This might more readily be credited, if, when the abominable enormity of the measure was made manifest to him, any disposition was shewn to stop the proceedings, or make reparation for the misery inflicted. But nothing of the kind took place. The Jesuits made immediate and earnest representations; the Indians cried out vehemently against their expatriation; the colonists of both countries were averse to the measure; the very governors and officers proceeded tardily with it, in the hope that the moment the evil was discovered it would be countermanded; but no such countermand was ever issued. And what was there to hinder it? The King of Spain and the Queen of Portugal, were man and wife, dwelling in one palace, and of the greatest accord in life and sentiment; it had only to be willed by one of them, and it might, and would have been, speedily done. If ever there was a cold-blooded transaction, in which the lives and happiness of thirty thousand innocent people were reckoned of no account in the mere tracing of a boundary line between two countries, this appears to be one; and if ever the retribution of heaven was displayed in this world, it would seem to have been in the persons of the monarchs who issued this brutal order, and suffered it to stand, spite of the cries of the thousands of sufferers. Happy in each other, while they thus remained insensible to the happiness of these poor Indians, the queen was consumed by a slow and miserable malady, and the king, a weak man of a melancholy temperament, sunk heartbroken for her loss.