This question is very easily answered.  If Voyagers, by chance, fall in with a Continent, or Island, uninhabited and uncultivated, they have a right of possession by the Law of Nature, and or reason; because no human Being is injured or deprived of his right.  But if they find any Inhabitants there, they can have no right.  The Man who robs us on the High Way, or who breaks open, and plunders our Houses, hath as good a right to what he takes from us, as Conquerors to a Country, which they may be able to subdue by Force of Arms.  The right obtained by Conquest if admitted, will justify every Kind and every degree of oppression, even the slavery of our poor African Brethren.  This principle will justify a Nation in wresting whole Countries out of the Hands of a cultivated, well ordered and peaceable people.  In short, this Principle will justify the greatest Inhumanity, Cruelty, and Barbarity.

Nations engaged in open Way may, perhaps, be justified in invading and subduing their Enemies’ Territories, because it may be the happy means of hastening a Peace, and put an end to the shedding of human Blood.  But, on such Occasions, the innocent Inhabitants should not be wantonly injured; because the quarrel, is not between private Individuals, but between their Governors, in which their real Interests are seldom consulted.  Very few necessary Wars have ever disturbed the peace of the World:  they generally are the consequence of Ambition, Pride, and Vanity.

To invade and wantonly destroy, or plunder, the Lands or the Houses of a quiet, inoffensive and peaceable people; to carry away or destroy their property, without any provocation on their part, only because they are not able to resist, are acts in themselves highly wicked and diabolical.

How Madog and his Colony behaved, when they landed, to the original Inhabitants of the Country, does not appear; not in a hostile, but in an amicable and affectionate manner, as may be supposed; for his memory was held in high esteem by the Mexicans when Cortez arrived there.  He was the Hero whose praises they celebrated in various places.  How the Spaniards behaved is well known.  One Author says that Cortez, and his Army slew four millions of Mexicans and two Emperors, Montezuma, and Guatimozin, the latter in the most cruel manner.

But if two millions, or even one, were destroyed, it was a carnage that will reflect the highest disgrace upon the infernal Perpetrators for ever.

Private Persons are often chargeable with fraudulent Practices, in their dealings with the unsuspicious Natives of America.  There is no doubt but that the English, as well as other Nations, are often guilt.  But public Bodies, as well as Individuals, are chargeable with unjust and dishonest proceedings, not only with the Indians, but with one another.