the court of Flora, has fallen upon a theory worthy those who are to come after us. Theories are the of his combustible imagination. According to his mighty soap-bubbles with which the grown-up chilopinion, the huge mass of chaos took a sudden oc-dren of science amuse themselves-while the honest casion to explode, like a barrel of gunpowder, and in vulgar stand gazing in stupid admiration, and dignify that act exploded the sun-which in its flight, by a these learned vagaries with the name of wisdom !-similar convulsion, exploded the earth--which in Surely, Socrates was right in his opinion, that philike guise exploded the moon-and thus by a con-losophers are but a soberer sort of madmen, busying catenation of explosions, the whole solar system was themselves in things totally incomprehensible, or produced, and set most systematically in motion! * which, if they could be comprehended, would be By the great variety of theories here alluded to, found not worth the trouble of discovery. every one of which, if thoroughly examined, will be found surprisingly consistent in all its parts, my unlearned readers will perhaps be led to conclude, that the creation of a world is not so difficult a task as they at first imagined. I have shown at least a score of ingenious methods in which a world could be constructed; and I have no doubt that had any of the philosophers above quoted the use of a good manageable comet, and the philosophical warehouse chaos at his command, he would engage to manufacture a planet as good, or, if you would take his word for it, better than this we inhabit. For my own part, until the learned have come to an agreement among themselves, I shall content myself with the account handed down to us by Moses; in which I do but follow the example of our ingenious neighbours of Connecticut; who at their first settlement proclaimed that the colony should be governed by the laws of God—until they had time to make better. One thing, however, appears certain-from the unanimous authority of the before-quoted philoso phers, supported by the evidence of our own senses, (which, though very apt to deceive us, may be cauAnd here I cannot help noticing the kindness of tiously admitted as additional testimony,) it appears, Providence, in creating comets for the great relief of I say, and I make the assertion deliberately, without bewildered philosophers. By their assistance more fear of contradiction, that this globe really was cresudden evolutions and transitions are effected in the ated, and that it is composed of land and water. It system of nature, than are wrought in a pantomimic farther appears that it is curiously divided and parexhibition, by the wonder-working sword of Harle-celled out into continents and islands, among which quin. Should one of our modern sages, in his the- I boldly declare the renowned ISLAND OF NEWoretical flights among the stars, ever find himself YORK will be found by any one who seeks for it in lost in the clouds, and in danger of tumbling into its proper place. the abyss of nonsense and absurdity, he has but to seize a comet by the beard, mount astride of its tail, and away he gallops in triumph, like an enchanter on his hippogriff, or a Connecticut witch on her broom-stick, "to sweep the cobwebs out of the sky." CHAPTER III. HOW THAT FAMOUS NAVIGATOR, NOAH, WAS There is an old and vulgar saying about a "beggar on horseback," which I would not for the world have applied to these reverend philosophers: but I must confess that some of them, when they are mounted on one of those fiery steeds, are as wild in their curvetings as was Phæton of yore, when he aspired to manage the chariot of Phoebus. One drives his comet at full speed against the sun, and knocks the world out of him with the mighty concussion; another, more moderate, makes his comet a mere beast of burden, carrying the sun a regular supply of food and fagots; a third, of more combustible disposition, threatens to throw his comet, like a bombshell, into the world and blow it up like a powdermagazine; while a fourth, with no great delicacy to this planet and its inhabitants, insinuates that some day or other his comet-my modest pen blushes I regret exceedingly that the nature of my plan while I write it-shall absolutely turn tail upon our world and deluge it with water!-Surely, as I have already observed, comets were intended by Providence for the benefit of philosophers, to assist them in manufacturing theories. And now, having adduced several of the most prominent theories that occur to my recollection, I leave my judicious readers at full liberty to choose among them. They are all serious speculations of learned men-all differ essentially from each otherand alt have the same title to belief. It has ever been the task of one race of philosophers to demolish the works of their predecessors, and elevate more splendid fantasies in their stead, which in their turn are demolished and replaced by the air-castles of a succeeding generation. Thus it would seem that knowledge and genius, of which we make such great parade, consist but in detecting the errors and absurdities of those who have gone before, and devising new errors and absurdities, to be detected by Darw Bot. Garden. Part. I. Cant. i 1. 105. NOAH, who is the first sea-faring man we read of, begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet. Authors, it is true, are not wanting who affirm that the patriarch had a number of other children. Thus Berosus makes himn father of the gigantic Titans; Methodius gives him a son called Jonithus, or Jonicus, and others have mentioned a son named Thuiscon, from whom descended the Teutons or Teutonic, or, in other words, the Dutch nation. will not permit me to gratify the laudable curiosity of my readers, by investigating minutely the history of the great Noah. Indeed, such an undertaking would be attended with more trouble than many people would imagine; for the good old patriarch seems to have been a great traveller in his day, and to have passed under a different name in every country that he visited. The Chaldeans, for instance, give us his history, merely altering his name into Xisuthrus-a trivial alteration, which, to a historian skilled in etymologies, will appear wholly unimportant. It appears, likewise, that he had exchanged his tarpawling and quadrant among the Chaldeans for the gorgeous insignia of royalty, and appears as a monarch in their annals. The Egyptians celebrate him under the name of Osiris; the Indians, as Menu; the Greek and Roman writers confound him with Ogyges, and the Theban with Deucalion and Saturn. But the Chinese, who deservedly rank among the most extensive and authentic historians, inasmuch as they have known the world much longer than any one else, declare that Noah was no other than Fohi; WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. and what gives this assertion some air of credibility | bounded ocean, and nad so many shoals and quick- From this mass of rational conjectures and sage Noah, we are told by sundry very credible historians, becoming sole surviving heir and proprietor of the earth in fee simple, after the deluge, like a good father, portioned out his estate among his children. To Shem he gave Asia; to Ham, Africa; and to Japhet, Europe. Now it is a thousand times to be lamented that he had but three sons, for had there been a fourth, he would doubtless have inherited America; which, of course, would have been dragged forth from its obscurity on the occasion; and thus many a hard-working historian and philosopher would have been spared a prodigious mass of weary conjecture respecting the first discovery and population of this country. Noah, however, having provided for his three sons, looked in all probability upon our country as mere wild unsettled land, and said nothing about it; and to this unpardonable taciturnity of the patriarch, may we ascribe the misfortune that America did not come into the world as early as the other quarters of the globe. the art of sailing on the ocean?" Therefore, they did sail on the ocean-therefore, they sailed to America-therefore, America was discovered by Noah! so strikingly characteristic of the good father, being Now all this exquisite chain of reasoning, which is addressed to the faith, rather than the understanding, is flatly opposed by Hans de Laert, who declares it a real and most ridiculous paradox, to suppose that Noah ever entertained the thought of discovering America; and as Hans is a Dutch writer, I am inclined to believe he must have been much better acquainted with the worthy crew of the ark than his competitors, and of course possessed of more accurate sources of information. It is astonishing how intimate historians do daily become with the patriarchs and other great men of antiquity. As intimacy inproves with time, and as the learned are particularly ancients, I should not be surprised if some future wriinquisitive and familiar in their acquaintance with the ters should gravely give us a picture of men and manners as they existed before the flood, far more copious and accurate than the Bible; and that, in the course of another century, the log-book of the good Noah should be as current among historians, as the voyages son Crusoe. of Captain Cook, or the renowned history of Robin mass of additional suppositions, conjectures, and I shall not occupy my time by discussing the huge probabilities, respecting the first discovery of this country, with which unhappy historians overload themselves, in their endeavours to satisfy the doubts of an incredulous world. It is painful to see these laborious wights panting, and toiling, and sweating under an enormous burden, at the very outset of their works, which, on being opened, turns out to be nothing but a mighty bundle of straw. As, however, by unwearied assiduity, they seem to have established the fact, to the satisfaction of all the world, that this country has been discovered, I shall avail myself of their useful labours to be extremely brief upon this point. America was first discovered by a wandering vessel I shall not, therefore, stop to inquire, whether of that celebrated Phoenician fleet, which, according Carthaginian expedition, which Pliny, the naturalist, to Herodotus, circumnavigated Africa; or by that informs us, discovered the Canary Islands; or whether it was settled by a temporary colony from Tyre, as hinted by Aristotle and Seneca. I shall neither inquire whether it was first discovered by the Chinese, as Vossius with great shrewdness advances; nor by the Norwegians in 1002, under Biorn; nor by Behern, the German navigator, as Mr. Otto has endeavoured to prove to the scavans of the learned city of Philadelphia. It is true, some writers have vindicated him from this misconduct towards posterity, and asserted that he really did discover America. Thus it was the opinion of Mark Lescarbot, a French writer, possessed of that ponderosity of thought and profoundness of reflection so peculiar to his nation, that the immediate descendants of Noah peopled this quarter of the globe, and that the old patriarch himself, who still retained a passion for the sea-faring life, superintended the transmigration. The pious and enlightened father, Charlevoix, a French Jesuit, remarkable for his aversion to the marvellous, common to all great travellers, is conclusively of the same opinion; nay, he goes still farther, and decides upon the manner in which the discovery was effected, which was by sea, and under the immediate direction of the great Noah. "I have already observed," exclaims the good father, in a tone of becoming indignation, "that it is an arbitrary supposition that the grand-children of Noah were not able to penetrate mentioned, with a multitude of others, equally satisLaying aside, therefore, all the conjectures above into the new world, or that they never thought of it. factory, I shall take for granted the vulgar opinion. In effect, I can see no reason that can justify such a that America was discovered on the 12th of October, notion. Who can seriously believe that Noah and 1492, by Christovallo Colon, a Genoese, who has his immediate descendants knew less than we do, and been clumsily nicknamed Columbus, but for what that the builder and pilot of the greatest ship that reason I cannot discern. Of the voyages and adever was, a ship which was formed to traverse an un-ventures of this Colon, I shall say nothing, seeing the Welsh, founded on the voyage of prince Madoc Nor shall I investigate the more modern claims of in the eleventh century, who having never returned, it has since been wisely concluded that he must have gone to America, and that for a plain reason—if he did not go there, where else could he have gone?— a question which most Socratically shuts out all farther dispute. that they are already sufficiently known. Nor shall | itching humour to see what is not to be seen, and to I undertake to prove that this country should have be doing what signifies nothing when it is done." been called Colonia, after his name, that being no- But to proceed: toriously self-evident. Having thus happily got my readers on this side of the Atlantic, I picture them to myself, all impatience to enter upon the enjoyment of the land of promise, and in full expectation that I will immediately deliver it into their possession. But if I do, may I ever forfeit the reputation of a regular-bred historian! No-no-most curious and thrice learned readers, (for thrice learned ye are, if ye have read all that has gone before, and nine times learned shall ye be, if ye read that which comes after,) we have yet a world of work before us. Think you the first discoverers of this fair quarter of the globe had nothing to do but go on shore and find a country ready laid out and cultivated like a garden, wherein they might revel at their ease? No such thing-they had forests to cut down, underwood to grub up, marshes to drain, and savages to exterminate. In like manner, I have sundry doubts to clear away, questions to resolve, and paradoxes to explain, before I permit you to range at random; but these difficulties ence overcome, we shall be enabled to jog on right merrily through the rest of our history. Thus my work shall, in a manner, echo the nature of the subject, in the same manner as the sound of poetry has been found by certain shrewd critics to echo the sense this being an improvement in history, which I claim the merit of having invented. CHAPTER IV. Of the claims of the children of Noah to the original population of this country, I shall say nothing, as they have already been touched upon in my last chapter. The claimants next in celebrity, are the descendants of Abraham. Thus Christoval Colon (vulgarly called Columbus) when he first discovered the gold mines of Hispaniola, immediately concluded, with a shrewdness that would have done honour to a philosopher, that he had found the ancient Ophir, from whence Solomon procured the gold for embellishing the temple at Jerusalem; nay, Colon even imagined that he saw the remains of furnaces of veritable Hebraic construction, employed in refining the precious ore. So golden a conjecture, tinctured with such fascinating extravagance, was too tempting not to be immediately snapped at by the gudgeons of learning; and accordingly, there were divers profound writers, ready to swear to its correctness, and to bring in their usual load of authorities, and wise surmises, wherewithal to prop it up. Vetablus and Robertus Stephens declared nothing could be more clearArius Montanus, without the least hesitation, asserts that Mexico was the true Ophir, and the Jews the early settlers of the country. While Possevin, Becan, and several other sagacious writers, lug in a supposed prophecy of the fourth book of Esdras, which being inserted in the mighty hypothesis, like the keystone of an arch, gives it, in their opinion, perpetual durability. Scarce, however, have they completed their goodly superstructure, than in trudges a phalanx of opposite authors, with Hans de Laert, the great Dutchman, at SHOWING THE GREAT DIFFICULTY PHILOSO- their head, and at one blow tumbles the whole fabric PHERS HAVE HAD IN PEOPLING AMERICA-about their years. Hans, in fact, contradicts outright AND HOW THE ABORIGINES CAME TO BE BEGOTTEN BY ACCIDENT-TO THE GREAT RE LIEF AND SATISFACTION OF THE AUTHOR. THE next inquiry at which we arrive in the regular course of our history, is to ascertain, if possible, how this country was originally peopled-a point fruitful of incredible embarrassment; for unless we prove that the aborigines did absolutely come from somewhere, it will be immediately asserted in this age of scepticism that they did not come at all; and if they did not come at all, then was this country never populated-a conclusion perfectly agreeable to the rules of logic, but wholly irreconcilable to every feeling of humanity, inasmuch as it must syllogistically prove fatal to the innumerable aborigines of this populous region. all the Israelitish claims to the first settlement of this country, attributing all those equivocal symptoms, and traces of Christianity and Judaism, which have been said to be found in divers provinces of the new world, to the Devil, who has always affected to counterfeit the worship of the true deity. "A remark," says the knowing old Padre d'Acosta, "made by all good authors who have spoken of the religion of nations newly discovered, and founded besides on the authority of the fathers of the church." Some writers again, among whom it is with great regret I am compelled to mention Lopez de Gomara, and Juan de Leri, insinuate that the Canaanites, being driven from the land of promise by the Jews, were seized with such a panic that they fled without looking behind them, until, stopping to take breath, they found themselves safe in America. As they brought neither their national language, manners, nor features with them, it is supposed they left them behind in the hurry of their flight-I cannot give my faith to this opinion. To avert so dire a sophism, and to rescue from logical annihilation so many millions of fellow-creatures, how many wings of geese have been plundered! what oceans of ink have been benevolently drained! and how many capacious heads of learned historians I pass over the supposition of the learned Grotius, have been addled, and for ever confounded! I pause who being both an ambassador and a Dutchman to with reverential awe, when I contemplate the pon- boot, is entitled to great respect; that North America derous tomes, in different languages, with which they was peopled by a strolling company of Norwegians, have endeavoured to solve this question, so important and that Peru was founded by a colony from China to the happiness of society, but so involved in clouds-Manco or Mango Capac, the first Incas, being of impenetrable obscurity. Historian after historian himself a Chinese. Nor shall I more than barely has engaged in the endless circle of hypothetical argu- mention, that father Kircher ascribes the settlement ment, and after leading us a weary chase through of America to the Egyptians, Rudbeck to the Scanoctavos, quartos, and folios, has let us out at the end dinavians, Charron to the Gauls, Juffredus Petri to a of his work just as wise as we were at the beginning. skating party from Friesland, Milius to the Celtæ, It was doubtless some philosophical wild-goose chase Marinocus the Sicilian to the Romans, Le Compte of the kind that made the old poet Macrobius rail in to the Phoenicians, Postel to the Moors, Martyn such a passion at curiosity, which he anathematizes d'Angleria to the Abyssinians, together with the most heartily, as "an irksome, agonizing care, a sage surmise of De Laert, that England, Ireland, and superstitious industry about unprofitable things, an the Orcades may contend for that honour. Nor will I bestow any more attention or credit to or after the manner of the renowned Scythian the idea that America is the fairy region of Zipangri, Abaris, who, like the New-England witches on fulldescribed by that dreaming traveller, Marco Polo, blooded broomsticks, made most unheard-of journeys the Venetian; or that it comprises the visionary on the back of a golden arrow, given him by the island of Atlantis, described by Plato. Neither will Hyperborean Apollo. I stop to investigate the heathenish assertion of Paracelsus, that each hemisphere of the globe was originally furnished with an Adam and Eve-or the more flattering opinion of Dr. Romayne, supported by many nameless authorities, that Adam was of the Indian race-or the startling conjecture of Buffon, Helvetius, and Darwin, so highly honourable to mankind, that the whole human species is accidentally descended from a remarkable family of monkeys! But there is still one mode left by which this country could have been peopled, which I have reserved for the last, because I consider it worth all the rest: it is-by accident! Speaking of the islands of Solomon, New-Guinea, and New-Holland, the profound father Charlevoix observes, "in fine, all these countries are peopled, and it is possible some have been so by accident. Now if it could have happened in that manner, why might it not have been at the same time, and by the same means, with the other part of the globe?" This ingenious mode of deducing certain conclusions from possible premises, is an im father superior even to Archimedes, for he can turn the world without any thing to rest his lever upon. It is only surpassed by the dexterity with which the sturdy old Jesuit, in another place, cuts the gordian knot." Nothing," says he, "is more easy. The inhabitants of both hemispheres are certainly the descendants of the same father. The common father of mankind received an express order from Heaven to people the world, and accordingly it has been peopled. To bring this about, it was necessary to overcome all difficulties in the way, and they have also been overcome!" Pious logician! How does he put all the herd of laborious theorists to the blush, by explaining, in five words, what it has cost them volumes to prove they knew nothing about. This last conjecture, I must own, came upon me very suddenly and very ungraciously. I have often beheld the clown in a pantomime, while gazing in stupid wonder at the extravagant gambols of a har-provement in syllogistic skill, and proves the good lequin, all at once electrified by a sudden stroke of the wooden sword across his shoulders. Little did I think at such times, that it would ever fall to my lot to be treated with equal discourtesy; and that while I was quietly beholding these grave philosophers, emulating the eccentric transformations of the hero of pantomime, they would on a sudden turn upon me and my readers, and with one hypothetical flourish metamorphose us into beasts! I determined from that moment not to burn my fingers with any more of their theories, but content myself with detailing the different methods by which they transported the descendants of these ancient and respectable monkeys to this great field of theoretical warfare. This was done either by migrations by land or transmigrations by water. Thus, Padre Joseph From all the authorities here quoted, and a variety D'Acosta enumerates three passages by land-first of others which I have consulted, but which are ly the north of Europe, secondly by the north of omitted through fear of fatiguing the unlearned Asia, and thirdly by regions southward of the straits reader-I can only draw the following conclusions, of Magellan. The learned Grotius marches his Nor- which luckily, however, are sufficient for my purpose wegians by a pleasant route across frozen rivers and First, that this part of the world has actually been arms of the sea, through Iceland, Greenland, Estoti- | peopled, (Q. E. D.) to support which we have living land, and Naremberga: and various writers, among proofs in the numerous tribes of Indians that inhabit whom are Angleria, De Hornn, and Buffon, anxious it. Secondly, that it has been peopled in five hunfor the accommodation of these travellers, have fastened the two continents together by a strong chain of deductions by which means they could pass over dry-shod. But should even this fail, Pinkerton, that industrious old gentleman who compiles books and manufactures geographies, has constructed a natural bridge of ice, from continent to continent, at the distance of four or five miles from Behring's straits— for which he is entitled to the grateful thanks of all the wandering aborigines who ever did or ever will pass over it. It is an evil much to be lamented, that none of the worthy writers above quoted could ever commence dred different ways, as proved by a cloud of authors, who, from the positiveness of their assertions, seem to have been eye-witnesses to the fact. Thirdly, that the people of this country had a variety of fathers, which, as it may not be thought much to their credit by the common run of readers, the less we say on the subject the better. The question, therefore, I trust, is for ever at rest. CHAPTER V. TION TO THE ROUT BY THE ASSISTANCE OF THIS INTRODUCTORY BOOK. his work, without immediately declaring hostilities IN WHICH THE AUTHOR PUTS A MIGHTY QUES against every writer who had treated of the same subject. In this particular, authors may be compared to a certain sagacious bird, which, in building its nest, is sure to pull to pieces the nests of all the birds in the neighbourhood. This unhappy propensity tends grievously to impede the progress of sound knowledge. Theories are at best but brittle productions, and when once committed to the stream, they should take care that, like the notable pots which were fellow-voyagers, they do not crack each other. My chief surprise is, that among the many writers I have noticed, no one has attempted to prove that this country was peopled from the moon-or that the first inhabitants floated hither on islands of ice, as white bears cruise about the northern oceans-or that they were conveyed hither by balloons, as modern aeronauts pass from Dover to Calais-or by witchcraft, as Simon Magus posted among the stars THE writer of a history may, in some respects, be likened unto an adventurous knight, who having undertaken a perilous enterprise, by way of establishing his fame, feels bound in honour and chivalry, to turn back for no difficulty nor hardship, and never to shrink or quail, whatever enemy he may encounter. Under this impression, I resolutely draw my pen, and fall to, with might and main, at those doughty questions and subtle paradoxes, which, like fiery dragons and bloody giants, beset the entrance to my history, and would fain repulse me from the very threshold. And at this moment a gigantic question has started up, which I must needs take by the beard and utterly subdue, before I can advance another step in my historic undertaking; but I trust this will be the last adversary I shall have to contend with, and that in the next book I shall be enabled to conduct my readers in triumph into the body of my work. ing us that "ambition they have none, and are more desirous of being thought strong than valiant. The objects of ambition with us-honour, fame, reputation, riches, posts, and distinctions-are unknown among them. So that this powerful spring of action, the cause of so much seeming good and real evil in The question which has thus suddenly arisen, is, the world, has no power over them. In a word, these what right had the first discoverers of America to unhappy mortals may be compared to children, in land and take possession of a country, without first whom the development of reason is not completed." gaining the consent of its inhabitants, or yielding Now all these peculiarities, although in the unenthem an adequate compensation for their territory? lightened states of Greece they would have entitled -a question which has withstood many fierce as- their possessors to immortal honour, as having resaults, and has given much distress of mind to multi-duced to practice those rigid and abstemious maxims, tudes of kind-hearted folk. And, indeed, until it be totally vanquished, and put to rest, the worthy people of America can by no means enjoy the soil they inhabit, with clear right and title, and quiet, unsullied consciences. The first source of right, by which property is acquired in a country, is DISCOVERY. For as all mankind have an equal right to any thing which has never before been appropriated, so any nation that discovers an uninhabited country, and takes possession thereof, is considered as enjoying full property, and absolute, unquestionable empire therein.* the mere talking about which acquired certain old Greeks the reputation of sages and philosophers;— yet, were they clearly proved in the present instance to betoken a most abject and brutified nature, totally beneath the human character. But the benevolent fathers, who had undertaken to turn these unhappy savages into dumb beasts, by dint of argument, advanced still stronger proofs; for as certain divines of the sixteenth century, and among the rest, Lullus, affirm-the Americans go naked, and have no beards! "They have nothing," says Lullus," of the reasonable animal, except the mask."-And even that mask was allowed to avail them but little, for it was soon found that they were of a hideous copper complexion This proposition being admitted, it follows clearly that the Europeans who first visited America were the real discoverers of the same; nothing being nec--and being of a copper complexion, it was all the essary to the establishment of this fact, but simply same as if they were negroes-and negroes are to prove that it was totally uninhabited by man. black, "and black," said the pious fathers, devoutly This would, at first, appear to be a point of some crossing themselves, "is the colour of the Devil! difficulty, for it is well known that this quarter of the Therefore, so far from being able to own property, world abounded with certain animals that walked they had no right even to personal freedom-for erect on two feet, had something of the human liberty is too radiant a deity to inhabit such gloomy countenance, uttered certain unintelligible sounds temples. All which circumstance plainly convinced very much like language; in short, had a marvellous the righteous followers of Cortes and Pizarro, that resemblance to human beings. But the zealous and these miscreants had no title to the soil that they inenlightened fathers, who accompanied the discover-fested-that they were a perverse, illiterate, dumb, ers, for the purpose of promoting the kingdom of beardless, black-seed-mere wild beasts of the forests, heaven, by establishing fat monasteries and bishoprics and, like them, should either be subdued or extermion earth, soon cleared up this point, greatly to the nated. satisfaction of his holiness the Pope, and of all Christian voyagers and discoverers. They plainly proved, and as there were no Indian writers arose on the other side, the fact was considered as fully admitted and established, that the two-legged race of animals before mentioned were mere cannibals, detestable monsters, and many of them giants—which last description of vagrants have, since the time of Gog, Magog, and Goliath, been considered as outlaws, and have received no quarter in either history, chivalry, or song. Indeed, even the philosophic Bacon declared the Americans to be people proscribed by the laws of nature, inasmuch as they had a barbarous custom of sacrificing men, and feeding upon man's flesh. From the foregoing arguments, therefore, and a variety of others equally conclusive, which I forbear to enumerate, it is clearly evident that this fair quarter of the globe, when first visited by Europeans, was a howling wilderness, inhabited by nothing but wild beasts; and that the transatlantic visitors acquired an incontrovertible property therein, by the right of discovery. to its share. Those people, like the ancient Germans and modern Tartars, who, having fertile countries, disdain to cultivate the earth, and choose to live by rapine, are wanting to themselves, and deserve to be exterminated as savage and pernicious beasts.* This right being fully established, we now come to the next, which is the right acquired by cultivation. "The cultivation of the soil," we are told, "is an obligation imposed by nature on mankind. The whole world is appointed for the nourishment of its inhabitants: but it would be incapable of doing it, was it uncultivated. Every nation is then obliged by the Nor are these all the proofs of their utter barbar-law of nature to cultivate the ground that has fallen ism: among many other writers of discernment, Ulloa tells us, "their imbecility is so visible, that one can hardly form an idea of them different from what one has of the brutes. Nothing disturbs the tranquillity of their souls, equally insensible to disasters and to prosperity. Though half naked, they are as Now it is notorious, that the savages knew nothing contented as a monarch in his most splendid array. of agriculture, when first discovered by the EuroFear makes no impression on them, and respect as peans, but lived a most vagabond, disorderly, unlittle." All this is furthermore supported by the au- righteous life, -rambling from place to place, and thority of M. Bouguer: "It is not easy," says he, prodigally rioting upon the spontaneous luxuries of to describe the degree of their indifference for nature, without tasking her generosity to yield them wealth and all its advantages. One does not well any thing more; whereas it has been most unquestionknow what motives to propose to them, when one ably shown, that Heaven intended the earth should be would persuade them to any service. It is vain to ploughed and sown, and manured, and laid out into offer them money; they answer that they are not cities, and towns, and farms, and country-seats, and hungry." And Vanegas confirms the whole, assur-pleasure grounds, and public gardens, all which the • Grotius Puffendorf, b. v. c. 4. Vattel, b. i. c. 18, otc Vattel, b. i. ch. 17. |