fathers and grandfathers had been, in easy servitude, and bred up in the comforts of regular domestic life. These persons, with their wives and their children, their sick and their aged, their horses, and their sheep and their oxen, were to turn out, like the children of Israel from Egypt, into the wilderness; not to escape from bondage, but in obedience to one of the most tyranical commands that ever were issued in the recklessness of unfeeling power." Mr. Southey adds, "Yet Ferdinand must be acquitted of intentional injustice. His disposition was such, that he would have rather suffered martyrdom than have issued so wicked an edict, had he been sensible of, its inhumanity and wickedness."
This might more readily be credited, if, when the abominable enormity of the measure was made manifest to him, any disposition was shewn to stop the proceedings, or make reparation for the misery inflicted. But nothing of the kind took place. The Jesuits made immediate and earnest representations the Indians cried out vehemently against their expatriation; the colonists of both countries were averse to the measure; the very governors and officers proceeded tardily with it, in the hope that the moment the evil was discovered it would be countermanded; but no such countermand was ever issued. And what was there to hinder it? The King of Spain and the Queen of Portugal, were man and wife, dwelling in one palace, and of the greatest accord in life and sentiment; it had only to be willed by one of them, and it might, and would have been, speedily done. If ever there was a cold-blooded transaction, in which the lives and happiness of thirty thousand innocent
