In the next place, it occurred to me that although the usage they gave one another was thus brutish and inhuman, yet it was really nothing to me: these people had done me no injury: that if they attempted, or I saw it necessary, for my immediate preservation, to fall upon them, something might be said for it: but that I was yet out of their power, and they really had no knowledge of me, and consequently no design upon me; and therefore it could not be just for me to fall upon them; that this would justify the conduct of the Spaniards in all their barbarities practised in America, where they destroyed millions of these people; who, however they were idolators and barbarians, and had several bloody and barbarous rites in their customs, such as sacrificing human bodies to their idols, were yet, as to the Spaniards, very innocent people; and that the rooting them out of the country is spoken of with the utmost abhorrence and detestation by even the Spaniards themselves at this time, and by all other Christian nations of Europe, as a mere butchery, a bloody and unnatural piece of cruelty, unjustifiable either to God or man; and for which the very name of a Spaniard is reckoned to be frightful and terrible, to all people of humanity or of Christian compassion; as if the kingdom of Spain were particularly eminent for the produce of a race of men who were without principles of tenderness, or the common bowels of pity to the miserable, which is reckoned to be a mark of generous temper in the mind.
Altrimenti avrei giustificata la condotta degli Spagnuoli per tutte le atrocità che fecero nell’America, ove distrussero milioni di quegli abitanti, i quali, benchè fossero idolatri e barbari, e contassero più di un rito sanguinolento ed atroce, siccome quello di sagrificare umane vittime ai loro idoli, pure rispetto agli Spagnuoli erano una popolazione affatto innocente. Per ciò l’averli esterminati e considerato ai nostri giorni cosa abbominevole ed esecranda fino dagli stessi Spagnuoli, e da tutte l’altre nazioni cristiane dell’Europa si ebbe per un vero macello, per un atto di crudeltà orrido e contro natura, imperdonabile al tribunale di Dio e a quello degli uomini; atto, per cui lo stesso nome di Spagnuolo è stato avuto siccome spaventoso e terribile ad ogni popolo dotato di umanità e di cristiana commiserazione; atto, per cui le terre della Spagna furono giudicate produrre in eminente grado uomini privi d’ogni principio di fraterna tenerezza, di viscere di compassione verso gl’infelici e di tutti quegli affetti che si trovano negli animi generosi.