[Footnote 28:  Bougainville most positively asserts, that the disease existed in the island at his arrival; yet the statement of Wallis as to the soundness of his crew, seems deserving of all credit.  After all, perhaps, there is reason to doubt if the affection judged to be the Lues Venerea, and at different times so exceedingly prevalent among these people, were really so.  Scientific men of the medical profession, know the extreme difficulty there is of deciding, as to the existence of this disease in certain cases.  Common observers easily perceive and confidently aver.  But to the general reader the discussion of this topic would be very unamusing.  It is indeed quite irrelevant to the objects of this work.  But there may be some propriety in giving the following remarks.  The origin of the disease in question has never been distinctly ascertained, and perhaps never will be.  The common opinion is, that it was brought from the western hemisphere; and the island of Hispaniola or St Domingo is particularly mentioned by some writers as the place of its first appearance.  Hence the historian Robertson, with somewhat more of unnecessary vehemence than of dignified moderation and good sense, tells us in words very like part of our text:  “One dreadful malady, the severest scourge with which, in this life, offended heaven chastens the indulgence of criminal desire, seems to have been peculiar to the Americans.  By communicating it to their conquerors, they have not only amply avenged their own wrongs, but by adding this calamity to those which formerly embittered human life, they have, perhaps, more than counterbalanced all the benefits which Europe has derived from the discovery of the New World.”  As if a disease which every body might have avoided, so soon as its existence, its inveterate nature, and the mode of communicating it, were known, and which, after all that has been said of its malignity and rapid progress, was both mitigated by various means soon after its appearance, and ultimately at no great distance of time effectually arrested in its terrifying career—­as if this could be considered competent to liquidate all the advantages and the greatly augmented comforts which have resulted to Europe and to the world at large by the discoveries of Columbus:  And as if, granting all that has been exaggeratingly related of its spreading over Europe with the celerity and unqualified extension of an epidemic—­such visitation on multitudes of generations no way implicated in the guilt, could by any rules of logic for the interpreting of Providence be construed into acts of righteous retribution in avenging these Indians!  But in reality, it is highly disputable if the facts on which is exhibited such an uncommonly zealous display of justice on the part of the historian, are adequate to warrant his opinion, that America inflicted this calamity.  This is rather unfortunate for his apparent warmth of piety, and the more so, as, from the information to which he alludes in his note