felicity. They might have introduced their arts and sciences—have taught the wonders and the charms of household enjoyments and refinements—have shewn the beauty and benefit of cultivated fields and gardens; their faith would have created them confidence in the hearts of the natives, and the advantages resulting from their friendly tuition would have won their love. What a triumphant progress for civilization and Christianity! There was no wealth nor advantage of that great continent which might not have become legitimately and worthily theirs. They would have walked amongst the swarming millions of the south as the greatest of benefactors; and under their enlight-ened guidance, every species of useful produce, and every article of commercial wealth would have sprung up. Spain need not have been blasted, as it were, by the retributive hand of Divine punishment, into the melancholy object which she is this day. That sudden stream of gold which made her a second Tantalus, reaching to her very lips yet never quenching her thirst, and leaving her at length the poorest and most distracted realm in Europe, might have been hers from a thousand unpolluted sources, and bearing along with it God's blessing instead of his curse: and mighty nations, rivalling Europe in social arts and political power, might have been now, instead of many centuries hence, objects of our admiration, and grateful repayers of our benefits.
But I seem to hear many voices exclaiming, "Yes! these things might have been, had men been what they are not, nor ever were!" Precisely so!—that is the point I wish expressly to illustrate before I proceed to my narrative. These things might have been.
