These facts, with respect to the colonists of the Europeans, are of the highest importance in the present case, and deserve a serious attention.  For when we know to a certainty from whom they are descended; when we know that they were, at the time of their transplantation, of the same colour as those from whom they severally sprung; and when, on the other hand, we are credibly informed, that they have changed it for the native colour of the place which they now inhabit; the evidence in support of these facts is as great, as if a person, on the removal of two or three families into another climate, had determined to ascertain the circumstance; as if he had gone with them and watched their children; as if he had communicated his observations at his death to a successor; as if his successor had prosecuted the plan, and thus an uninterrupted chain of evidence had been kept up from their first removal to any determined period of succeeding time.

But though these facts seem sufficient of themselves to confirm our opinion, they are not the only facts which can be adduced in its support.  It can be shewn, that the members of the very same family, when divided from each other, and removed into different countries, have not only changed their family complexion, but that they have changed it to as many different colours as they have gone into different regions of the world.  We cannot have, perhaps, a more striking instance of this, than in the Jews.  These people, are scattered over the face of the whole earth.  They have preserved themselves distinct from the rest of the world by their religion; and, as they never intermarry with any but those of their own sect, so they have no mixture of blood in their veins, that they should differ from each other:  and yet nothing is more true, than that the English Jew[092] is white, the Portuguese swarthy, the Armenian olive, and the Arabian copper; in short, that there appear to be as many different species of Jews, as there are countries in which they reside.

To these facts we shall add the following observation, that if we can give credit to the ancient historians in general, a change from the darkest black to the purest white must have actually been accomplished.  One instance, perhaps, may be thought sufficient. Herodotus[093] relates, that the Colchi were black, and that they had crisped hair.  These people were a detachment of the AEthiopian army under Sesostris, who followed him in his expedition, and settled in that part of the world, where Colchis is usually represented to have been situated.  Had not the same author informed us of this circumstance, we should have thought it strange[094], that a people of this description should have been found in such a latitude.  Now as they were undoubtedly settled there, and as they were neither so totally destroyed, nor made any such rapid conquests, as that history should notice the event, there is great reason to presume, that their descendants continued in the same, or settled in the adjacent country; from whence it will follow, that they must have changed their complexion to that, which is observable in the inhabitants of this particular region at the present day; or, in other words, that the black inhabitant of Colchis must have been changed into the fair Circassian[095].