"In such light assuredly do I take it," observed Major
Montgomerie, bowing his sense of the disclaimer. "But to
prove to you, General, that we are only following in the
course pursued by every other people of the world, let
us, without going back to the days of barbarism, when
the several kingdoms of Europe were overrun by the
strongest, and when your own country in particular became
in turn the prey of Saxons, Danes, Normans, &c. merely
glance our eyes upon those provinces which have been
subjugated by more civilized Europe. Look at South America
for instance, and then say what we have done that has
not been far exceeded by the Spaniards, in that portion
of the hemisphere--and yet, with this vast difference in
the balance, that there the European drove before him
and mercilessly destroyed an unoffending race, while we,
on the contrary, have had fierce hostility and treachery
every where opposed to our progress. The Spaniards,
moreover, offered no equivalent for the country subdued;
now we have ever done so, and only where that equivalent
has been rejected, have we found ourselves compelled to
resort to force. Look again at the islands of the West
Indies, the chief of which are conquests by England.
Where are the people to whom Providence had originally
assigned those countries, until the European, in his
thirst for aggrandizement, on that very principle of
might which you condemn, tore them violently away. Gone,
extirpated, until scarce a vestige of their existence
remains, even as it must he, in the course of time, with
the Indians of these wilds--perhaps not in this century
or the next, but soon or late assuredly. These two