New Spain was discovered Anno
Dom 1517. and in the detection there was no first
or second Attempt, but all were exposed to slaughter.
The year ensuing those Spaniards (who style
themselves Christians) came thither to rob, kill and
slay, though they pretend they undertook this Voyage
to people the Countrey. From this year to the
present, viz 1542. the Injustice, Violence
and Tyranny of the Spaniards came to the highest
degree of extremety: for they had shook hands
with and bid adieu to all fear of God and the King,
unmindful of themselves in this sad and deplorable
condition, for the Destructions, Cruelties, Butcheries,
Devastations, the Domolishing of Cities, Depradations,
&c. which they perpetrated in so many and such ample
Kingdoms, are such and so great, and strike the minds
of Men with so great horror, that all we have related
before are inconsiderable comparatively to those which
have been acted from the year 1518 to 1542, and to
this very month of September that we now live
to see the most heavy, grievous and detestable things
are committed, that the Rule we laid down before as
a Maxim might be induputably verified, to wit, that
from the beginning they ran headlong from bad to worse,
and were overcome in their Diabolical acts and wickedness
only by themselves.
Thus from the first entrance of the
Spaniards into New Spain, which hapned
on the 18th day of April in the said month of
the year 1518, to 1530, the space of ten whole years,
there was no end or period put to the Destruction
and Slaughters committed by the merciless hands of
the Sanguinary and Blood-thirsty Spaniard in the Continent,
or space of 450 Miles round about Mexico, and
the adjacent or neighboring parts, which might contain
four or five spatious Kingdoms, that neither for magnitude
or fertility would give Spain her self the pre-eminance.
This intire Region was more populous then Toledo,
Sevil, Valedolid, Saragoza, and Faventia;
and there is not at this day in all of them so many
people, nor when they flourisht in their greatest height
and splendor was there such a number, as inhabited
that Region, which embraceth in its Circumference,
four hundred and eighty Miles. Within these
twelve years the Spaniards have destroyed in the Said
Countinent, by Spears, Fire and Sword, computing Men,
Women, Youth, and Children above Four Millions of
people in these their Acquests or Conquests (for under
that word they mask their Cruel Actions) or rather
those of the Turk himself, which are reported of them,
tending to the ruin of the Catholick Cause, together
with their Invasions and Unjust Wars, contrarty to
and condemned by Divine as well as Human Laws; nor
are they reckoned in this number who perished by their
more then Egyptian Bondage and usual Oppressions.
There is no Tongue, Art, or Human
knowledge can recite the horrid Impieties, which these
Capital Enemies to Government and all Mankind have
been guilty of at several times and in several Nations;
nor can the circumstantial Aggravations of some of
their wicked Acts be unfolded or display’d by
any manner of Industry, time or writing, but yet I
will say somewhat of every individual particular thing,
which this protestation and Oath, that I conceive
I am not able to comprehend one of a Thousand.