But let not the horror of such a scene put a stop to your curiosity: it is proper you should know mankind as they are: you must be acquainted with the heroes of the earth, and perhaps you may be too well reconciled to them: mankind have in general a strong bias in their favour; we see them surrounded with pomp and splendour--every thing that relates to them has an air of grandeur--and, whilst we admire their natural powers, we are too apt to pardon the detestable abuse of them, to the injury and ruin of the human race. We are dazzled with false glory, and willingly give into the delusion; for mighty conquests, like great conflagrations, have something of the sublime that pleases the imagination, though we know, if we reflect at all, that the consequences of them are devastation and misery. The Western and Eastern world will present to you very different prospects. In _America_, the first European conquerors found nature in great simplicity; society still in its infancy; and consequently the arts and sciences yet unknown: so that the facility with which they overpowered these poor innocent people, was entirely owing to their superior knowledge in the arts of destroying. They found the inhabitants brave enthusiastic patriots, but without either the military or political arts necessary for their defence. The two great kingdoms of Mexico and Peru had alone made some progress in civilization; they were both formed into regular states, and had gained some order and discipline: from these therefore the Spaniards met with something like an opposition. At first indeed the invaders appeared supernatural beings, who came upon them flying over the ocean, on the wings of the wind, and who, mounted on fiery animals, unknown in that country, attacked them with thunder and lightning in their hands; for such the fire-arms of the Spaniards appeared to this astonished people. But from being worshipped as gods, they soon came to be feared as evil spirits; and in time being discovered to be men--different from the Americans only in their outrageous injustice, and in the cruel arts of destroying--they were abhorred and boldly opposed. The resistance however of a million of these poor naked people, desperately crowding on each other to destruction, served only to make their ruin more complete. The Europeans have destroyed, with the most shocking barbarity, many millions of the original inhabitants of these countries, and have ever since been depopulating Europe and Africa to supply their places.