canian territory around that city, burning and destroying
the houses and crops, and carrying off all the provisions that were not
destroyed to the town. Though of a humane and generous disposition,
averse from the exercise of violence, Villagran endeavoured to
vindicate the employment of these rigorous measures by the necessity of
circumstances, and the pretended rights of war: But on this occasion
they were of no real service to the Spanish cause, which they
contributed to render more odious to the Araucanians; and in general the
only effect which such barbarous conduct produces, is to heap distress
on the weak and helpless. To the other terrible calamities inseparable
from war, especially when carried on in this barbarous manner, a
pestilential disease was superadded which committed dreadful ravages in
Chili, especially among the natives. During the incursions of Villagran
into the Araucanian territory, some Spanish soldiers, who were either
infected at the time or had recently recovered from the small pox,
communicated that fatal disease for the first time to the Araucanians,
among whom it spread with the more direful and rapid destruction, as
they were utterly unacquainted with its nature. So universal and
dreadful was the mortality on this occasion in several provinces, that,
in one district containing a population of twelve thousand persons, not
more than a hundred escaped with life. This pestilential disorder, which
has been more destructive than any other to the human race, had been
introduced a few years before into the northern parts of Chili, where it
then occasioned great mortality among the natives, and where it has
since frequently reappeared at uncertain intervals, and has greatly
diminished the aboriginal population. For more than a century, counting
from the present times, 1787, the southern provinces of Chili forming
the Araucanian confederacy, have been exempted from the ravages of this
cruel disease, in consequence of the most rigorous precautions being
employed by the inhabitants to prevent all communication with the
infected countries, similar to those used in Europe to prevent the
introduction of the plague.

"The following anecdote will shew what horror the small-pox has inspired
into the natives of Araucania. Some considerable time ago[71], the
viceroy of Peru sent as a present to the governor of Chili, several jars
of honey, wine, olives, and different seeds. One of these jars happened
to break