uthors,
who, from the positiveness of their assertions, seem to have been
eye-witnesses to the fact. Thirdly, that the people of this country had a
variety of fathers, which, as it may not be thought much to their credit
by the common run of readers, the less we say on the subject the better.
The question, therefore, I trust, is for ever at rest.

CHAPTER V.

The writer of a history may, in some respects, be likened unto an
adventurous knight, who having undertaken a perilous enterprise by way of
establishing his fame, feels bound, in honor and chivalry to turn back for
no difficulty nor hardship, and never to shrink or quail, whatever enemy
he may encounter. Under this impression, I resolutely draw my pen, and
fall to with might and main at those doughty questions and subtle
paradoxes which, like fiery dragons and bloody giants, beset the entrance
to my history, and would fain repulse me from the very threshold. And at
this moment a gigantic question has started up, which I must needs take by
the beard and utterly subdue before I can advance another step in my
historic undertaking; but I trust this will be the last adversary I shall
have to contend with, and that in the next book I shall be enabled to
conduct my readers in triumph into the body of my work.

The question which has thus suddenly arisen is, What right had the first
discoverers of America to land and take possession of a country without
first gaining the consent of its inhabitants, or yielding them an adequate
compensation for their territory?--a question which has withstood many
fierce assaults, and has given much distress of mind to multitudes of
kind-hearted folk. And, indeed, until it be totally vanquished, and put to
rest, the worthy people of America can by no means enjoy the soil they
inhabit with clear right and title, and quiet, unsullied conscience.

The first source of right by which property is acquired in a country is
discovery. For as all mankind have an equal right to anything which has
never before been appropriated, so any nation that discovers an
uninhabited country, and takes possession thereof, is considered as
enjoying full property, and absolute, unquestionable empire therein.[19]

This proposition being admitted, it follows clearly that the Europeans who
first visited America were the real discoverers of the same; nothing being
necessary to the establishment of this fact but simply to prove that it
was totally uninhabited