eir
Persons.

Finally, in one word, their Ambition and Avarice, than which the heart
of Man never entertained greater, and the vast Wealth of those Regions;
the Humility and Patience of the Inhabitants (which made their approach
to these Lands more facil and easie) did much promote the business:
Whom they so despicably contemned, that they treated them (I speak of
things which I was an Eye Witness of, without the least fallacy) not as
Beasts, which I cordially wished they would, but as the most abject
dung and filth of the Earth; and so sollicitous they were of their Life
and Soul, that the above-mentioned number of People died without
understanding the true Faith or Sacraments. And this also is as really
true as the praecendent Narration (which the very Tyrants and cruel
Murderers cannot deny without the stigma of a lye) that the _Spaniards_
never received any injury from the _Indians_, but that they rather
reverenced them as Persons descended from Heaven, until that they were
compelled to take up Arms, provoked thereunto by repeated Injuries,
violent Torments, and injust Butcheries.

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Of the Island HISPANIOLA.

In this Isle, which, as we have said, the _Spaniards_ first attempted,
the bloody slaughter and destruction of Men first began: for they
violently forced away Women and Children to make them Slaves, and
ill-treated them, consuming and wasting their Food, which they had
purchased with great sweat, toil, and yet remained dissatisfied too,
which every one according to his strength and ability, and that was
very inconsiderable (for they provided no other Food than what was
absolutely necessary to support Nature without superfluity, freely
bestow'd on them, and one individual _Spaniard_ consumed more Victuals
in one day, than would serve to maintain Three Families a Month, every
one consisting of Ten Persons. Now being oppressed by such evil usage,
and afflicted with such greate Torments and violent Entertainment they
began to understand that such Men as those had not their Mission from
Heaven; and therefore some of them conceal'd their Provisions and
others to their Wives and Children in lurking holes, but some, to avoid
the obdurate and dreadful temper of such a Nation, sought their Refuge
on the craggy tops of Mountains; for the _Spaniards_ did not only
entertain them with Cuffs, Blows, and wicked Cudgelling, but laid
violent hands a