With these views before us of the Divine equity, we must refer those mysterious dispensations which he suffers to exist, to a day of retribution, in which both the righteous and the wicked shall meet their respective rewards. The calamities which we have just beheld in the unfortunate island of Hispaniola, are such as our limited capacities cannot comprehend. We therefore conclude that the present life forms but a small portion of human existence; and that the barrier must be broken down which divides us from an eternal state, before we can survey those scenes which are necessary to mature our judgments on so abstruse a point.

But if these subjects are beyond the utmost stretch of our finité powers, the difficulties will increase in proportion as we extend our views. If we quit for a moment the cruelties of the island to survey the devastations of the continent, our surprise will be lengthened into astonishment, and we shall sink overwhelmed with our own contemplations. If we traverse Peru and Mexico, and follow Cortez and his cotemporaries through those acts of rapine and depredation which marked their progress with blood in these devoted countries, the scene of cruelty and destruction seems to run through interminable distances, and the mind is fatigued in moving over the desolated tract.

Accounts differ as to the extent of the murders which were committed. Some estimate the massacres at no less than fifteen millions of human beings; others sink them so low as ten millions; and others reckon according to the intermediate numbers. But taking the statement in any of the given numbers, the case will appear almost equally difficult of solution; we look around us for relief in vain, but the mind finds at last safe anchorage in eternity.

Every thing conspires to direct our views beyond the grave; it is only there that the mind can find an asylum, in which it can repose itself with assurance, without feeling the uneasiness of disturbance or alarm. And such is the confidence which the above details of human miseries suggest, that we cannot avoid concluding, that the evidences which support us in believing the being of a God, will also support us in believing the certainty of a future state. There are proofs in both cases, which are not easily resisted; and the truths which they support, must stand or fall together.

CHAP. III.

Natives of the Charaibean or Windward Islands-origin-persons-natural dispositions-warfare and modes of life-religious views-confused notions of the being of God-and of a future state of rewards and punishments-reflections on the

whole.

IN the preceding chapter we have given some account of the

natives of the Leeward Islands, and made some observations on their origin, their numbers, their manners, and their whole history. An investigation of the Charaibean character now rises before us, and claims our attention, as proceeding from a distinct race of men.

There are perhaps but few cases in the history of man, in which a contrast can be more striking, than that which will result from a comparison between them and the inhabitants of the Leeward Islands. In their persons and manners, the contrast appears conspicuous; their natural dispositions and prevailing propensities will confirm the observations which we make, and the religious rites, (if such they may be termed,) which are observable among them, respectively, will plainly prove that the natives of the Leeward and of the Windward Islands sprung from different countries. The progress of time may cause men, not radically different, to exhibit appearances which show that they have but little affinity to each other; and that though springing from the same fountain, they have been separated from each other through a number of ages, which having shut up all intercourse between them, have obliterated those com'mon marks by which alone we can trace a common relation.

But on these points, as well as on the solitary mode of life which is so observable among the Charaibees, the reader must make his own reflections. Effects, which are in themselves so distant and various, can originate only in propensities which are widely different; and consequently such strange diversities as we are called upon to perceive, must claim such distant origins, in a local view, as we are obliged to assign, and which can have but a very remote communication with one another. But simple distance, either in time or situation, is not of itself sufficient to produce those opposite effects, which offer themselves to our notice. Some extraneous cause or causes must have conspired to call into existence those variations, which we cannot fail to behold. What these extraneous causes are, in

their physical nature, which have been capable, in their operations, of producing such a visible difference between man and man, though we may attempt to conjecture, perhaps we shall never be able here below fully to understand. The fact is nevertheless incontrovertible; it is demonstrated by daily observation in every part of our intercourse with mankind; but in no portion of human history can it appear more conspicuous, than in the distant characters of the Charaibees and the natives of the Leeward Islands.

But though we admit those striking differences which we cannot avoid contemplating, it will not at all follow that men are physically unlike. There are radical principles which are too permanently fixed in man, for time or adventitious circumstances to alter. Men may undergo an infinite variety of changes, but in every condition they are physically the same. The variations which we perceive, must have resulted from some secret causes, operating upon the established principles of human nature by slow and imperceptible degrees, through the long lapse of ages, which have rolled on from the primary separation of mankind to the given hour.

A variation in climate will, without all doubt, produce considerable effects; and the influence of custom will tend to confirm habits so acquired, with a permanency which neither reason nor philosophy is able to subdue. But how far either climate or custom may have tended to produce that visible difference which is so evident between the natives of the Windward and Leeward Islands, is a point extremely difficult to be determined. We must therefore attribute the ferocious and warlike spirit of the Charaibees to the ascendency of some cause which we have not been able fully to explore, and which, matured into habit, cannot easily be erased.

Of the primary origin of this fierce race of men, the accounts which we have are various, and far from being satisfactory. A train of circumstances will oblige us to allow, that these natives of the Windward Islands obtained their insular situation by emigrating from the continental shores of South America; and beyond the proofs of this point, our knowledge of their origin will hardly permit us to pass. But these evidences which circumstances afford us, do not reach the original question. That these islands were first peopled from the southern continent of America, but little doubt can remain; but from what portion of the globe they migrated, before they found this continental abode, is a point which no positive proof can now determine.

The origin of a savage people, without records, without government, without laws, and without arts, must necessarily be

wrapped up in obscurities; and but few circumstances can be found in such an unproductive soil, through which any analogy can be traced between them and any other people who inhabit the different nations of the earth. Engaged as the Charaibees seem almost constantly to have been in depredations and plunder, the reports of tradition which might have been derived from their remotest ancestors, are totally obliterated; and hardly a vestige now remains through which their primary origin can be traced.

We have said in the beginning of this work that the vast chain of West India islands was divided into two classes, generally denominated the Windward and Leeward Islands. The Windward Islands of which we now speak, were inhabited by a restless, warlike, and barbarous race, while the Leeward Islands were peopled with a mild and inoffensive tribe. It was from this mild and inoffensive people, that Columbus first obtained intelligence of the Charaibees. They were represented by the natives of Hispaniola as living in an eastwardly direction from that island; they were said to be barbarous and cruel; to delight in committing depredations, and in disturbing the tranquillity of that and the neighbouring islands; they said that they were a nation of cannibals, and were called Caribees or Charaibees. This was the intelligence which Columbus received concerning them from the natives of Hispaniola, in his first voyage; and without any further knowledge of them he returned to Europe. In his future voyages he discovered the Windward Islands; and found them inhabited by that barbarous race whom the Hispaniolians had previously described.

These savage people seem to have engrossed almost all the islands which we denominate the West Indies, except Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Porto Rico, and the Bahama Islands, which lay between the northern islands above named and the Florida shore.

To this general distribution of the inhabitants, the island of Trinidad forms a most remarkable exception, which has been particularly noticed in our remarks on the natives of the Leeward Islands in the preceding chapter, to which we refer the reader for all the information that can be imparted on a point so extraordinary and perplexed.

But even admitting, that the natives of Trinidad spoke the language of the Leeward Islands, and that from many circumstances, they leave us much reason to believe they originated in the same tribe, yet this exception, extraordinary as it is, will not militate against the general theory which we have adopted. The whole stream of circumstantial testimony is in favour of

the southern origin of the Charaibees, and of the northern origin of the Apalachians or natives of the Leeward Islands.

The proximity of many of the Windward Islands to the southern continental shores, will justify the suppositions which we have made; and assigns to the Charaibees a southern origin. The islands of Tobago and Grenada are sufficiently near to be placed within the reach of the Indian canoes, and these modes of conveyance were undoubtedly adequate to all the purposes of such emigrations as we now suppose.

That Barbadoes was inhabited by the Charaibees when first discovered, will admit of no dispute; and the same arguments which enable us to account for its being thus inhabited, will empower us also to assign reasons for the peopling of Tobago, Grenada, and other Charaibee islands, even upon the supposition that Trinidad was peopled by the Apalachian tribe. The real distance between Barbadoes and the nearest island to it, is nearly as great as that which lies between Tobago or Grenada and the projecting lands on the continental shores.

The wars in which these Charaibees usually engaged on the continent with their most inveterate enemies the Arrowauks, plainly inform us, that their canoes were equal to the navigation of the waters which they had to pass. And no doubt can be justly entertained of the abilities of their forefathers to navigate the canoe, and conduct it in a similar manner, to the various parts of their insular abodes. Thus then, a difficulty which has actually been overcome in fact by the Charaibees, affords us sufficient ground to account for the peopling of the Windward Islands, though we even allow Trinidad to have been inhabited by another race..

But though these circumstances plead strongly for the immediate origin of this colony of Charaibees of which we speak, the evidence will not reach their national origin. On this point much learning has been employed, and much time has been spent: it is a question which involves little less than the peopling of the new hemisphere. And though many favourable circumstances may induce us to admit as certain, a variety of probabilities which appear to be well authenticated, yet the difficulties which arise from mature consideration, seem to spread a veil of darkness over the best-concerted hypothesis; and while these embarrassments lay an embargo on our belief, they conspire to wrap probability in shade.

That the nations which originally peopled America, were of transatlantic origin, will not be disputed by any man who be lieves the Bible. On this point the language of the sacred records is explicit and clear; it leaves not a shade either to shelter incredulity, or to cherish doubt. It is to this standard that