they very often shamefully over-reach them, and impose upon them
in Business; and when they are detected and chastised for their
fraudulent Practices, they bitterly complain of ill treatment,
though it often is much better than they deserve.

My design, in the above Extracts and Observations, I presume, hath
been answered, which was to shew that the Spaniards have not an
unquestionable right to the Continent of America, as the first
Discoverers among the Europeans; for it appears from well attested
and numerous Relations, Facts and Circumstances, that the Ancient
Britons landed on the American Shores about 300 Years before either,
Behaim, Columbus or Americus Vespucius.

But after all, what is it that gives a people right to a Country?

This question is very easily answered. If Voyagers, by chance,
fall in with a Continent, or Island, uninhabited and uncultivated,
they have a right of possession by the Law of Nature, and or reason;
because no human Being is injured or deprived of his right. But if
they find any Inhabitants there, they can have no right. The Man
who robs us on the High Way, or who breaks open, and plunders our
Houses, hath as good a right to what he takes from us, as Conquerors
to a Country, which they may be able to subdue by Force of Arms.
The right obtained by Conquest if admitted, will justify every
Kind and every degree of oppression, even the slavery of our poor
African Brethren. This principle will justify a Nation in wresting
whole Countries out of the Hands of a cultivated, well ordered
and peaceable people. In short, this Principle will justify the
greatest Inhumanity, Cruelty, and Barbarity.