Neither Have They At Any Time, As They Protest, Invaded The Kingdoms Of
Mexico And Peru And Elsewhere, Being Only Led Thereto To Reduce The
People To Christianity, Not For Gold Or Empire:
Whereas, in the single
island of Hispaniola, they have wasted and destroyed thirty hundred
thousand of the natives, besides many millions else in other places of
the Indies:
A poor and harmless people, created of God, and might have
been won to his service, as many of them were, even almost all whom they
endeavoured to persuade thereto. The story of these their enormities,
has been written at large by Bartholomew de las Casas[375], a bishop of
their own nation, and has been translated into English and many other
languages, under the title of _The Spanish Cruelties_. Who therefore
would repose trust in such a nation of ravenous strangers, and more
especially in those Spaniards, who more greedily thirst after the blood
of the English, for the many overthrows and dishonours they have
received at our hands; whose weakness we have discovered to the world,
and whose forces, at home, abroad, in Europe, in the Indies, by sea and
by land, even with mere handfuls of men and ships on our sides, we have
overthrown and dishonoured? Let not therefore any Englishman, of what
religion soever, have other opinion of these Spaniards or their
abettors, but that those whom they seek to win of our nation, they
esteem base and traiterous, unworthy persons, and inconstant fools; and
that they use this pretence of religion, for no other purpose but to
bewitch us from the obedience due to our natural prince, hoping thereby
to bring us in time under slavery and subjection, when none shall be
there so odious and despised, as those very traitors who have sold their
country to strangers, forsaking their faith and obedience, contrary to
the laws of nature and religion, and contrary to that humane and
universal honour, not only of Christians but of heathen and unbelieving
nations, who have always sustained every degree of labour, embracing
even death itself, in defence of their country, their prince, and their
commonwealth.
[Footnote 375: He was bishop of Chiapa in New Spain, and computes the
Indians destroyed by the Spaniards in about fifty years, at no fewer
than twenty millions. - Astley, I. 221. a.]
To conclude, it hath ever to this day pleased God to prosper and defend
her majesty, to break the purposes of her malicious enemies, to confound
the devices of forsworn traitors, and to overthrow all unjust practices
and invasions. She hath ever been held in honour by the worthiest kings,
served by faithful subjects, and shall ever, by the favour of God,
resist, repell, and confound all attempts against her person and
kingdom. In the mean time, let the Spaniards and traitors vaunt of their
success; while we, her true and obedient subjects, guided by the shining
light of her virtues, shall always love, serve, and obey her, to the end
of our lives.
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