The High-Caste, despising trade of any useful sort, none the less delight in traffic of a high-caste colour. They deal in pictures, equipages, horses, jewels, sculptures, books, dogs, _nick-nacks_ of all sorts; know how to bargain, and understand the _tricks_, especially in horses, dogs, paintings, and the like, as well as those whom they affect to despise. The English are, doubtless, successful traders and plunderers. They are rough, and brave, and reckless; and in traffic are as unscrupulous as in predatory ventures. Their conquests abroad have been incidental generally, commerce being the immediate object. But they have never scrupled to use force when it has seemed fittest. The _plunder_ of a people has been found easier, and the returns quicker and larger, than the slower gains of traffic. For this shameful and cruel conduct, the English and other Western Barbarians find ample justification in their _Superstition_. For they believe that the peoples beyond the seas are Heathen, and under the ban of _Jah_. Their _Sacred Writings_ so declare; and that "the Heathen are given to the Saints as a spoil, and their Lands as an Inheritance." Now, these Barbarians affirm that they are the Saints; that the people who do not worship their gods are Heathen; and that consequently they (these Barbarians) have a right to the possessions and lands of these distant and unoffending tribes! And not only this, that these tribes, under the wrath of _Jah_, and subjects of the Devil and hell, ought to be grateful for the inestimable boon of _the Gospel_ (_the Sacred Writings_), by which they may learn the way to be saved; may, in fine, become Christians! Thus it comes about that the intercourse of the Western Barbarians with peoples beyond the seas has been aggressive and piratical. From the earlier part of the dynasty _Ming_, when these Barbarous tribes first visited the great seas and distant regions in the far West and mighty East, the Pope (then worshipped by all the tribes) gave to two of them, very devoted to his worship and powerful in ships, the whole world of _Heathen_. This meant all the wide world but that small region in Europe wherein the Pope-worshippers lived. To the one tribe, called _Portugals_, he gave the whole immense East, and to the other, styled _Spaniards_, the vast regions in the West. Thus the two were possessed, by the gift of their god, of the whole _Heathen_ world--India and our Flowery Kingdom being portions! In their many ships, these two tribes, sailing East and West, landed upon the distant shores, and seized upon everything which they could. They thought it pleasing to _Jah_ to put to death those who had offended him, and were already under _his wrath_ and condemnation: the Heathen were justly extirpated, unless they _believed_ and worshipped _Jah_!