“. . . . . I am about a curious review of the Mission at Otaheite. Capt. Burney will find his friends rather roughly handled, for I look upon them as the most degraded of the human species. . . . . They have induced me to think it probable that the Spaniards did less evil in Hispaniola than we suppose. Coleridge’s scheme to mend them is, by extirpating the bread-fruit from their island, and making them live by the sweat of their brows. It always grieves me when I think you are no friend to colonisation: my hopes fly farther than yours; I want English knowledge and the English language diffused to the east, and west, and the south.
“Can you get for me the evidence upon the Slave Trade
as printed for the House of Commons? I want to collect all materials for
speculating upon the negroes. That they are a fallen people is certain,
because, being savages, they have among them the forms of civilisation. It is
remarkable that, in all our discoveries, we have never discovered any people in
a state of progression, except the Mexicans and Peruvians. That the Otaheiteans
are a degraded race, is proved by their mythology, which is physical
allegory—ergo, the work of people who thought
of physics. I am very desirous to know whether the negro priests and
| 244 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 29. |
“Do you know that the Dodo is actually extinct, having been, beyond doubt, too stupid to take care of himself. . . . . There is no hope of recovering the species, unless you could get your friend —— to sit upon a gander’s egg. God bless you.
