Item of the Day: A Defence of the Short View of the Profaneness and Immorality of the English Stage, &c.

Full Title: A Defence of the Short View of the Profaneness and Immorality of the English Stage, &c. Being a Reply to Mr. Congreve’s Amendments, &c. And to the Vindication of the Author of the Relapse. By Jeremy Collier. London: Printed for S Keble, R. Sace, and N. Hindmarsh, 1699.

To the READER.

Since the publishing my late View, &c. I have been plentifully rail’d on in Print: This give me some reason to suspect the Answerers and the Cause, are not altogether unlike. Had there been nothing but plain Argument to encounter, I think I might have ventured my Book with them: But being charged with mis-citations and unfair Dealing, ‘twas requisite to say something: For Honesty is a tender point, and ought not to be neglected.

Mr. Congreve and the Author of Relapse, being the most eager Complainants, and Principals in the Dispute, I have made it my choice to satisfie them. As the Volunteers, they will find themselves affected with the Fortune of their Friends; and besides, I may probably have an opportunity of speaking farther with them hereafter.

Notwithstanding the singular Management of the Poets and the Play-House, I have had the satisfaction to perceive, the Interest of Virtue is not altogether Sunk, but that Conscience and Modesty have still some Footing among us. This consideration makes me hope a little farther Discovery of the Stage may not be unacceptable. The Reader then may please to take notice, that The Plot and no Plot swears at length, and is scandalously Smutty and Profane. The Fool in Fashion for the first four Acts is liable to the same Imputation: Something in Swearing abated, Caesar Borgia, and Love in a Nunnery, are no better Complex’d than the former. As lastly. Limberhan, and the Soldier’s Fortune, are meer prodigies of Lewdness and Irreligion. If this general Accusation appears too hard, I am ready to make it good. ‘Twere easy to proceed to many other Plays, but possibly this Place may not be so proper to enlarge upon the Subject.

Some of the Stage-Advocates pretend my Remarks on their Poetry are foreign to the Business. On the contrary, I conceive it very defensible to disarm an Adversary, if it may be, and disable him from doing Mischief.

To expose that which would expose Religion, is a warrantable way of Reprizals. Those who Paint for Debauchery, should have the Fucus pull’d off, and the Coarseness underneath discover’d. The Poets are the Aggressors, let them lay down their Arms first. We have suffer’d under Silence a great while; If we are in any fault, ‘tis because we began with them no sooner.

Item of the Day: Account of the Russian Discoveries between Asia and America.

Full Title: Account of the Russian Discoveries between Asia and America, to which is added, the conquest of Siberia, and the history of the transactions and commerce between Russia and China. By William Coxe. London: Printed by J. Nichols, for T. Cadell, in the Strand, 1780.

[The following passage is excerpted from a passage in Appendix I entitled: Extract from the journal of a voyage made by Captain Krenitzin and Lieutenant Levasheff to the Fox Islands, in 1768, 1769, by order of the Empress of Russia—they sail from Kamtchatka—arrive at Beering’s and Copper Islands—reach the Fox Islands—Krenitzin winters at Alaxa—Levasheff upon Unalashka—productions of Unalashka—description of the inhabitants of the Fox Islands—their manners and customs, &c.]

The inhabitants of Alaxa, Umnak, Unalaksha, and the neighboring islands, are of a middle stature, tawny brown colour, and black hair. In summer they wear coats (parki*) made of bird skins, over which, in bad weather, and in their boats, they throw cloaks, called kamli, made of thin whale guts. On their heads they wear wooden caps, ornamented with duck’s feathers, and the ears of the sea-animal, called Scivutcha or sea-lion: they also adorn these caps with beads of different colours, and with little figures of bone or stone. In the partition of the nostrils they place a pin, about four inches long, made of the bone, or of the stalk of a certain black plant; from the ends of this pin or bodkin they hang, in fine weather and on festivals, rows of beads, one below the other. They thrust beads, and bits of pebble cut like teeth, into holes made in the under-lips. They also wear strings of beads in their ears, with bits of amber, which the inhabitants of the other islands procure from Alaxa, in exchange for arrows and kamli.

They cut their hair before just above the eyes, and some shave the top of their heads like minks. Behind the hair is loose. The dress of the women hardly differens from that of the men, excepting that it is mad of fish-skins. They sew with bone needles, and thread made of fish guts, fastening their work to the ground before them with bodkins. They go with the head uncovered, and the hair cut like that of the men before, but tied up behind in a high knot. They paint their cheeks with strokes of blue and red, and wear nose-pins, beads, and ear-rings like the men; they hang beads round their neck, and checkered strings round their arms and legs.

In their persons we should reckon them extremely nasty. They eat the vermin with which their bodies are covered, and swallow the mucus from the nose. Having washed themselves, according to custom, first with urine, and then with water, they suck their hand dry. When they are sick, they lie three or four days without food; and if bleeding is necessary, they open a vein with lancets made of flint, and suck the blood.

Their principal nourishment is fish and whale fat, which they commonly eat raw. They also feed upon sea-wrack and roots, particularly the saran, a species of lily; they eat a herb called kutage, on account of its bitterness, only with fish or fat. They sometimes kindle fire by catching a spark among dry leaves and powder of sulphur: but the most common method is by rubbing two pieces of wood together, in the manner practiced at Kamtchatka,** and which Vaksel, Beering’s lieutenant, found to be in use in that part of North America which he saw in 1741. They are very fond of Russian oil and butter, but not of bread. They could not be prevailed to taste any sugar until the commander shewed it home to their wives.

The houses of the islanders are huts built precisely in the manner of those in Kamtchatka, with the entry through a hold in the middle of the roof. In one of these huts live several families, to the amount of thirty or forty persons. They keep themselves warm by means of whale fat burnt in shells, which they place between their legs. The women set apart from the men. . . .


* Parki in Russian signifies a shirt, the coats of these islanders being made like shirts.

** The instrument made us of by the Kamtchadals, to procure fire, is a board with several holes, and turned about swiftly, until the wood within the holes begins to burn, where there is tinder ready to catch the sparks.

Item of the Day: Steuben’s Order of Discipline

Full Title: Regulations for the order and discipline of the troops of the United States. Philadelphia: Printed by Charles Cist, No. 104 North Second-street, M,DCC,XCIV.

C H A P T E R XXIV.
Of the Treatment of the Sick.

There is nothing which gains an officer the love of his soldiers more than his care of them under the distress of sickness; it is then he has the power of exerting his humanity in providing them every comfortable necessary, and making their situation as agreeable as possible.

Two or three tents should be set apart in every regiment for the reception of such sick as cannot be sent to the general hospital, or whose cases may not require it. And every company shall be constantly furnished with two sacks, to be filled occasionally with straw, and serve as beds for the sick. These sacks to be provided in the same manner as cloathing [sic] for the troops, and finally issued by the regimental clothier to the captain of each company, who shall be answerable for the same.

When a soldier dies, or is dismissed from the hospital, the straw he lay on is to be burnt, and the bedding well washed and aired before another is permitted to use it.

The serjeants [sic] and corporals shall every morning at roll-call give a return of the sick of their respective squads to the first serjeant, who must make out one for the company, and lose no time in delivering it to the surgeon, who will immediately visit them, and order such as he thinks proper to the regimental hospital; such whose cases require their being sent to the general hospital, he is to report immediately to the surgeon general, or principal surgeon attending the army.

Once every week (and oftener when required) the surgeon will deliver the commanding officer of the regiment a return of the sick of the regiment, with their disorders, distinguishing those in the regimental hospital, from those out of it.

When a soldier is sent to the hospital, the non-commissioned officer of his squad shall deliver up his arms and accoutrements to the commanding officer of the company, that they may be deposited in the regimental arm-chest.

When a soldier has been sick, he must not be put on duty till he has recovered sufficient strength, of which the surgeon should be judge.

The surgeons are to remain with their regiments as well as on a march as in camp, that in case of sudden accidents they may be at hand to apply the proper remedies.

Item of the Day: Mirabeau's Lettres des Cachet (1787)

Full Title:

Enquiries concerning lettres de cachet, the consequences of arbitrary imprisonment, and a history of the inconveniences, distresses and sufferings of state prisoners, by Honoré-Gabriel de Riquetti, comte de Mirabeau. In two volumes, written in the dungeon of the Castle of Vincennes. With a preface by the translator. London, G. G. J. and J. Robinson, 1787.

Preface:

The title of the present work seems only to announce a discussion purely local, and uninteresting to any other than the French nation; this, however, is far from being the case. The author, plunged a second time into a state dungeon, by an arbitrary mandate, in which dreary abodes he had the opportunity at length offered him by the late lieutenant of police, of committing to paper, at great personal risk, as liberal and noble sentiments as have ever proceeded from a generous and enlightened mind.

Had the Count de Mirabeau confined himself, like the celebrated Mr. Linguet, in his Memoirs of the Bastile, to details of his own sufferings, however interesting the history of human misery must ever be to human nature, the translator would not have given himself the trouble of celebrating an egotist: but when he saw the author availing himself of his subject, to descant on the dreadful abuses of arbitrary power in every country, and in every age, and pointing out, with an admirable accuracy, great knowledge, and exquisite sensibility, the fatal consequences of the slightest infringement on the natural rights of mankind, and, really, making his own sufferings but a secondary object in his undertaking, the translator, who glories in thinking with such men, determined to contribute his mite to the propagation of such principles, and, by submitting to his countrymen so affecting a display of the progress of despotism, to shew them how imperceptibly and completely a nation may lose its liberties, and be reduced to a desperate state of ostentatious, but wretched servitude.

Facilis descensus Averni,
Sed revocare gradum; hic labor, hoc opus est!

The first part of this work embraces a variety of politico-philosophical questions, as the author stiles them, of the most extensive and general utility. Besides a very learned and laborious discussion of natural right, the fatal effects of the union of the civil and ecclesiastical powers, the origin of all government, and the social right of punishment, richly illustrated by notes, it contains a very neat and precise history of the progress of despotism in France, the chain of artful and violent measures by which it has arrived at its present uncontrolled state of exercise, and a series of specific proofs of the national privileges once possessed by that enslaved people, a subject hitherto discussed but vaguely, and but little understood in England.

The reader will find too, in the tenth chapter, a very ingenious and useful enquiry into the police of great cities, as connected with public liberty, exemplified in those of Amsterdam, London, and Paris, wherein he will see an admirable delineation of the enormities, not beauties as Englishmen are artfully wished to believe, of the latter metropolis, that sink of vice, violence, and insecutiry.

In the twelfth chapter is a cursory view of the history of France, and the French monarch, from the reign of Philip le Bel to the present time, drawn by a most masterly hand, and, as the translator thinks, with strict impartiality, but marked with the hardy traits of a zealous and determined enemy to tyranny. Louis XIV, that insolent despot, whose character, as it escapes from the blaze of false glory, has been long declining in the eye of impartial justice, is here stripped of all his arrogant pretensions, and delivered over to the present age, and to posterity, as one of the most fatal scourges that ever ruled, and tyrannized over a generous people; nay, even as a fastidious pretender to the patronage of the arts and sciences, the strong-hold of his flatterers, and the remnant of his tottering reputation.

The reign of Louis the well-beloved too is pourtrayed with no less ability and boldness; nor does he hesitate to point ou tthe enourmities of the present established system of government, nor to express a noble indignation at the complete triumph o fdespotism, and the downfal of public freedom and public spirit in his country.

Throughout this part, as well as in the whole work, the author passes many deserved eulogiums on the English constitution, interspersed into such just and salutary structures on its actual states, and the perils it has to apprehend, as cannot be unwelcome to any real friend to freedom. His superior mind soars about the authority of names, and every predilection not founded on real utility, and on the solid basis of permanent public good. He combats with as much intrepedity, but always with respect, the erroneous positions of a Montesquieu, or a Blackstone, as he would trample on the sophisticated and dangerous dogmas of a Filmer, a Shebbaeare, a Johnson, or a Markham.

In the second part, is the detail of his own sufferings in the dungeon of Vincennes, and the usual mode of treatment in state prisons, with an exquisite portrait of one of those monsters, with which France in infested, who, through scenes of adulation, and every species of infamy, though decorated with the insignia of military merit, arrive at the still more odious occupation than the executioner's, that of being the perpetual torturers of their fellow-creatures. The manner in which this detail is given, though sufficiently minute, is neither trivial nor uninteresting. Self does not constitute its leading feature, as in that of Mr. Linguet. The author's philanthropy and sensibility are universal; his feelings are exquisitely painted, but his is a manly sorrow; nor can any generous mind refuse a tear of sympathy with him, for the cruel anguish of the wretched thousands, groaning in these horrid mansions.

The translator will only add, that the above eulogium is no more than the genuine tribute of an uninterested and sincere admiration of the work, which he would not have attempted to clothe in his native language, did it not contain principles and sentiments congenial with his own, and under the hope of being useful to mankind. Of the execution he shall say nothing, but request the indulgence of the reader for occasional errors, as he is at a great distance from a very careful press, it is true, but without the possibility of correcting it.

Item of the Day: Proceedings of the French National Convention on the Trial of Louis XVI.

Full Title: Proceedings of the French National Convention on the trial of Louis XVI. Late king of France and Navarre; to which are added, several interesting occurrences and particulars attending the treatment, sentence and execution of the ill-fated monarch; the whole carefully collected from authentic documents, and republished with additions, from the paper of The World. By Joseph Trapp, A.M. London: Printed for the author; Sold by Messrs. Murray, Kearsley, and Wenman and Co. Fleet-street; Ridgway, York-street, St. James’s; Deighton, Holborn; Downes, and M’Queen, Strand; and at the World Office, 1793.


From the moment Louis XVI. had attempted to fly the kingdom, and was brought back from Varennes to Paris, a continual torrent of misfortunes rushed upon him, which nothing could stop till it had swept away the tide of his wretched existence. The generality of the inhabitants of Paris, excited by the leading members of the Legislative Assembly, seduced from their principles by the licentiousness of the press, by means of which every effort was used to denigrate the character of the unfortunate Prince and his family, were now quite against him, and sought eagerly for opportunities to insult and grieve him, and to ill-treat those individuals who were determined to remain his friends and loyal subjects. Emigration—the conduct of the French princess at foreign courts—the invasion of the French territories by the combined armies—the massacres on the 10th of August and those which followed in the beginning of September, soured still more the public opinion against the King; he became the object in whom all their hatred and resentment concentrated. He and his family were confined in the temple, royalty was abolished, a National Convention convened, and France declared a republic. Not the smallest traces of royalty were left behind; the crown, scepter, and other insignia of royalty were broke and sent to the mint, and every statue, or monument of Kings, wantonly destroyed; even the ashes of the dead were insulted by those profane innovators, they were taken out of the quiet tomb, and burnt or scattered in the most disgraceful manner. For the name of King, that of Tyrant substituted; morality and good order fled from the kingdom; the ministers of the Altar were most rigorously prosecuted, and those who had not the good fortune to fly, fell victims to their principles. The new created National Convention did every thing to propagate their principles of modern philosophy; they insulted the very name of religion, and by so doing dissolved every tie of morality among the vulgar, who abandoned themselves to the most profligate and iniquitous excesses. When royalty had been abolished, commissaries were sent to the temple to signify the decree to the King; he heard his degradation without distorting a feature of his countenance; and when he was ordered to give up his star and ribband, he resigned them cheerfully; from that moment he was treated as a common individual, not with compassion but with rudeness, and consummate cruelty. In the beginning, the KING’s confinement was not close, and he could walk about the temple, but on Sunday the 30th of September, the Council General of the Commons of Paris, who were entrusted with the safety of royal captives, ordered the following decree to be put into execution at 11 o’clock in the evening;

1. That Louis XVI. Be immediately conducted to the Great Tower of the Temple, and confined in a private room.
2. That Antoinette be separated from her husband, and confined in a separate cell.
3. That they be deprived of the use of pens, paper, ink, pencils, books, offensive and defensive arms, all the plate, and every other article not absolutely necessary.
4. That their Valet be put under arrest.
5. That the citizen Hebert be joined to the five commissaries already appointed to guard the prisoners.
6. The council authorize the said commissaries to execute this order instantly, and impower [sic] them to use every means that their prudence will suggest, for the safety of these hostages of the combination of tyrants.
   

Item of the Day: Bailey's Dictionary (1736)

Full Title:

Dictionarium Britannicum: or a more compleat universal etymological English dictionary than any extant. By Nathan Bailey. Second Edition. London, T. Cox, 1736.

Title Page:

DICTIONARIUM BRITANNICUM:
Or a more C_OMPLEAT
U_NIVERSAL E_TYMOLOGICAL
ENGLISH DICTIONARY
Than any EXTANT
CONTAINING

Not only the Words and their Explication; but their Etymologies fron the Antient
British, Teutonick, Dutch Low and High, Old Saxon, German, Danish, Swedish, Norman and Modern French, Italian, Spanish, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, &c. each in its proper Character.

A L S O
Explaining hard and technical Words, or Terms of Art, in all the ARTS, SCIENCES,
and MYSTERIES following. Together with ACCENTS directing to their proper Pronuntiation, shewing both the Orthography, and the Orthoepia of the English Tongue,

VIZ. IN

Algebra, Anatomy, Architecture, Arithmetick, Astrology, Astronomy, Botanicks, Catoptricks, Chymistry, Chiromancy, Chirurgery, Confectionary, Cookery, Cosmography, Dialling, Dioptricks, Ethicks, Fishing, Fortification, Fowling, Gardening, Gauging, Geography, Geometry, Grammar, Gunnery, Handicrafts, Hawking, Heraldry, Horsemanship, Hunting, Husbandry, Hydraulicks, Hydrography, Hydrostaticks, Law, Logick, Maritime and Military Affairs, Mathematicks, Mechanicks, Merchandize, Metaphysicks, Meteorology, Navigation, Opticks, Otacousticks, Painting, Perspective, Pharmacy, Philosophy, Physick, Physiognomy, Pyrotechny, Rhetorick, Sculpture, Staticks, Statuary, Surveying, Theology, and Trigonometry.

Illustrated with near Five Hundred CUTS, for giving a clear Idea of
those Figures, not so well apprehended by verbal description.

L I K E W I S E
A Collection and Explanation of English P_ROVERBS; also of WORDS and PHRASES us'ed in our ancient Charters, Statutes, Writs, Old Records and Processes at Law.

A L S O

The Iconology, Mythology, Theogony, and Theology of the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, &c. being an Account of their Deities, Solemnities, either Religious or Civil, their Divinations, Auguries, Oracles, Hieroglyphicks, and many other curious Matters, necessary to be understood, especially be the Readers of English POETRY.

To which is added,
A Collection of Proper Names of Persons and Places in Great-Britain, &c with their Etymologies and Explications.

The Whole digested into an Alphabetical Order, not only for the Information of the Ignorant, but the Entertainment of the Curious; and also the Benefit of Artificers, Tradesmen, Young Students and Foreigners.

A WORK useful for such as would _UNDERSTAND what they _READ and _{HEAR, SPEAK} what they _MEAN, and _WRITE true ENGLISH.

The SECOND EDITION with numberous A_DDITIONS and I_MPROVEMENTS.

By N. BAILEY,

Assisted in the Mathematical Part by G. GORDON; in the Botanical by P. MILLER; and in the Etymological, &c. by T. LEDIARD, Gent. Professor of the Modern Languages in Lower Germany.

L O N D O N:
Printed for T. COX, at the Lamb under the Royal-Exchange.
M,DCC,XXXVI

Item of the Day: Mrs. Piozzi’s Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy and Germany.

Full Title: Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy and Germany. By Hester Lynch Piozzi. Vol. I. London: Printed for A. Strahan, and T. Cadell, 1789.

PREFACE.

I was made to observe at Rome some vestiges of an ancient custom very proper in those days—it was the parading of the streets by a set of people called Preciae, who went some minutes before the Flamen Dialis to bid the inhabitants leave work or play, and attend wholly to the procession; but if ill omens prevented the pageants from passing, or if the occasion of the show was deemed scarcely worthy its celebration, these Preciae stood a chance of being ill-treated by the spectators. A Prefatory introduction to a work like this, can hope little better usage from the Public than they had; it proclaims the approach of what often passed by before, adorned most certainly with greater splendour, perhaps conducted too with greater regularity and skill: Yet will I not despair of giving at least a momentary amusement to my countrymen in general, while their entertainment shall serve as a vehicle for conveying expressions of particular kindness to those foreign individuals, whose tenderness softened the sorrows of absence, and who eagerly endeavoured by unmerited attentions to supply the loss of their company on whom nature and habit had given me stronger claims.

That I should make some reflections, or write down some observations, in the course of a long journey, is not strange; that I should present them before the Public is I hope not too daring: the presumption grew up out of their acknowledged favour, and if too kind culture has encouraged a coarse plant till it runs to seed, a little coldness from the same quarter will soon prove sufficient to kill it. The flattering partiality of private partisans sometimes induces the authors to venture forth, and stand a public decision; but it is often found to betray them too; not to be tossed by waves of perpetual contention, but rather to sink in the silence of total neglect. What wonder! He who swims in oil must be buoyant indeed, if he escapes falling certainly, though gently, to the bottom; while he who commits his safety to the bosom of the wide-embracing ocean, is sure to be strongly supported, or at worst thrown upon the shore.

On this principle it has been still my study to obtain from a humane and generous Public that shelter their protection best affords from the poisoned arrows of private malignity; for though it is not difficult to despise the attempts of petty malice, I well not say with the Philosopher, that I mean to build a monument to my fame with the stones thrown at me to break my bones; nor yet pretend to the art of Swift’s German Wonder-doer, who promised to make them fall about his head like so many pillows. Ink, as it resembles Styx in its colour, should resemble it a little in its operation too; whoever has been once dipt should become invulnerable: But it is not so; the irritability of authors has long been enrolled among the comforts of ill-nature, and the triumphs of stupidity; such let it long remain! Let me at least take care in the worst storms that may arise in public or in private life, to say with Lear,

--I’m one
More sinn’d against, than sinning.

For the book—I have not thrown my thoughts into the form of letters; because a work of which truth is the best recommendation, should not above all others begin with a lie. My old acquaintance rather chose to amuse themselves with conjectures, than to flatter me with tender inquiries during my absence: our correspondence then would not have been any amusement to the Public, whose treatment of me deserves every possible acknowledgment; and more than those acknowledgments will I not add—to a work, which, such as it is, I submit to their candour, resolving to think as little of the event as I can help; for the labours of the press resemble those of the toilette, both should be attended to, and finished with care; but once complete, should take up no more of our attention; unless we are disposed at evening to destroy all effect of our morning’s study.

Item of the Day: Irving’s History of New York

Full Title: A History of New-York, from the beginning of the world to the end of the Dutch dynasty. Containing among many surprising and curious matters, the unutterable ponderings of Walter the Doubter, the disastrous achievements of Peter the Headstrong, and three Dutch governors of New Amsterdam; being the only authentic history of the times that ever hath been published. By Diedrich Knickerbocker. Vol. I. Philadelphia: Published by M. Thomas, 1819.

CHAPTER V.

In which the Author puts a mighty question to the rout, by the assistance of the Man in the Moon—which not only delivers thousands of people from great embarrassment, but likewise concludes this introductory book.

The writer of a history may, in some respects, be likened unto an adventurous knight, who, having undertaken a perilous enterprise, by way of establishing his fame, feels bound in honour and chivalry, to turn back for no difficulty nor hardship, never to shrink or quail whatever enemy he may encounter. Under this impression, I resolutely draw my pen and fall to with might and main, those doughty questions and subtle paradoxes, which, like fiery dragons and bloody giants, beset the entrance to my history, and would fain repulse me from the very threshold. And at this moment a gigantic question has started up, which I must needs take by the beard and utterly subdue, before I can advance another step in my historic undertaking—but I trust this will be the last adversary I shall have to contend with, and that in the next book I shall be enabled to conduct my readers in triumph into the body of my work.

The question which has thus suddenly arisen, is, what right had the first discoverers of America to land and take possession of a country, without first gaining the consent of its inhabitants, or yielding them an adequate compensation for their territory?—a question which has withstood many fierce assaults, and has given much distress of mind to multitudes of kind hearted folk. And indeed, until it be totally vanquished, and put to rest, the worthy people of America can by no means enjoy the soil they inhabit, with clear right and title, and quiet, unsullied conscious.

The first source of right, by which property is acquired in a country, is DISCOVERY. For as all mankind have an equal right to any thing, which has never before been appropriated, so any nation, that discovers an uninhabited country, and takes possession thereof, is considered as enjoying full property, and absolute, unquestionable empire therein.

This proposition being admitted, it follows clearly, that the Europeans who first visited America, were the real discoverers of the same; nothing being necessary to the establishment of this fact, but simply to prove that it was totally uninhabited by man. This would at first appear to be a point of some difficulty, for it is well known, that this quarter of the world abounded with certain animals, that walked erect on two feet, had something of the human countenance, uttered unintelligible sounds, very much like language, in short, had a marvelous resemblance to human beings. But the zealous and enlightened fathers, who accompanied the discoverers, for the purpose of promoting the kingdom of heaven, by establishing fat monasteries and bishoprics on earth, soon cleared up this point, greatly to the satisfaction of his holiness the pope, and of all Christian voyagers and discoverers.

They plainly proved, and as there were no Indian writers arose on the other side, the fact was considered as fully admitted and established, that the two legged race of animals before mentioned, were mere cannibals, detestable monsters, and many of them giants—which last description of vagrants have, since the time of Gog, Magog, and Goliath, been considered as outlaws, and have received no quarter in either history , chivalry or song. Indeed, even the philosophic Bacon, declared the Americans to be people proscribed by the laws of nature, inasmuch as they had a barbarous custom of sacrificing men, and feeding upon man’s flesh. . . .

From the foregoing arguments, therefore, and a variety of others equally conclusive, which I forbear to enumerate, it was clearly evident that this fair quarter of the globe when first visited by Europeans, was a howling wilderness, inhabited by nothing but wild beasts; and that the trans-atlantic visitors acquired an incontrovertible property therein, by the right of discovery.

This right being fully established, we now come to the next, which is the right acquired by cultivation. . . .

It is true the savages might plead that they drew all the benefits from the land which their simple wants required—they found plenty of game to hunt, which together with the roots and uncultivated fruits of the earth, furnished a sufficient variety for their frugal repasts;--and that as heaven merely designed the earth to form the abode, and satisfy the wants of man; so long as those purposes were answered, the will of heaven was accomplished. –But this only proves how undeserving they were of the blessings around them—they were so much the more savages, for not having more wants; for knowledge is in some degree an increase of desires, and it is this superiority both in the number and magnitude of his desires, that distinguishes the man from the beast. Therefore the Indians, in not having more wants, were very unreasonable animals; and it was but just that they should make way for the Europeans, who had a thousand wants to their one, and therefore would turn the earth to more account, and by cultivating it, more truly fulfil the will of heaven. Besides—Grotius and Lauterbach, and Puffendorff, and Titius, and many wise men beside, who have considered the matter properly, have determined, that the property of a country cannot be acquired by hunting, cutting wood, or drawing water in it—nothing but precise demarcation of limits, and the intention of cultivation, can establish the possession. Now as the savages (probably from never having read the authors above quoted) had never complied with any of these necessary forms, it is plainly followed that they had no right to the soil, but that it was completely at the disposal of the first comers, who had more knowledge, more wants, and more elegant, that is to say, artificial desires than themselves. . . .

2007 Eighteenth-Century Reading Room Essay Competition

2007 CUNY-Wide

Eighteenth-Century Reading Room Essay Competition

The competition is open to all undergraduate and masters level CUNY students of any discipline

FIRST PRIZE $500

SECOND PRIZE $300
THIRD PRIZE $200

Essays will be judged by the following criteria:

• Research centering on at least two resources housed in the Eighteenth-Century Reading Room
• Originality, style, and thesis
• No more than eight to ten double-spaced pages in 12 point Times New Roman font
• Properly cited and formatted using MLA or Chicago standards

Submissions accepted any time until May 11, 2007. Essays may be sent electronically to cfuchs@gc.cuny.edu with the subject line "2007 contest submission." Essays sent via regular mail should be addressed to Caroline Fuchs at the Mina Rees Library/CUNY Graduate Center at 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016. Entries may also be hand delivered to room C196.05 on the concourse level of the Mina Rees Library. Please include contact information with your submissions.

Prize winners will be honored at a Fall 2007 reception in the Reading Room and their essays will be published on our blog


For further information concerning the contest and submissions to the 2007 essay competition, contact the Reading Room at 212-817-7085 or email Caroline Fuchs at cfuchs@gc.cuny.edu