notable de- 

 du6tion even, they depart considerably from the truth, since 

 the political arithmeticians who have treated the subjedl; with 

 impartiality, allow forty millions only to the whole of the new 

 world, at the time of its discovery. 



The true causes of 'the depopulation of America, taken in 

 the general sense which has already been expressed, are to be 

 traced in the kind of life to which its primitive inhabitants 

 were confined. Depending principally on hunting and fish- 

 ing, their days were spent in a violent agitation, at the same 



* Riccioli. 



time 



