If Missionaries from different Nations, with cultivated understandings, and enlarged Minds, acquainted in some measure, at least, with the Languages of Europe, Asia, and Africa, were sent to the Western Inland parts of North America, they might be able, to a very considerable degree of probability, if not of certainty, from their Language, Customs, and Manners, to trace the Origin of many Tribes on that vast Continent.[ww]
[Footnote ww: A Society of public spirited Gentlemen have lately employed persons to explore the interior parts of Africa. It were to be wished, that they, or others would extend their plan, and carry on the like design, in the interior parts of America.]
No Credit can be given to those who are called Traders in the Country; for as their chief pursuits are profit, they can make but few discoveries. The Origin and Manners of Nations are not the objects which they have in View. Instead of conciliating the friendship and affections of these unhappy, uncivilized and savage people, they very often shamefully over-reach them, and impose upon them in Business; and when they are detected and chastised for their fraudulent Practices, they bitterly complain of ill treatment, though it often is much better than they deserve.
My design, in the above Extracts and Observations, I presume, hath been answered, which was to shew that the Spaniards have not an unquestionable right to the Continent of America, as the first Discoverers among the Europeans; for it appears from well attested and numerous Relations, Facts and Circumstances, that the Ancient Britons landed on the American Shores about 300 Years before either, Behaim, Columbus or Americus Vespucius.
But after all, what is it that gives a people right to a Country?
This question is very easily answered. If Voyagers, by chance, fall in with a Continent, or Island, uninhabited and uncultivated, they have a right of possession by the Law of Nature, and or reason; because no human Being is injured or deprived of his right. But if they find any Inhabitants there, they can have no right. The Man who robs us on the High Way, or who breaks open, and plunders our Houses, hath as good a right to what he takes from us, as Conquerors to a Country, which they may be able to subdue by Force of Arms. The right obtained by Conquest if admitted, will justify every Kind and every degree of oppression, even the slavery of our poor African Brethren. This principle will justify a Nation in wresting whole Countries out of the Hands of a cultivated, well ordered and peaceable people. In short, this Principle will justify the greatest Inhumanity, Cruelty, and Barbarity.
Nations engaged in open Way may, perhaps, be justified in invading and subduing their Enemies' Territories, because it may be the happy means of hastening a Peace, and put an end to the shedding of human Blood. But, on such Occasions, the innocent Inhabitants should not be wantonly injured; because the quarrel, is not between private Individuals, but between their Governors, in which their real Interests are seldom consulted. Very few necessary Wars have ever disturbed the peace of the World: they generally are the consequence of Ambition, Pride, and Vanity.
To invade and wantonly destroy, or plunder, the Lands or the Houses of a quiet, inoffensive and peaceable people; to carry away or destroy their property, without any provocation on their part, only because they are not able to resist, are acts in themselves highly wicked and diabolical.
How Madog and his Colony behaved, when they landed, to the original Inhabitants of the Country, does not appear; not in a hostile, but in an amicable and affectionate manner, as may be supposed; for his memory was held in high esteem by the Mexicans when Cortez arrived there. He was the Hero whose praises they celebrated in various places. How the Spaniards behaved is well known. One Author says that Cortez, and his Army slew four millions of Mexicans and two Emperors, Montezuma, and Guatimozin, the latter in the most cruel manner.
But if two millions, or even one, were destroyed, it was a carnage that will reflect the highest disgrace upon the infernal Perpetrators for ever.