University of Virginia Library

CONVERSION OF THE AMERICANS.

But the most important branch of civilization, and which
has most strenuously been extolled, by the zealous and
pious fathers of the Romish Church, is the introduction
of the Christian faith. It was truly a sight that might
well inspire horror, to behold these savages, stumbling
among the dark mountains of paganism, and guilty of
the most horrible ignorance of religion. It is true, they
neither stole nor defrauded; they were sober, frugal,
continent, and faithful to their word; but though they
acted right habitually, it was all in vain, unless they
acted so from precept. The new comers therefore used
every method to induce them to embrace and practise
the true religion—except indeed that of setting them the
example.

But notwithstanding all these complicated labours for

their good, such was the unparalleled obstinacy of these
stubborn wretches, that they ungratefully refused to acknowledge
the strangers as their benefactors, and persisted
in disbelieving the doctrines they endeavoured to inculcate;
most insolently alleging that from their conduct,
the advocates of Christianity did not seem to believe in
it themselves. Was not this too much for human patience?—would
not one suppose, that the benign visitants
from Europe, provoked at their incredulity, and disconraged,
by their stiff-necked obstinacy, would forever have
abandoned their shores, and consigned them to their original
ignorance and misery? But no—so zealous were
they to effect the temporal comfort and eternal salvation
of these pagan infidels, that they even proceeded from
the milder means of persuasion to the more painful and
troublesome one of persecution—let loose among them
whole troops of fiery monks and furious blood-hounds—purified
them by fire and sword, by stake and faggot; in consequence
of which indefatigable measures the cause of
Christian love and charity was so rapidly advanced that,
in a very few years not one fifth of the number of unbelievers
existed in South America, that were found there
at the time of its discovery.

What stronger right need the European settlers advance
to the country than this? Have not whole nations
of uninformed savages been made acquainted with a
thousand imperious wants and indispensable comforts, of
which they were before wholly ignorant? Have they
not been literally hunted and smoked out of the dens and
lurking places of ignorance and infidelity, and absolutely
scourged into the right path? Have not the temporal
things, the vain baubles and filthy lucre of this world,
which were too apt to engage their worldly and selfish
thoughts, been benevolently taken from them; and have
they not instead thereof, been taught to set their affections
on things above? And, finally, to use the words of
a Reverend Spanish Father, in a letter to his superior in
Spain—“Can any one have the presumption to say, that
these savage Pagans have yielded any thing more than an
inconsiderable recompense to their benefactors, in surrendering
to them a little pitiful tract of this dirty sublunary
planet, in exchange for a glorious inheritance in the kingdom
of Heaven!”

Here, then, are three complete and undeniable sources
of right established, any one of which was more than am

ple to establish a property in the newly discovered regions
of America. Now, so it has happened in certain parts
of this delightful quarter of the globe that the right of
discovery has been so strenuously asserted, the influence
of cultivation so industriously extended, and the progress
of salvation and civilization so zealously prosecuted; that,
what with their attendant wars, persecutions, oppressions,
diseases, and other partial evils that often hang on the
skirts of great benefits, the savage aborigines have, some
how or another, been utterly annihilated; and this all at
once brings me to a fourth right, which is worth all the
others put together; for the original claimants to the soil
being all dead and buried, and no one remaining to inherit
or dispute the soil, the Spaniards as the next immediate
occupants, entered upon the possession as clearly as
the hangman succeeds to the clothes of the malefactor—
and as they have Blackstone,[1] and all the learned expounders
of the law on their side, they may set all actions of
ejectment at defiance—and this last right may be entitled
the RIGHT BY EXTERMINATION, or in other words the
RIGHT BY GUNPOWDER.

But, lest any scruples of conscience should remain on
this head, and to settle the question of right for ever, his
holiness Pope Alexander VI. issued a mighty bull, by
which he generously granted the newly discovered quarter
of the globe to the Spaniards and Portuguese; who,
thus having law and gospel on their side, and being inflamed
with great spiritual zeal, showed the Pagan savages
neither favour nor affection, but prosecuted the work
of discovery, colonization, civilization, and extermination,
with ten times more fury than ever.

Thus were the European worthies who first discovered
America clearly entitled to the soil; and not only entitled
to the soil, but likewise to the eternal thanks of these
infidel savages, for having come so far, endured so many
perils by sea and land, and taken such unwearied pains,
for no other purpose but to improve their forlorn, uncivilized,
and heathenish condition—for having made them
acquainted with the comforts of life—for having introduced
among them the light of religion; and finally, for
having hurried them out of the world, to enjoy its reward!