to more result than pitched battles between rival nations contending apparently for Empire. For the results of battles may almost be faid to depend for importance, not fo much upon the measure of fuccefs on the occafion of the battle, or the object of it, as upon the effential difference between the parties contending and the opinions that they hold of each other greatly on the contempt, whether deserved or not, which the victors have for the vanquished. Suppofing, therefore, that one nation, or race, commits an error in misunderstanding another which it wars fuccessfully against, the result of that war is likely to be larger, especially for evil, as the misunderstanding in question is greater. The confequences of battle, whether between races or individuals, where each knows the worth of the other, are seldom fuch as to obliterate the fame and courage, or change the whole focial aspect of the vanquished party. But when Spartan conquers Helot, barbarian Goth or Vifigoth fubdues the polished Roman; or civilized man with his many implements invades and fubdues the fimple favage; then come the cruelty and dire mismanagement which are born of ignorance and want of sympathy. And thus, as in all human affairs, we get to fee the righteousness that there is in right understanding.

"Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judg"ment and equity; yea every good path.

"When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and know"ledge is pleasant unto thy foul;"

Yet with all this commendation of the interest of the fubject of flavery, it must be confeffed that it is a fubject which lacks dramatic interest. It has no one thread to run upon like the account of any man's life, or the history of a nation. The ftory of flavery is fragmentary, confused; in a different state of progrefs in different parts of the world at the fame time, and deficient in diftinct epochs to be illuftrated by great adventures. Moreover, people think that they have already heard all about it; which is not so.

In fine, it may be allowed that the reader must bring with him much of the interest which he is to find in confidering this subject of slavery. At the fame time he may remember that it has been justly held, that one element of the fublime is great extent. In looking over the vaft morass, unmarked by tower, or citadel, or town, which the horizon defcends upon but does not bound, the shaping mind finds more to think of than in the landscape that laughs with every variety of scenic beauty. And here, too, in this

fubject of flavery is one which, be it ever so dull, presents at all times an indefinite extent of human ftruggle and human suffering.

My intention in this work is to make a contribution to the general history of slavery, by giving an account of the origin and progress of modern slavery, which will embrace the principal events that led to the fubjection of the Indians of the new world, and to the introduction of negro slavery in America and the West Indies.

The hiftory of modern flavery begins naturally with the history of African discovery, and first and foremost in that was the discovery of Discovery the Canary Islands. These were the "elyfian of the Ca- fields" and "fortunate iflands" of antiquity.

nary Iflands.

Perhaps there is no country in the world that has been fo many times discovered, conquered, invaded, or fabled about, as these islands. There is scarcely any nation upon earth of any maritime

repute that has not had to do with them. Phonicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Moors, Genoese, Normans, Portuguese, and Spaniards of every province, (Arragonefe, Caftilians, Gallicians, Bifcayans, Andalucians) have all meddled in this

matter.* The Carthaginians are faid to have discovered these islands, and to have referved them as an asylum in case of extreme danger to the state. Sertorius, the Roman general who partook the fallen fortunes of Marius, is faid to have meditated retreat to thefe "iflands of the blessed," and by some writers is supposed to have gone there. Juba, the Mauritanian prince, fon of Salluft's Juba, fent fhips to examine them, and has left a description of them.†

Then came the death of empires and darkness on the human race, at any rate upon the face of history. When the world revived again, and especially when the knowledge of the loadstone began to be rife amongst mariners, the Canary Islands were again difcovered. Petrarch is referred to by Viera to prove that the Genoese sent out an expedition to these islands. Las Cafas tells us that an English or French veffel bound from France or England to Spain was driven by contrary winds to the Canary Islands, and on its

* Viera y Clavigo. Hiftoria general de las iflas de Canaria, Madrid, 1772. lib 3.

† Viera, ib. 1, fec. 18.

Petrarca de vitâ folitariâ, lib. 2, sec. 6, cap. 3.

1344.

1399.

return spread abroad in France an account of the voyage.* The information thus obtained (and perhaps in other ways of which we have no record) ftimulated Don Luis de la Cerda, count of Clermont, great grandson of Don Alonzo the Wife of Caftile, to feek for the inveftiture of the Crown of the Canaries, which was given to him with much pomp by Clement the 6th, at Avignon, A. D. 1344, Petrarch being present. This fceptre proved a barren one. The affairs of France, with which the new king of the Canaries was connected, drew off his attention, and he died without having visited his dominions. The next authentic information that we have of the Canary Islands is that, in the times of Don Juan the First of Caftile, and of Don Enrique his fon, these islands were much visited by the Spaniards.‡ In 1399 we are told certain Andalucians, Biscayans, Guipuzcoans, with the license of Don Enrique, fitted out an expedition of five vessels, and making a descent on the island of Lanzarote, one of the Canaries, took captive the king

*Las Cafas. Hift. Gen. de las Ind. MSS. primera parte, tom. 1, cap. 17.

† Viera, vol. 1, fec. 21.

↑ Ortiz de Zuñiga, annales A. D. 1399, p. 262.