ain
bravoes, called Meteors: these, armed with pistols at their belt, and a
long sword, carried the bullion in parcels, properly marked, to the
ramparts, and flung them over to other meteors, who waited below, and
carried them to the boats which were to receive them, and these boats
carried them on board the ships in the road. These meteors and the
factors, together with the commissaries and the guards; who never
disturbed them, had each a stated fee, and the foreign merchant was
never cheated. The king, who received a duty upon this money at the
arrival of the galleons, was likewise a gainer; so that properly
speaking, the law only was cheated; a law which would be absolutely
useless if not eluded, and which, nevertheless, cannot yet be abrogated,
because old prejudices are always the most difficult to be overcome
amongst men.

31. The greatest instance of the violation of this law, and of the
fidelity of the Spaniards, was in the year 1684, when war was declared
between France and Spain. His Catholic majesty endeavoured to seize upon
the effects of all the French in his kingdom; but he in vain issued
edicts and admonitions, enquiries and excommunications, not a single
Spanish factor would betray his French correspondent. This fidelity,
which does so much honour to the Spanish nation, plainly shews, that men
only willingly obey those laws which they themselves have made for this
good of society, and that those which are the mere effects of a
sovereign's will, always meet with opposition.

32. As the discovery of America was at first the source of much good to
the Spaniards, it afterwards occasioned them many and considerable
evils. One has been, the depriving that kingdom of its subjects, by the
great numbers necessarily required to people the colonies: another was,
the infecting the world with a disease, which was before unknown only in
the new world and particularly in the island of Hispaniola. Several of
the companions of Christopher Columbus returned home infected with this
contagion, which afterwards spread over Europe. It is certain that this
poison, which taints the springs of life, was peculiar to America, as
the plague and small-pox, were diseases originally endemial to the
southern parts of Numidia.

33. We are not to believe, that the eating of human flesh, practised by
some of the American savages, occasions this disorder. There were no
cannibals on the island of Hispaniola, where it was most frequent an