s the laws of God and man require; and therefore
are yet, in the sense of both, no less than adulterers, and living in
adultery. To this, Sir," says he, "I know you will object, that there
was no clergyman or priest of any kind, or of any profession, to perform
the ceremony; nor any pen and ink, or paper, to write down a contract of
marriage, and have it signed between them. And I know also, Sir, what
the Spaniard governor has told you; I mean of the agreement that he
obliged them to make when they took these women, viz. that they should
choose them out by consent, and keep separately to them; which, by the
way, is nothing of a marriage, no agreement with the women as wives, but
only an agreement among themselves, to keep them from quarrelling.

"But, Sir, the essence of the sacrament of matrimony (so he called it,
being a Roman) consists not only in the mutual consent of the parties to
take one another as man and wife, but in the formal and legal
obligation that there is in the contract to compel the man and woman at
all times to own and acknowledge each other; obliging the man to abstain
from all other women, to engage in no other contract while these
subsist; and on all occasions, as ability allows, to provide honestly
for them and their children; and to oblige the women to the same, on
like conditions, _mutatis mutandis_, on their side.

"Now, Sir," says he, "these men may, when they please, or when occasion
presents, abandon these women, disown their children, leave them to
perish, and take other women and marry them whilst these are living."
And here he added, with some warmth, "How, Sir, is God honoured in this
unlawful liberty? And how shall a blessing succeed your endeavours in
this place, however good in themselves, and however sincere in your
design, while these men, who at present are your subjects, under your
absolute government and dominion, are allowed by you to live in open
adultery?"

I confess I was struck at the thing itself, but much more with the
convincing arguments he supported it with. For it was certainly true,
that though they had no clergyman on the spot, yet a formal contract on
both sides, made before witnesses, and confirmed by any token which they
had all agreed to be bound by, though it had been but the breaking a
stick between them, engaging the men to own these women for their wives
upon all occasions, and never to abandon them or their children, and the
women to the same with their h