XIX. As to what regards Africa, we should consider, that it gave birth to
a Cyprianus, and a Tertullian, and what is still more, to an Augustin;
and that the Africans were at one time, as much superior to the Spaniards
in military skill, as the Spaniards at this day are to the Africans; and
that there was a time, when the conquest of all Spain cost the Africans
less blood, than it has since cost Spain to conquer a few spots in
Mauritania. The soil and the climate of Africa, are the same now they
were formerly, and consequently capable of producing equal geniuses; and
the fault of not cultivating them, should not be imputed to the soil
or the climate, but to the want of opportunities of instruction, or to
the neglect of application; but with all this, they are perhaps not
so uncultivated as is commonly thought. Father Buttier, in his little
treatise, intituled _An Examination of Vulgar Prejudices_, gives us the
copy of a speech, which the ambassador from Morocco made to Louis the
Fourteenth, which was as eloquent and as much to the purpose, as if it
had been composed by a learned European.