their fort, and reduced to extremity. Unhappily a reinforcement arrived from Spain: a long and bloody war enfued, which did not end till the iflanders were entirely fubdued. Of this ifland, about 200 leagues in length and between fixty and eighty in breadth, a Spanish historian bears witness, that the inhabitants amounted to a million when Columbus landed *. The Spaniards, relentless in their cruelty, forc'd these poor people to abandon the culture of their fields, and to retire to the woods and mountains. Hunted like wild beasts even in these retreats, they fled from mountain to mountain, till hunger and fatigue, which destroy'd more than the fword, made them deliver themselves up to their implacable enemies. There remained at that time but 60,000, who were divided among the Spaniards as flaves. Exceffive fatigue in the mines, and want even of neceffaries, reduced them in five years to 14,000. Confidering them to be only beasts of burden, they would have yield

But

* The numbers poffibly are exaggerated whether a million, or a half of that number, the moral is the fame.

ed

ed more profit had they been treated with lefs inhumanity. Avarice frequently counteracts its own end: by grafping too much, it lofes all. The Emperor Charles refolved to apply fome remedy; but being prevented for fome time by various avocations, he got intelligence that the poor Indians were totally extirpated. And they were fo in reality, a handful excepted, who lay hid in the mountains, and subfifted as by a miracle in the midst of their enemies. That handful were difcovered many years after by fome hunters; who treated them with humanity, regretting perhaps the barbarity of their forefathers: The poor Indians, docile and submissive, embraced the Chriftian religion, and affumed by degrees the manners and customs of their masters. They ftill exift, and live by hunting and fishing.

Affection for property! Janus doublefac'd, productive of many bleffings, but degenerating often to be a curfe. In thy right hand, Industry, a cornucopia of plenty in thy left, Avarice, a Pandora's box of deadly poison.

SKETCH

SKETCH

III.

Origin and Progress of Commerce.

HE few wants of men in the first

TH

ftage of fociety, are fupplied by barter in its rudeft form. In barter, the rational confideration is, what is wanted by the one, and what can be spared by the other. But favages are not always fo clear-fighted: a favage who wants a knife, will give for it any thing that is less useful to him at the time; without confidering either the present wants of the person he is dealing with, or his own future wants. An inhabitant of Guiana will for a fish-hook give more at one time, than at another he will give for a hatchet, or for a gun. Kempfer reports, than an inhabitant of Puli Timor, an ifland adjacent to Malacca, will, for a bit of coarse linen not worth three halfpence, give provifions worth three or four fhillings. But people improve by degrees, attending to what is wanted on the one fide, and to what can be fpared on the other; and in that leffon,

the

the American favages in our neighbourhood are not a little expert.

Barter or permutation, in its original form, proved miferably deficient when men and their wants multiplied. That fort of commerce cannot be carried on at a distance; and even among neighbours, it does not always happen, that the one can spare what the other wants. Barter is fomewhat enlarged by covenants: bufhel of wheat is delivered to me, upon my promising an equivalent at a future time. But what if I have nothing that my neighbour may have occafion for?' or what if my promise be not relied on? Thus barter, even with the aid of covenants, proves still defective. The numberless wants of men cannot readily be fupplied, without fome commodity in general eftimation, that will be gladly accepted in exchange for every other. That commodity ought not to be bulky, nor be expensive in keeping, nor be confumable by time. Gold and filver are metals that poffefs thefe properties in an eminent degree. They are at the fame time perfectly homogeneous in whatever country produced: two maffes of pure gold or of pure filver are always

I

always equal in value, provided they be of the fame weight. These metals are also divisible into small parts, convenient to be given for goods of fmall value *.

Gold and filver, when introduced into commerce, were probably bartered, like other commodities, by bulk merely. Rockfalt in Ethiopia, white as fnow and hard as ftone, is to this day bartered in that männer with other goods. It is dug out of the mountain Lafta, formed into plates a foot long and three inches broad and thick; and a portion is broken off equivalent in value to the thing wanted. But more ac

**Origo emendi vendendique à permutationibus cœpit. Olim enim non ita erat nummus: neque aliud merx, aliud pretium vocabatur; fed unufquifque, fecundum neceffitatem temporum, ac rerum, utilibus inutilia permutabat, quando plerumque evenit, ut, quod alteri fupereft, alteri defit. Sed quia non femper, nec facile concurrebat, ut, cum tu haberes quod ego defiderarem, invicem haberem, quod tu accipere velles, electa materia eft, cujus publica ac perpetua eftimatio difficultatibus permutationum, æqualitate quantitatis fubveniret: ea [que] materia forma publica percuffa, ufum dominiumque non tam ex fubftantia præbet, quam ex quantitate; nec ultra merx utrumque, fed alterum pretium vocatur. 1. 1. Digeft, De contrahenda emptione.

VOL. I.

R

curacy