Jean-baptiste du tertre (1610–87) was a Dominican missionary. Although he describes the violence and idolatry of the Native Americans (Behn used him for her description of priestly frauds), he also regards their existence as paradisal (I, 357). He movingly documents the miseries of slaves, asserts their common humanity with their owners, and denounces the sexual coercion of women slaves, noting with approval that the French oblige fathers of half-breed children to maintain them until the age of twelve and that such children are treated as European. He also gives an interesting account of the half-Indian son of the Englishman Thomas Warner, who was made governor of Dominica. Yet, du Tertre does not condemn slavery: “I do not claim here to act in the capacity of a legal authority, and to examine the nature of servitude, and of the dominion which man acquires over his like by purchase, birth, or the right of war.” He will, he says, simply defend France against the charge that it enslaves Christians (I, 483). He also concedes that harsh punishment of slaves is a practical necessity, but nevertheless stresses St Ambrose's statement that those who are slaves by condition are our brothers in divine grace.

Whereas Antoine Biet warmly describes English hospitality, du Tertre had been captured en route from France to the West Indies and briefly imprisoned at Plymouth. He repeatedly stresses the villainy of Lord Willoughby, whom he accuses of wishing to exterminate all the French settlers in the islands (III, 286).