ary rapidity cleared
for us the roads to the South Sea and on to Chili and the Straits of
Magellan. This facility of our conquest made for carelessness, which
from that time through the luxury and idleness of our people increased,
until it became almost inconceivable. As our people rather scorned the
Indians and considered them almost a sort of intermediary creature
between man and beast, it was believed that lands so easily conquered
could not be as easily lost; and there was some reason for this belief,
for at that time Spain had no rival on the sea, there was nothing to
fear from the Indians themselves, who could not hold out against us
conquerors. Later we had even less fear, for the Spanish monarchy became
a formidable power to all Europe and when it ceased to be so, interests
and politics had so changed that one was obliged to leave us in peaceful
ownership of a possession which could have been taken from us as easily
as we had conquered it.

"This is according to my opinion the main cause of the decline of
Spanish power in America. There are others which are no less real. As
soon as one has set foot in the New World, you are confronted with an
endless lot of plunderers and marauders, who call themselves soldiers,
ravage the beautiful country, pillage the treasures of the Indians,
torture the inhabitants and rob them of their property and freedom,
under a thousand pretences unworthy of Christianity and of Spanish
generosity. So that several of these nations which at the beginning
favored the Spaniards, became in time their most mortal enemies. These
plunderers, I cannot call them anything else, ruined at the outset the
authority of the King and by their wickedness hindered all the good
that one could have expected from the friendship of native residents.
Royal authority being poorly upheld by these bad subjects of the King,
and the facile abundance which they had found, having plunged them into
all sorts of vice, their pride made them look upon the Indians as their
slaves and even as property acquired by the sword, which succeeded in
spoiling our position with the natives. It is quite certain that these
people would not wish for more than to throw off the yoke of servitude
under which they sigh to-day as did their ancestors before them."

The author of the book printed by Gervais Glouzier, "Relation de ce qui
s'est passe dans les iles et la Terra Firma de l'Amerique pendant la
derniere guerre avec l'Angleterre, e