THE BRAZILS. 107 
at once this infant colony ; and this would inevitably have 
happened, had not the interference of some Jesuit mission- 
aries, Avho by their persuasive and winning conduct had 
gained the esteem of the natives, warded off" the blov/. These 
enterprising men prevailed on that part of the insulted na- 
tives, which inhabited the sea coast, to accede to terms of re- 
conciliation with the colonists ; but many retired into the 
interior, and, notwithstanding all the exertions of these holy 
men, could never be induced to put further confidence in 
their European intruders. 
It is a reproach but too well founded that, wherever 
Europeans have extended their conquests in foreign countries, 
the numbers of the natives have gradually diminished, new 
and destructive'diseases have been introduced, their physical 
powers have been diminished by the copious use of poisonous 
spirits, their minds corrupted by theft and lying, their primi- 
tive simplicity destroyed, their means of subsistence rendered 
more precarious and difficult, whilst they have rarely made a 
single step in the progress towards civil polity, or the least ad- 
vancement in arts, manufactnres, or morality. If the human 
mind, in every variety of the species, was not known to be 
capable of progressive improvement, the fault might be sup- 
posed to rest with the rough and stubborn temper of the un- 
polished natives ; but it demands only a slight inquiry into the 
modes of treatment, which in some colonists are cruel and 
outrageous, and in others zealous and intolerant, fully to ac- 
count for this melancholy truth. As an instance of the 
former mode of proceeding I have had occasion to represent 
the conduct of the Dutch boors towards the Hottentots ; and 
p 2 
