those of the other European nations were for
a long time in a great measure neglected. The
former did not, perhaps, thrive the better in
consequence of this attention, nor the latter
the worse in consequence of this neglect. In
proportion to the extent of the country which
they in some measure possess, the Spanish colonies
are considered as less populous and
thriving than those of almost any other European
nation. The progress even of the Spanish
colonies, however, in population and improvement,
has certainly been very rapid and
very great. The city of Lima, founded since
the conquest, is represented by Ulloa as containing
fifty thousand inhabitants near thirty
years ago. Quito, which had been but a miserable
hamlet of Indians, is represented by
the same author as in his time equally populous.
Gemel i Carreri, a pretended traveller,
it is said, indeed, but who seems everywhere
to have written upon extreme good information,
represents the city of Mexico as containing
a hundred thousand inhabitants; a number
which, in spite of all the exaggerations of
the Spanish writers, is probably more than five
times greater than what it contained in the
time of Montezuma. These numbers exceed
greatly these of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia,
the three greatest cities of the English
colonies. Before the conquest of the Spaniards,
there were no cattle fit for draught,
either in Mexico or Peru. The lama was
their only beast of burden, and its strength
seems to have been a good deal inferior to that
of a common ass. The plough was unknown
among them. They were ignorant of the use
of iron. They had no coined money, nor any
established instrument of commerce of any
kind. Their commerce was carried on by barter.
A sort of wooden spade was their principal
instrument of agriculture. Sharp stones
served them for knives and hatchets to cut
with; fish bones, and the hard sinews of certain
animals, served them with needles to sew
with; and these seem to have been their principal
instruments of trade. In this state of
things, it seems impossible that either of those
empires could have been so much improved or
so well cultivated as at present, when they are
plentifully furnished with all sorts of European
cattle, and when the use of iron, of the
plough, and of many of the arts of Europe,
have been introduced among them. But the
populousness of every country must be in proportion
to the degree of its improvement and
cultivation. In spite of the cruel destruction
of the natives which followed the conquest,
these two great empires are probably more populous
now than they ever were before; and
the people are surely very different; for we
must acknowledge, I apprehend, that the Spanish
creoles are in many respects superior to
the ancient Indians.
After the settlements of the Spaniards, that
of the Portuguese in Brazil is the oldest of
any European nation in America. But as for
a long time after the first discovery neither
gold nor silver mines were found in it, and as
it afforded upon that account little or no revenue
to the crown, it was for a long time in a
great measure neglected; and during this state
of neglect, it grew up to be a great and powerful
colony. While Portugal was under the
dominion of Spain, Brazil was attacked by
the Dutch, who got possession of seven of the
fourteen provinces into which it is divided.
They expected soon to conquer the other seven,
when Portugal recovered its independency by
the elevation of the family of Braganza to the
throne. The Dutch, then, as enemies to the
Spaniards, became friends to the Portuguese,
who were likewise the enemies of the Spaniards.
They agreed, therefore, to leave that
part of Brazil which they had not conquered
to the king of Portugal, who agreed to leave
that part which they had conquered to them,
as a matter not worth disputing about, with
such good allies. But the Dutch government
soon began to oppress the Portuguese colonists,
who, instead of amusing themselves with
complaints, took arms against their new masters,
and by their own valour and resolution,
with the connivance, indeed, but without
any avowed assistance from the mother country,
drove them out of Brazil. The Dutch,
therefore, finding it impossible to keep any
part of the country to themselves, were contented
that it should be entirely restored to the
crown of Portugal. In this colony there are
said to be more than six hundred thousand
people, either Portuguese or descended from
Portuguese, creoles, mulattoes, and a mixed
race between Portuguese and Brazilians. No
one colony in America is supposed to contain
so great a number of people of European extraction.
Towards the end of the fifteenth, and during
the greater part of the sixteenth century,
Spain and Portugal were the two great naval
powers upon the ocean; for though the commerce
of Venice extended to every part of Europe,
its fleet had scarce ever sailed beyond
the Mediterranean. The Spaniards, in virtue
of the first discovery, claimed all America as
their own; and though they could not hinder
so great a naval power as that of Portugal
from settling in Brazil, such was at that time
the terror of their name, that the greater part
of the other nations of Europe were afraid to
establish themselves in any other part of that
great continent. The French, who attempted
to settle in Florida, were all murdered by the
Spaniards. But the declension of the naval
power of this latter nation, in consequence of
the defeat or miscarriage of what they called
their invincible armada, which happened towards
the end of the sixteenth century, put it
out of their power to obstruct any longer the
settlements of the other European nations. In
the course of the seventeenth century, therefore,