248 



If the system of the Jesuits had been follow- 

 ed, languages, which already occupy a vast ex- 

 tent of country, would have become almost 

 general. In Terra Firma, and on the Oroono- 

 ko, the Caribbean and the Tamanack alone 

 would now be spoken : and in the south and 

 south west the Qquichua, the Guarani, the 

 Omagua, and the Araucan. In appropriating 

 to themselves these languages, the gramma- 

 tical forms of which are very regular, and al- 

 most as fixed as those of the Greek and San- 

 scrit, the missionaries would place themselves 

 in more intimate connection with the natives 

 whom they govern. The numberless difficul- 

 ties, which occur in the svstem of the Mission 

 formed by half a score of nations, would dis- 

 appear with the confusion of idioms. Those 

 which are little diffused would become dead 

 languages ; but the Indian, in preserving an 

 American idiom, would retain his individuality^ 

 his national physiognomy. Thus by peaceable 

 means would be effected, what those Incas, too 

 highly vaunted, who gave the first example of 

 religious fanaticism in the New World, began 

 to establish by force of arms. 



How indeed can we be surprised at the little 

 progress made by the Chaymas, the Caribbees, 

 the Salives, or the Otomacs, in the knowledge of 

 the Spanish language, when we recollect, that one 

 white man, one single missionary, finds himself 



