4^8 AMERICA. 
had been feen frequently to difgorge balls of liquid fire. 
To appeafe his wrath, they laid, many a facrifice of to¬ 
bacco had been made at the lake by the fathers. 
With regard to the general character of the Indian na¬ 
tions, M. de Pauw reafons in the following manner : — 
“ As the mod ancient hiftories agree in reprelenting every 
race of men,riling gradually out of favage life to the firft 
rudiments of arts, and of fociety, there is juft reafoti to 
believe, that the firfi: men were thrown on this globe 
without other notions or advantages than thofe which are 
found in ordinary favages ; containing in themfelves the 
elements.of perfectibility, they were at a mighty diftance 
from the attainment : in their creation, brutal and unen¬ 
lightened, they owe to themfelves their manners, their 
laws, and their fciences. They had no common model, 
no fixed rule of conduCt; accordingly, they have differed 
\-ery much, as well in the means of attaining to civilized 
life, as in the infiitutions on which their civilization de¬ 
pended : climate has governed them full as much as rea- 
fon ; the different degrees of heat and cold have clearly 
infpired legifiators with oppofite ideas : on comparing the 
legiflative codes of the temperate with thofe of the torrid 
zone, or its neighbourhood, all is contrail, nothing ana¬ 
logous. It is agriculture that has led man by the hand 
from a favage ftate to a politic confiitution : the more 
cultivated the foil, the more abundant the harveft, the 
fooner will the cultivators humanize. The firfi effcCl of 
agriculture is to render men fedentary ; from that mo¬ 
ment they are half civilized ; from hence we may deter¬ 
mine the dalles in which tire feveral fpecies of favages 
fhould be placed, in proportion to their comparative dif¬ 
tance from moral perfection. Cultivators are the firfi by 
pre-eminence, though-the laft in time, becaufe their fub- 
liftence is the leaft precarious, their mode of life the leaft 
turbulent; they have time to invent and to perfeCt their 
inftruments ; they have leifure to think, and to refleCt. 
Paftors come next, but differ from the former, in that, 
being obliged to look out for frefii paftures, and attend 
their flocks, they are never eftablilhed. The Tartars, 
Arabians, Moors, and Laplanders, are thofe of this call 
the befi known; from their manners are to be collected 
the belt ideas we can have of this mode of life, interme¬ 
diate between the favage and civil, and at an equal diftance 
from the two points. The third clafs conlifis of thofe 
who live on the roots and fruits of the earth, without cul¬ 
ture; their manners depend much on the quality of the 
•productions, and the fertility of the foil ; thofe who had 
the cocoa and the palm-tree, were more at their eafe, and 
lefs favage, than tlioie whole firfi refource was in the 
beech-malt and acorn. Thofe who live on fifh form the 
fourth clafs ; their mode of life differs little from that of 
the paftors, except that the latter have a refource in their 
tamed cattle, while the fiftiers depend on chance or dex¬ 
terity for their fubfiftence. Hunters conftitute the laft 
order, and are of all the moft favage ; wandering, un- 
aflured of their fubfiftence, they mult dread the union and 
multiplication of fimilar tribes as the greateft of evils ; 
becaufe game, much lefs abundant than fifti, decreafes in 
every country in proportion as the number of men in- 
creafes. The favage hunter’s feene of aCtion is the wil- 
dernefs ; he avoids every human habitation, and gets to 
a greater diftance at every ftep from focial life. If he 
builds a hut, it is rather for a retreat than a dwelling ; 
never at peace with either men or animals, his inftinft is 
ferocious, his manners rude ; the more his thoughts are 
employed on the means of procuring fubfiftence, the lefs 
he refleds on the means of his improvement; he is, in 
human kind, what the carniyorpus Leaft is among qua¬ 
drupeds, folitary and unfocial. 
“ That America and its inhabitants fnould continue 
fiavage to fo late a period as the fifteenth century, has 
been a fubjeft of wonder to our greateft philofophers. 
To fuppofe, with Button, an after-creation, or with o- 
thers, a modern deluge, is a mere aflertion; an aftump- 
t.o.u of a cattle to anfwer a particular purpofe. In coun¬ 
tries temperate in climate, and rich in vegetables, fociety 
has been eftablilhed infinitely fooner than in the cold afid 
barren. One fees it pafs, and, as it were, travel from 
Alia into Egypt; thence into Greece, and fo in gradation 
into Italy, Gaul, and Germany, following the degrees of 
natural or cultivable advantages in each particular coun¬ 
try. Where property is undetermined, men fight with 
fury to prevenc its eftabliftiment; as every eftablifinnent 
tends to contraft their means of fubfiftence. Where pro¬ 
perty is fixed, men fight with equal fury to defend or en¬ 
large it; in either cafe, men are fo hoftile to each other, 
that the higheft effort of virtue is, to bring one’s felf to 
love them : nay, fuch is our propenfity to difturb each 
other, that even in the moft poliftied focieties, the primi¬ 
tive inftin&s of man break through all reftraints, and the 
philofopher in theory is a favage in pradice. In the Pe- 
loponnefian war, the petty ftates of Greece were fo many 
tribes of favages in malignity, treachery, and every fpecies 
of barbarity ; with this difference in favour of the untu¬ 
tored favage, that he fights that he may eat; the Greeks 
fought to prevent each other from eating. But the cha- 
radler of war, we are told, has been humanized fince thofe 
times; that is, we advance to battle without motive or 
rancour; carnage is tempered by etiquette, and we make 
peace to draw breath, and begin again. But are the 
caufes of war more legitimate, or do fewer men fall by 
the fword ? The jus gentium, fo happily defined in books, 
is a dead letter in the field : did it prevent the humane, 
the generous, Turenne, from burning, wafting, and de- 
ftroving, until he had converted the Palatinate, the fineft 
province of Germany, into a defert ? Could a Huron or 
an Iroquois have done more? 
SETTLEMENT OF NORTH AMERICA. 
North America was difeovered in the reign of 
Henry VII. a period when the arts and fciences had made 
very conliderable progrefs in Europe. Many of the firfi: 
adventurers were men of genius and learning, and were 
careful to preferve authentic records of fuch of their pro¬ 
ceedings as would be interefting to pofterity. Thefe re¬ 
cords afford ample documents for American hiftorians. 
Perhaps no people on the globe can trace the hiftory of 
their origin and progrefs with fo much precilion as the 
inhabitants of North America-; particularly that part of 
them who inhabit the territory of the United States. 
The fame which Columbus had acquired by his firfi: 
difeoveries on this wertern continent, fpread through Eu¬ 
rope, and infpired many with the fpirit of enterprize. As 
early as 1496, four years only after the firfi difcovery of 
America, John Cabot, a Venetian, obtained a commillion 
from Henry VII. to difeover unknown lands and annex 
them to the crown. In the fpring he failed from England 
with two fhips, carrying with him his three fons. In this 
voyage, which was intended for China, he fell in with the 
north fide of Terra Labrador, and coafted northerly as far 
as the 67th degree of latitude. The next year he made a 
fecond voyage to America, with his fon Sebaftian, who 
afterwards proceeded in the difeoveries which his father 
had begun. On the 24th of June, 1497, he difeovered 
Bonavifta, on the north-eaft fide of Newfoundland. Be¬ 
fore his return he traverfed the coaft from Davis’s Straits 
to Cape Florida. 
In 1502, Sebaftian Cabot fell in with Newfoundland ; 
and, on his return, carried three of the natives of that 
ifland to Henry VII. In the fpring of 1513, John Ponce 
failed from Porto Rico northerly, and difeovered the con¬ 
tinent in 30° 8' north latitude. He landed in April, a 
feafon when the country round was covered with verdure, 
and in full bloom. This circumftance induced him to 
call the country Florida, which, for many years was the 
common name for North and South America. In 1516, 
Sir Sebaftian Cabot and Sir Thomas Pert explored the 
coaft as far as Brazil in South America. This vaft ex¬ 
tent of country, the coaft whereof was thus explored, re¬ 
mained unclaimed and unfettled by any European power, 
(except 
