tion, that they have no ardor for the female sex, and that they have few children; to enforce which remark he adds, that the quadrupeds of America, both native and tranfplanted, are of a diminutive fize, compared with thofe of the old world. A woman never admits her husband, till the child fhe is nurfing be three years old; and this led Frenchmen to go often aftray from their Canadian wives. The cafe was reported by the priests to their fuperiors in France: what regulation was made has efcaped my memory. Among the males, it is an inviolable law, to abftain from females while they are engaged in a military expedition. This is pregnant evidence of their frigidity; for among favages the authority of law, or of opinion, feldom prevails over any strong appetite: vain would be the attempt to restrain them from fpirituous liquers, tho' much more debilitating. Neither is there any inftance, of violence offered by any North-American favage, to European women taken captives in war. Mexico and Peru, when conquered by the Spaniards, afforded to their numerous inhabitants the neceffaries of life in profuVOL. III. U fion, fion. Cotton was in plenty, more than fufficient for the cloathing needed in warm climates Indian wheat was univerfal, and was cultivated without much labour. The natural wants of the inhabitants were thus eafily fupplied; and artificial wants had made no progrefs. But the present state of these countries is very different. The Indians have learned from their conquerors a multitude of artificial wants, good houfes, variety of food, and rich cloaths; which must be imported, because they are prohibited from exercifing any art or calling except agriculture, which scarce affords them neceffaries; and this obliges a great proportion of them to live fingle. Even agriculture itself is cramped; for in moft of the provinces there is a prohibition to plant vines or olives. In fhort, it is believed that the inhabitants are reduced to a fourth part of what they were at the time of the Spanish invafion. The favages alfo of North America who border on the European fettlements, are visibly diminishing. When the English fettled in America, the five nations could raife 15,000 fighting men: at prefent they are not able to raise 2000. Upon the whole, it is computed by able able writers, that the prefent inhabitants of America amount not to a twentieth part of those who exifted when that continent was discovered by Columbus. This decay is afcribed to the intemperate use of spirits, and to the fmall-pox, both of them introduced by the Europeans*. It * In all the Weft-Indian colonies, the flaves continually decrease so as to make frequent recruits from Africa neceffary. "This decreafe," fays the author of a late account of Guiana, "is commonly "attributed to oppreffion and hard labour; tho' "with little reafon, as the flaves are much more "robuft, healthy, and vigorous, than their mafters. "The true caufe is, the commerce of white men "with young Negro wenches, who, to fupport that 66 commerce, use every mean to avoid conception, "and even to procure abortion. By fuch practices "they are incapacitated to bear children when they fettle in marriage with their own countrymen. "That this is the true caufe, will be evident, from "confidering, that in Virginia and Maryland, the "ftock of flaves is kept up without any importa"tion; becaufe in thefe countries commerce with "Negro women is detefted, as infamous and unna"tural." The caufe here affigned may have fome effect but there is a ftronger caufe of depopulation, viz. the culture of fugar, laborious in the field, and unhealthy in the houfe by boiling, &c. The Negroes employ'd in the culture of cotton, coffee, and ginger, feldom need to be recruited. Add, : It is obfervable, that every fort of plague becomes more virulent by transplantation. The plague commits lefs ravage in Egypt, its native place, than in any other country. The venereal difeafe was for many ages more violent and deftructive in Europe, than in America where it was first known. The people who failed with Chriftopher Columbus, brought it to Spain from Hifpaniola. Columbus, with thirty or forty of his failors, went directly to Barcelona, where the King then was, to render an account of his voyage. All the inhabitants, who at that time tripled the prefent number, were immediately feized with the venereal difeafe, which raged fo furiously as to threaten deftruction to all. that where tobacco and rice are cultivated, the stock of Negroes is kept up by procreation, without neceffity of recruits. Because there, a certain portion of work is allotted to the Negroes in every plantation; and when that is performed, they are at liberty to work for themfelves. The management in Jamaica is very different: no task is there affigned; and the poor flaves know no end of labour: they are followed all day long by the lower overfeers with whips. And hence it is, that a plantation in Jamaica, which employs a hundred flaves, requires an annual recruit of no fewer than feven. The The finall pox comes under the fame obfervation; for it has fwept away many more in America, than ever it did in Europe. In the 1713, the crew of a Dutch veffel infected the Hottentots with the fmall pox; which left fcarce a third of the inhabitants. And the fame fate befel the Laplanders and Greenlanders. In all appearance, that difeafe, if it abate not foon of its tranfplanted virulence, will extirpate the natives of North America; for they know little of inoculation. But fpirituous liquors are a ftill more effectual cause of depopulation. The American favages, male and female, are inordinately fond of fpirituous liquors; and favages generally abandon themselves to appetite, without the leaft control from fhame. The noxious effects of intemperance in fpirits, are too well known, from fatal experience among ourselves: before the use of gin was prohibited, the populace of London were debilitated by it to a degree of lofing, in a great measure, the power of procreation. Lucky it is for the human fpecies, that the invention of favages never reached the production of gin; for fpirits, in that early period, would |