Volume 7

A philosophical and political history of the settlements and trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies ... / Rev., augm., and pub., in ten volumes, by the Abbé Raynal. Newly translated. from the French, by J.O. Justamond. F.R.S., with a new set of maps adapted to the work, and a copious index.

  • Raynal, abbé (Guillaume-Thomas-François), 1713-1796.
Date:
1783
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A philosophical and political history of the settlements and trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies ... / Rev., augm., and pub., in ten volumes, by the Abbé Raynal. Newly translated. from the French, by J.O. Justamond. F.R.S., with a new set of maps adapted to the work, and a copious index. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    duced you to attempt the conqueft of it, you would have put them all to the fword without he- fitation ; and yet you fcruple to intruft the cul- ture of them to heretics. With what Ifrange madnefs are you afFefled A conformity of wor- Ihip puts no ftop to your ferocioufnefs, and a difference of worfhip excites it. Is it then con- fident with the dignity of-the chief of the (late, to regulate his conduit by the fanatic fpirit and narrow views of the direilor of a religious femi- nary ? Is it confident with his wifdom, to admit among the number of his fubjeils none but the (laves of his prieds ? I daould not be in the lead: furprized, after having determined an old pufil- lanimous monarch, humbled by a long feries of calamities, to complete them all by the revoca- tion of a falutary ediil, that the fuperditious and hypocritical men who furrounded him (hould have led him on, from one circumdiance to another, to rejeft the advantageous propofals of the re- ligious people in the New World ; but that con- fiderations, which may be called merely monadic, fhould have had the fame influence over the en- lightened prince who held the reins of the empire after the old monarch, and who certainly was ne- ver accufed of bigotry, is a circumdance which 1 cannot explain. Independently of this fatal fydem, Louifiana would not probably have languifhed for fo long a time, had it not been for an original error adopt- ed, of granting lands indiferiminately to every perfon who applied for them, and in the manner in which he defired them. Immenfe deferts would