CHAPTER XIV.
THE DUTCH IN INDIA.
A free nation, which is its own master, is born to command the ocean. It cannot secure the dominion of the sea without seizing upon the land, which belongs to the first possessor; that is, to him who is able to drive out the ancient inhabitants. They are to be enslaved by force or fraud, and exterminated in order to get their possessions.
We come now to the conduct of a Protestant people towards the natives of their colonies; and happy would it be if we came with this change to a change in their policy and behaviour. But the Dutch, though zealous Protestants at home, were zealous Catholics abroad in cruelty and injustice. Styling themselves a reformed people, there was no reformation in their treatment of Indians or Caffres. They, as well as other Protestant nations, cast off the outward forms and many of the inward superstitions of the Roman church: but they were far, far indeed from comprehending Christianity in its glorious greatness; in the magnificence of its moral elevation; in the sublimity of its objects; in the purity of its feeling, and the
