36 
amongst them. But the settlers were men of bad 
principles. Instead of acting towards the hospitable 
and generous natives in such a way as to gain their 
esteem and respect, they practised every kind of 
fraud and violence* upon them; and when this was 
resented, they endeavoured to reduce them by force 
of arms. Unaccustomed to encounter the regular 
discipline of European troops, the natives were soon 
subdued, and had no other means left to resist the 
invaders than artifice. Jealous of their liberty, which 
they plainly saw it was - intended to sacrifice, they 
watched every opportunity of freeing themselves from 
the yoke, which became more and more insupportable, 
as the tyranny and ambition of the French led them 
to commit fresh acts of oppression; while every in¬ 
dication of impatience was punished with the utmost 
rigour, and the most arbitrary laws were imposed on 
them, by men who ought themselves to have leaned, 
at least, to the customs of the country. Thus mis¬ 
trust, hatred, and revenge, were engendered, and the 
French, in the sequel, suffered the severe effects of 
their folly and baseness. 
But the most important innovation that has taken 
place in consequence of their intercourse with the 
French, and which has tended more than anything else 
to alter and brutalize their character, is the intro- 
duction of the slave-trade. Painful, indeed, is it to 
* It was no unusual thing for the French ships to fire their 
cannon upon the natives, when they were at all dilatory in fur¬ 
nishing the necessary supplies ! 
