“And yet,” said Wrilliot, who had listened in silence, “it was permitted, some years later, that he should go down to the grave wearing the chains with which his persecutors had loaded him, in order to keep him away from the world that he alone had been able to discover!”
“What perseverance! What obstacles he succeeded in overcoming!” replied one of those who had first spoken. “I shall always, while I live, recall with pleasure having been of service to his brother Bartholomew when he came to this country.”
“What! he came here?” repeated William.
“Yes, and was in my own house,” continued the citizen. “Christopher, finding the senate of Genoa and the King of Portugal refused equally to listen or furnish him with vessels necessary for the enterprise he had so long meditated, sent his brother to King Henry VII. He was unfortunately captured, in coming over, by some pirates, who kept him in slavery. Many years elapsed before he succeeded in escaping and reaching England, where he found himself reduced to such a state of destitution that he was obliged to design charts for a living, and to enable him to present himself in decent apparel at court. The king gave him a favorable reception, but Christopher, in the meantime, receiving no intelligence from his brother, solicited so earnestly the court of Spain that he obtained two small vessels from Isabella of Castile, and very soon after Europe learned of the existence of another hemisphere. Spain planted her standard there, and we thus lost the advantages which were destined for us.”
“I do not regret it,” replied an old man sitting in the midst of the crowd, who had until that time maintained a profound silence. “Is it not better for a nation to be less rich and powerful than stained with so many crimes? It is now but thirty-eight years since Columbus founded the colony of San Domingo. This island then contained a million of inhabitants; to-day there scarcely remain forty thousand. But,” pursued the old man with a bitter smile, “they will not stop there. No; they will not confine their barbarous exploits to that miserable region. They are renewing in Peru the carnage they carried on in Mexico. It is necessary to have a great many places for a man to die—to pass a few moments, and then go and hide himself in the grave! I have already lived seventy-nine years, and yet it seems to me now that my left hand still rests on my cradle. I can scarcely believe that these white locks are scattered upon my head; for my life has sped like the fleeting dream of a single night that has passed. Yes, William,” continued the old man, “you look at me with astonishment, and your eyes, full of youthful fire, are fixed upon mine, in which the light has long been extinguished. Ah! well, you will very soon see it extinguished in your own, but not before you will have witnessed all their cruelties.”
“That is bad,” replied William. “But these Indians are stupid and indolent beyond all parallel;[232] they will neither work nor pay the taxes imposed on them.”
“And from whom do the Spaniards claim the right of reducing these people to a state of servitude,” exclaimed the old man indignantly, “and to treat them like beasts of burden whom they are privileged to exterminate with impunity, and carry off the gold their avarice covets, the dagger in one hand, the scourge in the other? They ensure them, they say, the happiness of knowing the Christian religion! How dare they presume to instruct these people in that Gospel of peace which commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves, to detach our hearts from the things of the world, and, leaving our offering before the altar, go and be reconciled with our enemy?”
“From that point of view your argument would seem just,” replied William; “but the fact is, if the Spaniards did not force these islanders to work them, the mines would remain unproductive, the fields uncultivated, and the colonies would perish.”
“You are mistaken,” replied the old man. “In acting as she does Spain destroys in her own womb the source from whence she would draw an immense revenue. If she had been satisfied to establish an honest and peaceable commerce with these countries, her industry, excited to the highest degree by the rich commodities of exchange, would have conferred an incalculable benefit on an entire people whom her blind cupidity has induced her to crush and destroy.
“Do you suppose these isolated negroes they buy at such enormous prices will ever be able to replace the native inhabitants who live and die in their own country? This strange and ferocious population will remain among the colonies, enemies always ready to revolt; a yoke of iron and blood will alone be sufficient to keep them in subjection. But let these masters tremble if ever the power falls into the hands of their slaves!”