Et quanto galeæ curvetur pondere; quanta
Poplitibus fedeat, quam denfo fafcia libro!

Which lines Mr. Dryden has thus tranflated:

Oh! what a decent fight 'tis to behold
All thy wife's magazine by auction fold!
The belt, the crested plume, the fev'ral fuits
Of armour, and the Spanish leather boots!
Yet these are they, that cannot bear the beat
Of figur'd filks, and under farfenet fweat.
Behold the ftrutting Amazonian whore,
She ftands in guard, with her right foot before;
Her coats tuck'd up, and all her motions just,
She ftamps, and then cries, bab! at every thrust.

AND fo exceffively fond were the people in general of these deteftable spectacles, it was with the utmoft difficulty, that even the power of their emperors, when they became christian, could put an end to them. Happy had it been for the chriftian world, if, when the emperors had fuppreffed thefe gladiators, they had never fuffered a fet of y

different kind of cut-throats, I mean church-gladiators, to mount the ftage; who murdered one another with much more rancour, malice, and cruelty, as well as in infinitely greater numbers, than their heathen kindred and predeceffors had ever done. But of this, perhaps, more hereafter.

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SECTION II.

Of Cruelty proceeding from covetousness or

W1

rapaciousness.

HEN men are fo negligent or flothful that they will not take the neceffary care or pains to maintain themselves or their families, or fo extravagant that they diffipate their own fubftance, they are then very apt to covet the properties of others, and grow rapacious, defperate, and cruel.

Do we not daily fee wicked wretches, who, merely to get the money that paffengers or travellers have about them, which is frequently but a trifle, fcruple not at all to maim, wound, or even kill them? others, who, when their fellow-creatures are endeavouring to fave their lives and effects from shipwreck, instead of aiding, affifting, and comforting fuch in their distress, not only rob them by violence of their goods, but most barbarously murder those whom the raging tempeft had fpared? And fo far hath this vice divefted fome perfons of all humanity and the strictest ties of nature, that they have, as we have feen by several late examples, deliberately contrived, and barbarously perpetrated, the murder of their

benefactors,

benefactors, their near relations, and even

their own parents.

THESE are fome of the effects of perfonal or private covetoufnefs or rapaciousness, by which men are thus excited to cruelty: but when this vice becomes general and national, what terrible havock and deftruction of mankind does it make! Kingdoms then ruin and destroy one another for the fake of gaining wealth. Countries producing uncommon quantities of gold and filver have no fooner been discovered, but the innocent and unhappy inhabitants have been first most cruelly tortured to force them to produce their riches, and then almost whole nations, confifting of many millions, maffacred, that these robbers and murderers by royal commiffion might increase their pillage, and enjoy it in the greater fecurity. A few examples of this kind, among a multitude, which might be produced, fhall here be given,

BARTH. DE LAS CASAS, a Spaniard, and bishop of Cheapa, in Mexico, in his relation of the voyages and cruelties of the Spaniards in the Weft Indies, tells us, that the first conqueft, these people made in America, was the island of Hifpaniola, in which they found above three millions of inhabitants, who were of very good underftandings,

D

ftandings, and fome of the beft-natured, inoffenfive and innocent people in the world; that in about forty years the Spaniards had made fuch deftruction amongst them, that there were not three hundred of the natives left. In the neighbouring iflands of Cuba, St. John's, Jamaica, &c. there were more than five hundred thousand fouls, of whom not one remained alive. Upon the continent, above twelve millions, men, women and children, had in forty years been put to death. The whole number thus maffacred the bishop computed at upwards of fifteen millions: and all this carnage, fays he, was occafioned by avarice to heap up gold.

In a letter to the emperor Charles the Vth, this bishop gives the following account of the cruelty of the Spaniards to the inhabitants in one particular country. "Their

kings and princes," fays he, "they ei"ther fcorched to death, or tore in pieces "with dogs. The poor people they burnt "in their houses, and dafhed out the brains "of their children; and those that were

fpared, they forced to carry greater bur"dens than they were able to bear, by "which thousands of them were deftroyed; "others, who escaped, died of famine in "the woods, after they had killed their "wives and children, and eat them for “ hunger.

"hunger. In this one province they mur"dered above two millions of men. They "tortured the natives with the most hellish "inventions, to make them discover their

gold. Diego de Valafco, in particular, "murdered ten thoufand in a month's time. «** *** Some they starved to death, "thrufting their heads betwixt pieces of "cloven timber. Others they buried alive, "leaving their heads above ground, at "which they bowled with iron bullets :

they likewife forced them to eat one another, and committed many other diabo"lical cruelties, too dreadful to be related."

AFTER this narration of the Spaniards barbarity to the Indians, we cannot much wonder at the choice made by a poor Indian prince, who, as the fame bishop informs us, having been by the Spaniards fastened to a stake to be burnt alive; and being told by a Franciscan friar, that if he would embrace their religion, he should go to heaven; but if not, he must burn for ever in hell; afked, if there were any Spaniards in heaven? and the friar answering, yes; " Then," replied the Indian, " I had rather go to the "devils in hell, than with the Spaniards

"to heaven."

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