I could not yet imagine, what he aimed at, and told him I granted all he had said; and thanked him that he would so far concern himself for us; and begged he would explain the particulars of what he had observed, that, like Joshua, (to take his own parable) I might put away the accursed thing from us.

“Why then, Sir,” says he, “I will take the liberty you give me; and there are three things which, if I am right, must stand in the way of God’s blessing upon your endeavours here, and which I should rejoice, for your sake, and their own, to see removed.  And, Sir,” says he, “I promise myself that you will fully agree with me in them all as soon as I name them; especially because I shall convince you that every one of them may with great ease, and very much to your satisfaction, be remedied.”

He gave me no leave to put in any more civilities, but went on:  “First, Sir,” says he, “you have here four Englishmen, who have fetched women from among the savages, and have taken them as their wives, and have had many children by them all, and yet are not married to them after any stated legal manner, as the laws of God and man require; and therefore are yet, in the sense of both, no less than adulterers, and living in adultery.  To this, Sir,” says he, “I know you will object, that there was no clergyman or priest of any kind, or of any profession, to perform the ceremony; nor any pen and ink, or paper, to write down a contract of marriage, and have it signed between them.  And I know also, Sir, what the Spaniard governor has told you; I mean of the agreement that he obliged them to make when they took these women, viz. that they should choose them out by consent, and keep separately to them; which, by the way, is nothing of a marriage, no agreement with the women as wives, but only an agreement among themselves, to keep them from quarrelling.

“But, Sir, the essence of the sacrament of matrimony (so he called it, being a Roman) consists not only in the mutual consent of the parties to take one another as man and wife, but in the formal and legal obligation that there is in the contract to compel the man and woman at all times to own and acknowledge each other; obliging the man to abstain from all other women, to engage in no other contract while these subsist; and on all occasions, as ability allows, to provide honestly for them and their children; and to oblige the women to the same, on like conditions, mutatis mutandis, on their side.

“Now, Sir,” says he, “these men may, when they please, or when occasion presents, abandon these women, disown their children, leave them to perish, and take other women and marry them whilst these are living.”  And here he added, with some warmth, “How, Sir, is God honoured in this unlawful liberty?  And how shall a blessing succeed your endeavours in this place, however good in themselves, and however sincere in your design, while these men, who at present are your subjects, under your absolute government and dominion, are allowed by you to live in open adultery?”