their fort, and reduced to extremity. Unhappily a reinforcement arrived from Spain: a long and bloody war enfued, which did not end till the islanders were entirely fubdued. Of this island, about 200 leagues in length, and between fixty and eighty in breadth, a Spanish hiftorian bears witness, that the inhabitants amounted to a million when Columbus landed *. The Spaniards, relentless in their cruelty, forced thefe poor people to abandon the culture of their fields, and to retire to the woods and mountains. Hunted like wild beafts even in these retreats, they fled from mountain to mountain, till hunger and fatigue, which destroyed more than the fword, made them deliver themfelves up to their implacable enemies. There remained at that time but 60,000, who were divided among the Spaniards as flaves. Exceffive fatigue in the mines, and want even of neceffaries, reduced them in five years to 14,000. Confidering them to be only beasts of burden, they would have yielded more profit had they been

The numbers poffibly are exaggerated. But whether a million, or a half of that number, the moral is the fame.

treated

treated with less inhumanity. Avarice frequently counteracts its own end: by grafping too much, it lofes all. The Emperor Charles refolved to apply fome remedy; but being retarded by various avocations, he got intelligence that the poor Indians were totally extirpated. And they were fo in reality, a handful excepted, who lay hid in the mountains, and fubfifted as by a miracle in the midft of their enemies. That handful were difcovered many years after by fome hunters, who treated them with humanity, regreting perhaps the barbarity of their forefathers. The poor Indians, docile and fubmiffive, embraced the Chriftian religion, and affumed by degrees the manners and cuftoms of their mafters. They ftill exift, and live by hunting and fishing.

Affection for property! Janus doublefaced, productive of many bleffings, but degenerating often to be a curfe. In thy right hand, Induftry, a cornucopia of plenty in thy left, Avarice, a Pandora's box of deadly poifon.

SKETCH

SKETCH III.

Origin and Progress of Commerce.

HE few wants of men in the first

TH

ftage of fociety, are supplied by barter in its rudeft form. In barter, the rational confideration is, what is wanted. by the one, and what can be spared by the other. But favages are not always fo clear-fighted: a favage who wants a knife, will give for it any thing that is lefs useful to him at the time, without confidering either the prefent wants of the perfon he is dealing with, or his own future wants. An inhabitant of Guiana will for a fish-hook give more at one time, than at another he will give for a hatchet, or for a gun. Kempfer reports, that an inhabitant of Puli Timor, an ifland adjacent to Malacca, will, for a bit of coarse linen not worth three-halfpence, give provisions worth three or four fhillings. But people improve by degrees, attending to what is wanted on the one fide, and to what can

be fpared on the other; and in that leffon,

the American favages in our neighbourhod are not a little expert.

a

Barter or permutation, in its original form, proved miferably deficient when men and their wants multiplied. That fort of commerce cannot be carried on at a distance; and, even among neighbours, it does not always happen that the one can spare what the other wants. Barter is fomewhat enlarged by covenants: bufhel of wheat is delivered to me, upon my promising an equivalent at a future time. But what if I have nothing that my neighbour may have occafion for? or what if my promise be not relied on? Thus barter, even with the aid of covenants, proves ftill defective. The number less wants of men cannot readily be fupplied, without fome commodity in general estimation, which will be gladly accepted in exchange for every other. That commodity ought not to be bulky, nor be expenfive in keeping, nor be confumeable by time. Gold and filver are metals that pofsess these properties in an eminent degree. They are at the fame time perfectly homogeneous in whatever country produced: two maffes of pure gold or of pure filver

are

are always equal in value, provided they be of the fame weight. Thefe metals are alfo divifible into fmall parts, convenient to be given for goods of small value *.

· Gold and filver, when introduced into commerce, were probably bartered, like other commodities, by bulk merely. Rockfalt in Ethiopia, white as fnow, and hard as ftone, is to this day bartered in that manner with other goods. It is dug out of the mountain Lafta, formed into plates a foot long, and three inches broad and thick; and a portion is broken off equivalent in value to the thing wanted. But more ac

neque a

# Origo emendi vendendique à permutationibus coepit. Olim enim non ita erat nummus ; liud merx, aliud pretium vocabatur; fed unufquifque, fecundum neceffitatem temporum, ac rerum, utilibus inutilia permutabat, quando plerumque evenit, ut quod alteri fupereft, alteri defit. Sed quia non femper, nec facile concurrebat, ut, cum tu haberes quod ego defiderarem, invicem haberem, quod tu accipere velles, electa materia eft, cujus publica ac perpetua aeftimatio difficultatibus permutationum, aequalitate quantitatis fubveniret: ea [que] materia forma publica percuffa, ufum dominiumque non tam ex fubftantia praebet, quam ex quantitate; nec ultra merx utrumque, fed alterum pretium vocatur; l. 1. Digeft. De contrahenda emptione.

VOL. I.

R

curacy