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 Europeans, on the northern shores of the South American Continent, has been acquired by no other right than that of superior power; and I fear that the natives whom we have dispossessed, have to this day received no compensation for the loss of the lands on which they formerly subsisted. However urgent is the duty of economy in every branch of the public service, it is impossible to withhold from the natives of the country the inestimable benefit which they would derive from appropriating to their religious and moral instruction some moderate part of that income which results from the culture of the soil to which they or their fathers had an indisputable title.

Of the Caribs, the native inhabitants of the West Indies, we need not speak, as of them little more remains than the tradition that they once existed.