Page:The West Indies, and Other Poems.djvu/90

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��freedom that ever existed, ' while he contended earnest- ' iy for the liberty of the people born in one quarter of ' the globe, laboured to enslave the inhabitants of ano- ' ther region, and, in his zeal to save the Americans from ' the yoke, pronounced it to be lawful and expedient to ' impose one atill heavier on the Africans.' — Robert- son's History of America^ Vol. I., Part III. But the cir- cumstance connected hi/ Dr Robertson with this suppo- sed scheme of Las Casas is unwarranted by any autho- rity, and makes his own of no value. He adds, — ' the ' plan of Las Casas was adoptctl. Charles V. granted a ' patent to one of his Flemish favourites, containing an ' exclusive right of importing four thousand negroes in- ' to America.' Hcrrera, the only author whom Dr Ro- bertson pretends to follow, docs not, in any place, as- sociate his random charge against Las Casas with this acknowledged and most infamous fact. The crime of Iiaving first recommended the importation of African blavee into the American islands is attributed, by three writers of the life of Cardinal Ximenes, (who rendered himself illustrious hj his opposition to tho trade in its infancy,) to Chievres, and by two others to the Flemish nobility themselves, who obtained the monopoly aforo- nientioned, and which was sold to some ' Genoese mer- ' chants for 25,000 ducats: and they were the first wha ' brought into a regular form that commerce for slaves, ' bi'twecn Africa and America, which has since been car-

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