My friends,--I speak to you simply as brave men. I speak alike to Roman
Catholic and Protestant. I speak alike to godly men and ungodly. I
speak alike to soldiers and sailors. . . . If you are _brave_, read these
words. I call these _brave_ words. They are not my _own_ words, or my
own message, but the message to you of the bravest man who ever lived, or
who ever will live, and if you will read them and think over them, He
will not _make_ you brave (for that, thank God, you are already), but
_keep_ you brave, come victory or defeat. I speak to the brave men who
have now fought three bloody battles, and fought them like heroes. All
England has blessed you, and admired you; all England has felt for you in
a way that would do your hearts good to see. For you know as well as I,
that nothing is so comforting, nothing so endearing, as sympathy, as _to
know that people feel for one_. If one knows that, one can dare and do
anything. If one feels that nobody cares for one's suffering or one's
success, one is ready to lie down and die. It is so with a horse or a
dog even. If there is any noble spirit in them, a word of encouragement
will make them go till they drop. How much more will the spirit of a
_man_? I can well believe that the Queen's beautiful letter put more
heart into you, than the hope of all the prize money in the world would
have done; and that with the words of that letter ringing in your ears,
you will prove true to the last, to the words of the grand old song--
"Hearts of oak are our ships, hearts of oak are our men,
And we'll fight, and we'll conquer again, and again."
But, my friends, you know as well as I, that there are times when neither
that letter, nor the feeling of duty, nor of honour, nor of glory, can
keep your hearts from sinking. Not in battle! No. Only cowards' hearts
fail them there; and there are no cowards among you. But even a brave
man's heart may fail him at whiles, when, instead of the enemy's balls
and bayonets, he has to face delay, and disappointment, and fatigue, and
sickness, and hunger, and cold, and nakedness; as you have, my brave
brothers, and faced them as well as man ever did on earth. Ah! it must
be fearful work to _sit still_, and shiver and starve in a foreign land,
and to think of those who are in comfort and plenty at home; and worse,
to think of those, who, even if they are in plenty, cannot be in comfort,
because their hearts are breaking for your sake; to think of brother and
sister, wife and child, while you are pacing up and down those dreary
trenches, waiting for your turn of sickness, perhaps of death. It must
be bitter and disheartening at times; you would not be men, if it was
not. One minute, perhaps, you remember that those whom you have left at
home, love you and pray for you; and that cheers you; then you remember
that all England loves you, and prays for you in every church throughout
the land; and that cheers you; but even that is not enough, you feel
ready to say, "What is the use of my going through all this misery? Why
am I not at home ploughing the ground, or keeping a shop, anything rather
than throwing away my life by inches thus. My people at home feel for
me, but they cannot know, they never will know, the half of what I have
gone through. The nation will provide for me if I am crippled, but they
cannot make up to me for losing the best years of my life in such work as
this; and, if I am killed, can they make up to me for that? Who can make
up to me for my life?"
Have you not had such thoughts, my friends, and sadder thoughts still
lately? You need not be ashamed of them if you have. For hard work you
have had, and it must have told at times on your spirits as heavily as it
has on your bodies.
But, my friends, there is an answer for these sad thoughts. There are
brave words for you, and a noble message from God, which will cheer you
when nothing else can cheer you. If your own people cannot know all that
you go through, there is One who can and does; if your own wives and
mothers cannot feel enough for you, there is One above who does, and He
is the Lord Jesus Christ. You have hungered; so has He. You have been
weary; so has He. You have felt cold and nakedness; so has He. You have
been houseless and sleepless, so has He. While the foxes had holes, and
the birds of the air had nests, He, the maker of them all, had not where
to lay His head. You have felt the misery of loneliness and desolation;
but never so much as did He, when not only every earthly friend forsook
Him and fled, but He cried out in His very death pangs, "My God, my God,
why hast Thou forsaken me?"
Above all, you have felt how difficult it was to die, not fighting sword
in hand, but slowly and idly, and helplessly, by cholera or fever, hunger
or cold. Terrible it is; but the Lord Jesus Christ has felt that too.
For three years He looked death in the face--a death of shame and misery
such as you can never die--and faced it, and gave Himself up to it of His
own free will; and though He had the most horrible fear of it to the very
last, He determined to submit to it, in spite of His own fear of it; and
He did submit to it, and died, and so _showed_, _even in His very fear_,
_the most perfect and glorious courage_. So if any one of you has ever
felt for a single moment _afraid_; even in _that_, the Lord Jesus Christ
can feel for you; for He, too, has gone through the agony of fear, when
His sweat was as great drops of blood falling to the ground, that He
might be able to help you, and every man that is tempted, because He can
be touched with the feeling of your infirmities, having gone through
every temptation which flesh is heir to, and conquered them all.
This, then, is one half (and only one half) of my good news; that you
have a Friend in heaven who feels for every trouble of yours, better than
your own mothers can feel for you, because He has been through it all
already; you have a Friend in heaven who is praying for you day and
night, more earnestly, lovingly, wisely, than your own wives and children
are praying for you. But that is not all. God forbid! You have a
Friend in heaven, for whose sake God will forgive you all your sins and
weaknesses, as often as you heartily confess them to Him, and trust in
Him for a full and free pardon. You have a Friend in heaven who will
help you day by day, where you most need help, in your hearts and
spirits; who will give you, if you ask Him, _His Spirit_, the same spirit
of duty, courage, endurance, love, self-sacrifice, which made Him brave
to endure ten thousand times more than any soldier or sailor can endure,
for the sake of doing His Father's will, and saving a ruined world.
Oh! open your hearts to Him, my brave men, in your lonely
night-watches--on your sick beds; ay, in the very roar of battle itself,
ask Him to make you true and good, patient, calm, prudent, honourable,
obedient, gentle, even in the hottest of the fight. Commit to Him your
own lives and fortunes, and the lives and fortunes of those who have been
left at home, and be sure that He, your Unseen Friend of friends, is able
and willing to help to the uttermost all that you put into His charge.
But, again, my men, if the nation cannot reward you for sacrificing your
life in a just war, there is One above who can, and who will, too; for He
is as just as He is loving, and as loving as He is just, and that is the
same of whom I have spoken already, the Lord Jesus Christ.
I think some of you will fancy this almost too good news to be true, and
yet the very news which you want to hear. I think some of you have been
saying as you read this, "All this is blessed and comforting news for
poor fellows lying wounded in a hospital, or fretting their souls away
about the wives and children they have left behind; blessed and
comforting news; but we want something more than that even. We have to
fight and to kill; we want to be sure that God's blessing is on our
fighting and our killing; we have to go into battle; and we want to know
that there, too, we are doing God's work, and to be sure that God is on
our side."
Well, my brave men, _Be sure of it then_! Be sure that God's blessing is
as much upon you; be sure that you are doing God's work, as much when you
are handling a musket or laying a gun in your country's battles, as when
you are bearing frost and hunger in the trenches, and pain and weakness
on a sick bed.
For the Lord Jesus Christ is not only the _Prince of Peace_; He is the
_Prince of War_ too. He is the Lord of Hosts, the God of armies; and
whosoever fights in a just war, against tyrants and oppressors, he is
fighting on Christ's side, and Christ is fighting on his side; Christ is
his Captain and his Leader, and he can be in no better service. Be sure
of it; for the Bible tells you so. The old wars of Abraham against the
robber-kings; of Joshua against the Canaanites; of David against the
Philistines; of Hezekiah against the Assyrians; of the Maccabees against
the Greeks--all tell the soldier the same brave news, that he is doing
God's work, and that God's blessing is on him, when he fights in a just
cause. And you are fighting in a just cause, if you are fighting for
freedom and law. If to you God gives the noble work of fighting for the
liberty of Europe, God will reward you according as you do that work like
men. You will be fighting in that everlasting war which is in heaven; in
God's everlasting war against all injustice and wrong, the Captain and
Leader whereof is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Believe that--for the
Bible tells it you. You must think of the Lord Jesus Christ, not merely
as a sufferer, but as a warrior; not merely as the Man of Sorrows
(blessed as that thought is), but as the Lord of Hosts--the God of
armies--the King who executes justice and judgment in the earth, who has
sworn vengeance against all unrighteousness and wrong, and will destroy
the wicked with the breath of His mouth. You must think of Him as the
God of the fatherless and the widow; but you must think of Him, too, as
the God of the sailor and the soldier, the God of duty, the God of
justice, the God of vengeance, the God to whom _your colours were
solemnly offered_, and _His blessing on them prayed for_, when they were
given to your regiment.
I know that you would follow those colours into the mouth of the pit,
that you would die twice over sooner than let them be taken. Good! but
remember, too, that those colours are a sign to you that Christ is with
you, ready to give you courage, coolness, and right judgment, in the
charge and in the death grapple, just as much as He is with those
ministering angels who will nurse and tend your wounds in hospital. God's
blessing is on them; but do you never forget that your colours are a sign
to you that Christ's blessing is on _you_. If they do not mean that to
you, what was the use of blessing them with prayer? It must have been a
lie and a sham. But it is no lie, brave men, and no sham; it is a
glorious truth, of which those noble rags, inscribed with noble names of
victory, should remind you every day and every hour, that he who fights
for Queen and country in a just cause, is fighting not only in the
Queen's army, but in Christ's army, and that he shall in no wise lose his
reward.
Are not these brave words for brave soldiers? Well: they are not mine;
they are the Bible's. The book of Revelation tells us how St. John saw a
vision of the Lord Jesus Christ, and of His everlasting war against
wrong, of which I spoke just now. And what did the Lord appear like?
"_And I saw heaven opened_, _and behold a white horse_; _and he that sat
upon him is called Faithful and True_, _and in righteousness He doth
judge and make war_. _And His eyes were as a flame of fire_; _and He was
clothed in a garment dipped in blood_; _and His name is called the Word
of God_. _And the armies in heaven followed Him_, _riding upon white
horses_, _clothed in fine linen_, _white and clean_. _And out of His
mouth goeth a sharp sword_, _that He should smite the nations_; _and He
shall rule them with a rod of iron_; _and He treadeth the winepress of
the fierceness and of the wrath of almighty God_" (Rev. xix. 11).
Are not these brave words, my friends? Are not these soldier-like words?
Is not this a general worth following? Is not this a charge of cavalry
worth sharing in? Then believe that that general, the Lord Jesus Christ,
is your general. Believe that you are sharing in that everlasting
charge, to which the glorious charge of Balaclava was as nothing; the
everlasting war which the Lord Jesus wages against all sin, and cruelty,
and wrong--in which He will never draw bridle-rein, or sheath His sword,
till He has put all enemies under His feet, and swept all oppression,
injustice, and wickedness off the face of the earth which God has given
Him.
Therefore I can say to you other brave words, my friends (and not my own,
but the words of the same Lord Jesus Christ):--"Fear not them that can
kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will
forewarn you whom you shall fear; fear him who after he has killed has
power to destroy both body and soul in hell."
Now all England knows already that you do not fear those who can kill the
body; but I sometimes fear that some of you are not enough afraid of that
enemy worst of all, who can kill the soul too. And who is that? St.
Paul tells us. He is "the devil, who has the power of death," who lies
in ambuscade to destroy your body and soul in hell; and will and can do
it; _but only if you let him_. Now who is the devil? It is worth your
while to know; for many a man may be, as you are, in the ranks of God's
army, and yet doing the devil's work all the while. Many a man may fancy
himself a good soldier, and forget that a soldier is a man, and something
more; and that therefore, before you can be a good soldier, you must
first be more or less of a good man. Do you think not? Look then, and
see whether the most upright and god-fearing men in your ranks are not in
the long run the best soldiers. I don't mean merely the best
_fighters_--the bravest men in battle. There goes more than mere bull-
dog pluck to the making of a soldier; and to make a good soldier, I hold
that a man, though he be afraid of nothing else, must be horribly afraid
of the devil, and _that the better and braver soldier he is_, _the more
afraid of the devil he will be_.
Of course that depends upon who the devil is. I will tell you. He is
what his name means, _the accuser and the divider_--the evil spirit who
sets men against each other--men against officers, and officers against
men; who sets men grumbling, puts hard suspicious thoughts into their
minds; makes them selfish and forgetful of their duty, tempts them to
care only for themselves, and help themselves. You must see that if
those tempers once got head in an army, there would be an end of all
discipline--of all obedience; and what is more, of all courage; for if
the devil could completely persuade every man to care only for himself,
the plain thing for every man to do, would be to turn round and run for
his life. That you will never do; but you may give way to the devil in
lesser matters, and so do God's work ill, and lose your own reward from
God. All grumbling, and hard speeches, and tale-bearing is doing the
devil's work. All disorder and laziness is doing the devil's work. All
cruelty and brutality is doing the devil's work.
Now as to cruelty and brutality, some soldiers fancy when towns are taken
in war, that they may do things for which (to speak the truth) _they
ought to be hanged_. I mean in plain English, ravishing the women, and
ill-treating unarmed men, to make them give up their money. _Whosoever
does these things_, _God's curse is on him_, and his sin will surely find
him out. No excuse of being in hot blood will avail him. No excuse of
having fought well beforehand will avail him. Such cant will no more
excuse him with God than it will with truly noble-minded men. He may
have been brave enough before, but he is doing a coward's deed then; he
is doing the devil's work, _and the devil_, _and not God_, _will pay him
his wages_, _to the uttermost farthing_. But though I tell you to fear
the devil, it is only to fear his getting the command over you. The
devil is a liar, and a liar is always a coward. Be brave in God's
service. "Resist the devil and he will flee from you."
One word more. If any of you are maddened by hearing of the enemy
murdering some of your wounded--recollect that _revenge_ is one of the
devil's works, of which the brave men cannot be too much afraid. God
forbid that you should ever be maddened into imitating such cruelty.
Fight the enemy in God's name--and strike home; but never have on your
conscience the thought that you struck _an unnecessary blow_. _You are
to kill for the sake of victory_, _but never to kill for the sake of
killing_. You know who it was who prayed for and excused His own
murderers as He hung upon the cross. "Father, forgive them, for they
know not what they do." That was the same Lord Jesus who, as I told you,
is the great Warrior against all wrong. If He was not ashamed to
forgive, do you not be ashamed either. You cannot be more brave than He
is; try, at least, to be merciful like Him. Overcome evil with good; by
returning good for evil you will not only help England's cause by
softening the hearts of your enemies, but you will preach Christ's gospel
to them--and in nowise lose your reward.
Remember then, always, our Lord Jesus Christ is the pattern of a perfect
warrior, whether by land or sea; and if you be like Him, and fighting
_not only on His side_, _but as He likes to see you fight_, that is,
righteously and mercifully against the tyrants of the earth--what harm
can happen to you? Be sure that whether you live, you will live to Him;
or whether you die, you die to Him; that living or dying you will be His;
and that He is merciful (the Bible says) in this, that He rewards every
man according to his work. Do you your work like men, and be sure that
the Lord Jesus Christ will see that you are right well paid, if not in
this life, still in that life to come, to which may He bring you and all
brave men, who will strive to do their duty in that station of life to
which God has called them.
II. THE STORY OF CORTEZ; OR PLUCK IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. A LECTURE
DELIVERED AT ALDERSHOT CAMP, NOV. 1858.
It seemed to me that, having to speak to-night to soldiers, that I ought
to speak _about_ soldiers. Some story, I thought, about your own
profession would please you most and teach you most. Some story, I say,
for it is not my business to tell you what soldiers ought to be like.
That, I daresay, you know a great deal better than I; and I only hope I
may do my duty as a parson half as well as British soldiers do their
duty, and will always do it.
So I thought of telling you to-night some sort of a story--a true one, of
course, about wars and battles--some story about the British army; but
then I thought there are plenty of officers who can do that far better
than I,--so I will take some story of foreign armies, and one of old
times too. And though no soldier myself, but only a scholar, and reader
of queer old books, I may make my scholarship of some use to you who have
to drill and fight, and die too, for us comfortable folks who sit at home
and read our books by our fireside.
Then I thought of the story of Cortez the Spaniard, and how he conquered
the great empire of Mexico with a handful of brave men. That, I thought,
would be an example to you of what men can do who have stout hearts and
good weapons, and who have faith too in God, and believe that if they do
their duty God will prosper them. And I thought I could do it all the
better, because I like the story, and enjoy reading it again and again;
for I know no such dashing and desperate deed of courage in history,
except Havelock's advance upon Lucknow.
So now I will begin my story, telling you first where Mexico is, and what
it was like when Cortez landed in it, more than three hundred years ago.
You, all of you, have heard of the West India station--some of you have
been there. Beyond those West India Islands lies the great Gulf of
Mexico, and beyond that the mainland of North America, and Mexico itself.
It is now thinly peopled by Spaniards, the descendants of settlers who
came over after Cortez's time; and a very lazy, cowardly set most of them
are,--very different from the old heroes, their forefathers. Our Yankee
cousins can lick them now, one to five, and will end, I believe, in
conquering the whole country. But in Cortez's time, the place was very
different. It was full of vast numbers of heathens, brownish coloured
people, something like the Red Indians you see in Canada, but a fairer,
handsomer, stouter, heavier-bodied race; and much more civilised also.
They had great cities and idol temples, aqueducts for water, and all
sorts of noble buildings, all of most curiously carved stone; which is
all the more wonderful and creditable to them, when we remember that they
had no iron--not a knife--not a nail of iron among them. But they had
found out how to make bronze by mixing tin and copper, and with it could
work the hardest stones, as well as we can with iron. They had another
stuff which was curious enough, of which they made knives, razors, arrow
heads, and saw-edged swords as keen as razors--and that was _glass_. They
did not make the glass--they found it about the burning mountains, of
which Mexico is full; itztli they called it; we call it obsidian. It is
tougher than our glass, and chips to a fine razor edge. I have seen
arrows of it, which I am certain would go clean through a man, and knives
which would take his arm off, bone and all. I want you to remember these
glass weapons, for Cortez's Spaniards had cause enough to remember them
when they came to fight. Gunpowder, of course, they knew nothing of, nor
of horses or cattle either. They had no beasts of draught; and all the
stones and timber for their magnificent buildings were carried by hand.
But they were first-rate farmers; and for handicraft work, such as
pottery, weaving, and making all kinds of ornaments, I can answer for it,
for I have seen a good deal of their work--they had not then their equals
in the world. They made the most beautiful dresses out of the feathers
of birds--parrots, humming birds, and such like, which fill the forests
in hot countries. And what was more, their country abounded in gold and
jewels, and they knew how to work them, just as well as we do. They
could work gold into the likeness of flowers, of birds with every feather
like life, and into a thousand trinkets. Their soil was most fruitful of
all that man can want--there was enough of the best for all to eat; and
altogether there never was a richer, and need never have been a happier
people, if they had but been good. But that was just what they were not.
A bad lot they were, cruel and blood-thirsty, continually at war with
each other; and as for cruelty, just take this one story. At the opening
of a great temple to one of their idols in 1486, about thirty years
before the Spaniards came, they sacrificed to the idol seventy-thousand
human beings!
This offering in sacrifice of human beings to their idols was their
regular practice. They got these poor creatures by conquering all the
nations round, and carrying back their prisoners to sacrifice; and if
they failed, they took poor people of their own, for blood they and their
false gods must have. Men, and sometimes women and children, were
murdered by them in their temples, often with the most horrible tortures,
to the number, I am afraid there is no doubt of it, of many thousands
every year; and their flesh afterwards cooked delicately, was eaten as a
luxury by people who, as far as outward show went, were just as fine
gentlemen and ladies as there are now.
When the Spaniards got into Mexico, they found the walls of the temples
crusted inches thick in blood, the altars of the idols heaped with
smoking human hearts, and whole houses full of skulls. They counted in
one house one hundred and thirty-six thousand skulls. It was high time
to get rid of those Mexicans off the face of the earth; and in God's good
time a man was found to rid the earth of them, and that man was Hernando
Cortez.
And who was Cortez? He was a poor young Spanish gentleman, son of an
infantry captain, who, in his youth, was sickly and weakly; and his
father tried to make a lawyer of him, and would have done it, but young
Cortez kicked over the traces, as we say, right and left, and turned out
such a wild fellow, that he would not stay at college; and after getting
into plenty of scrapes, started as a soldier to the West Indies when he
was only nineteen. Little did people think what stuff there was in that
wild, sickly lad!
How he got on in the Spanish West Indies would be a long story. I will
only tell you that he turned out a thoroughly good soldier, and a very
dashing smart fellow, a first-rate rider and fencer, a great dandy in his
dress; but also--and if you go to hot climates, keep this in mind--a
particularly sober and temperate man, who drank nothing, and could eat
anything. And he had, it is said, the most extraordinary power of
managing his men. He was always cool and determined; and what he said
had to be done, and they knew it; but his way with them was so frank and
kind, and he was so ready to be the foremost in daring and enduring,
living worse often than his own men, while he was doing every thing for
their comfort, that there was nothing they would not do for him, as the
event proved--for if those soldiers had not trusted him for life and
death, I should not have this grand story to tell.
At last he married a very pretty woman, and got an estate in the West
Indies, and settled down there; and the chances were ten to one that no
one ever heard of him. However, dim reports came to the West Indies of
this great empire of Mexico, and of all its wonders and wealth, and that
stirred up Cortez's blood; and nothing would serve him but that leaving
wife and estate, he must start out again to seek his fortune.
He got a commission from the Governor, such as it was, for they were
lawless places those Spanish West Indies then; and everybody fulfilled a
certain Irishman's notion of true liberty--for he did "what was right in
the sight of his own eyes, and what _was wrong too_"--and Cortez's
commission was to go and discover this country, and trade with the
people, and make Christians of them--that is, if he could.
So he got together a little army, and sailed away with it for the unknown
land. He had about one hundred sailors, five hundred and fifty soldiers
armed with sword and pike, and among them thirty-two cross-bow men, and
thirteen musketeers. Above all, he had sixteen horses, ten heavy guns--or
what may be called heavy guns in those times--about 9-pounders, I
suppose, and four smaller guns; and with that he set out to conquer a new
world; _and he conquered it_!
He did not know whither he was going. All he knew was, that this
wonderful country of Mexico was _somewhere_, and treasures inestimable in
it. And one other thing he knew, that if mortal man _could_ get there,
he _would_.
He landed at Tabasco--where Vera Cruz city stands now--fought with the
Indians, who ran away at the sight of the horses and noise of the cannon;
and then made friends with them. From them he got presents, and among
others, a present which was worth more than its weight in gold to him,
namely, a young slave girl, who had been born near Mexico, and knew the
language. She was very clever, and very beautiful; and soon learnt to
speak Spanish. She had been a princess in her own country, and was sold
as a slave by her cruel stepmother. They made a Christian of her, and
called her Dona Marina,--her Indian name was Malinche,--and she became
Cortez's interpreter to the Indians, and his secretary. And she loved
him and served him as faithfully as true woman ever loved man, and saved
him and his from a hundred dangers. And the Spaniards reverence her name
still; and call a mighty snow mountain after her, Malinche, to this day.
After that he marched inland, hearing more and more of the wonders of
Mexico, till he came at last, after many adventures, to a country called
Tlascala, up among high mountains.
The men who lived there seem to have been rough honest fellows; and brave
enough they showed themselves. The Mexicans who lived in the plains
below never could conquer them, though they had been fighting with them
for full two hundred years. These Tlascalans turned out like men, and
fought Cortez--one hundred Indians to one Spaniard they fought for four
mortal hours; but horses and cannon were too much for them, and by
evening they were beaten off. They attempted to surprise him the same
night, and were beaten off again with great slaughter. Whereon a strange
thing happened.
Cortez, through Dona Marina, his interpreter, sent them in fair terms. If
they would make peace he would forget and forgive all; if not, he would
kill every man of them, and level their city to the ground. Whereon,
after more fighting, the Tlascalans behaved like wise and brave men. They
understood at last that Cortez's point was not Tlascala, but Mexico; and
the Mexicans were their bitterest enemies; and they had the good sense to
shake hands with the Spaniards, and make all up. And faithful friends
they were, and bravely they fought side by side during all the terrible
campaign that followed. Meanwhile, Cortez's own men began to lose heart.
They had had terrible fighting already, and no plunder. As for getting
to Mexico, it was all a dream. But Cortez and Dona Marina, this
wonderful Indian girl, kept them up. No doubt they were in awful
danger--a handful of strangers walking blindfold in a vast empire, not
one foot of ground of which they knew: but Cortez knew the further they
went the further they must go, for it was impossible to go back. So on
and on they went; and as they went they met ambassadors from Montezuma,
the great Emperor of Mexico. The very sight of these men confirmed all
that they had heard of the riches of that great empire, for these Indian
lords came blazing with gold and jewels, and the most magnificent
dresses; and of their power, for at one city which had let Cortez in
peaceably without asking the Emperor's leave, they demanded as a fine
five and twenty Indian young men and forty girls to be offered in
sacrifice to their idols. Cortez answered that by clapping them in
irons, and then sending them back to the Emperor, with a message that
whether he liked or not, he was coming to Mexico.
You may call that desperate rashness; but like a good deal of rashness,
it paid. This great Emperor Montezuma was utterly panic-stricken. There
were old prophecies that white gods should come over the sea and destroy
him and his empire; and he took it into his head that these Spaniards
were the white gods, and that there was no use resisting them. He had
been a brave man in his youth, and a great warrior; but he utterly lost
his head now. He sent magnificent presents to the Spaniards to buy them
off; but that only made them the more keen to come on; and come they did,
till they saw underneath them the city of Mexico, which must have been
then one of the wonders of the world.
It lay in the midst of a great salt lake, and could only be reached from
shore by long causeways, beautifully built of stone. On this lake were
many islands; and what was most curious of all, floating gardens, covered
with all sorts of vegetables and flowers.
How big the city was no one will ever know now; but the old ruins of it
show how magnificent its buildings must have been, full of palaces and
temples of every kind of carved stone, surrounded by flower gardens,
while the whole city was full of fountains, supplied with pure water
brought in pipes from the mountains round. I suppose so beautiful a
sight as that city of Mexico has never been seen since on earth. Only
one ugly feature there was in it--great pyramids of stone, hundreds of
them, with idol temples on the top, on each of which was kept up a
perpetual fire, fed with the fat of human beings.
To their surprise the Emperor received them peaceably, came out to meet
them, gave them such presents, that the common soldiers were covered with
chains of gold; invited them into the city, and gave them a magnificent
palace to live in, and endless slaves to wait upon them. It sounds all
like a fairy tale; but it is as true as that you and I are here.
But the cunning emperor had been plotting against them all the while; and
no great blame to him; and at last one of those plots came to light; and
Cortez made up his mind to take the Emperor prisoner. And he did it.
Right or wrong, we can hardly say now. This Montezuma was a bad, false
man, a tyrant and a cannibal; but still it looks ugly to seize a man who
is acting as your friend. However, Cortez had courage, in the midst of
that great city, with hundreds of thousands of Indians round him, to go
and tell the Emperor that he must come with him. And--so strong is a man
when he chooses to be strong--the Emperor actually went with Cortez a
prisoner.
Cortez--and that was an unworthy action--put him in irons for an hour, to
show him that he was master; and then took off his irons, and treated him
like a king. The poor Emperor had all he wanted--all his wives, and
slaves, and finery, and eatables, and drinkables; but he was a mere
puppet in the Spaniard's hands; and knew it. And strangely enough, not
being able to get out of his mind the fancy that these Spaniards were
gods, or at least, the children of the gods, he treated them so
generously and kindly, that they all loved him; he obeyed them in
everything; took up a great friendship with several; and ended actually
by giving them all his treasures of gold to melt down and part among
themselves. As I say, it sounds all like a fairy tale, but it happened
in this very month of November 1519.
But Cortez had been too prosperous not to meet with a mishap. Every
great man must be tried by trouble; and so was Cortez. News came to him
that a fresh army of Spaniards had landed, as he thought at first, to
help him. They had nine hundred men, eighty of whom were horse soldiers,
eighty musqueteers, one hundred and fifty cross-bow men, a good train of
heavy guns, ammunition, &c. What was Cortez's disgust when he found that
the treacherous Governor of Cuba had sent them, not to help him, but to
take him prisoner as a rebel? It was a villainous business got up out of
envy of Cortez's success, and covetousness of his booty. But in the
Spanish colonies in those days, so far from home, there was very little
law; and the governors and adventurers were always quarrelling and
fighting with each other.
What did Cortez do? made up his mind as usual to do the desperate thing,
and marched against Narvaez with only seventy men, no guns, and hardly
any muskets--seventy against nine hundred. It was fearful odds; but he
was forced to leave the rest to keep Mexico down. And he armed his men
with very long lances, tipped at both ends with copper--for he had no
iron; with them he hoped to face Narvaez's cavalry.
And he did it. Happily on his road he met an old friend with one hundred
and twenty soldiers, who had been sent off to form a colony on the coast.
They were as true as steel to him. And with that one hundred and ninety
he surprised and defeated by night Narvaez's splendid little army. And
what is more, after beating them, made such friends with them, that he
engaged them all next morning to march with him wherever he wanted. The
man was like a spider--whoever fell into his net, friend or foe, never
came out again till he had sucked him dry.
Now he hurried back to Mexico, and terribly good reason he had; for
Alvarado whom he had left in garrison had quarrelled with the Mexicans,
and set upon them at one of their idol feasts, and massacred great
numbers of their leading men. It was a bloody black business, and
bitterly the Spaniards paid for it. Cortez when he heard it actually
lost his temper for once, and called his lieutenant-general a madman and
a traitor; but he could not afford to cashier him, for after all he was
the best and bravest man he had. But the mischief was done. The whole
city of Mexico, the whole country round, had risen in fury, had driven
the Spanish garrison into the great palace; and worst of all, had burnt
the boats, which Cortez had left to get off by, if the bridges were burst
down. So there was Alvarado shut up, exactly like the English at
Lucknow, with this difference, that the Spaniards deserved what they got,
and the English, God knows, _did not_. And there was Cortez like another
Havelock or Colin Campbell marching to deliver them. But he met a very
different reception. These crafty Mexicans never struck a blow. All was
as still as the grave. As they came over the long causeways and bridges,
there was not a canoe upon the lake, not an Indian in the floating
gardens. As they marched through the streets of the glorious city, the
streets were as empty as a desert. And the Spaniard knew that he was
walking into a trap, out of which none of them might come out alive; but
their hearts never failed them, and they marched on to the sound of their
bugles, and were answered by joyful salutes of cannon from the relieved
garrison.
The Mexicans had shut up the markets, and no food was to be got. Cortez
sent to open them. He sent another messenger off to the coast to say all
was safe, and that he should soon conquer the rebels. But here, a
cleverer man than I must tell the story.
"But scarcely had his messenger been gone half an hour, when he returned
breathless with terror and covered with wounds. 'The city,' he said,
'was all in arms! the drawbridges were raised, and the enemy would soon
be upon them! He spoke truth. It was not long before a hoarse sullen
sound became audible, like that of the roaring of distant waters. It
grew louder and louder, till from the parapet surrounding the enclosure,
the great avenues which led to it might be seen dark with the masses of
warriors, who came rolling on in a confused tide towards the fortress. At
the same time the terraces and flat roofs in the neighbourhood were
thronged with combatants, brandishing their missiles, who seemed to have
risen up as if by magic! It was a spectacle to appall the stoutest. The
Spanish forces were crowded into a small compact mass in the palace, and
the whole army could be assembled at a moment's notice. No sooner,
therefore, did the trumpet call to arms, than every soldier was at his
post--the cavalry mounted, the artillerymen at their guns, and the
archers and arquebusiers stationed so as to give the assailants a warm
reception. On they came, with the companies, or irregular masses, into
which the multitude was divided, rushing forward each in its own dense
column, with many a gay banner displayed, and many a bright gleam of
light reflected from helmet, arrow, and spear head, as they were tossed
about in their disorderly array. As they drew near, the Aztecs set up a
hideous yell, which rose far above the sound of shell and atabat, and
their other rude instruments of warlike melody. They followed this by a
tempest of missiles--stones, darts, arrows--which fell thick as rain on
the besieged. The Spaniards waited till the foremost column had arrived,
when a general discharge of artillery and arquebusses swept the ranks of
the assailants, and mowed them down by hundreds." {222} . . .
So the fight raged on with fury for two days, while the Aztecs, Indians
who only fought by day, howled out to the wretched Spaniards every night.
On the third day Cortez brought out the Emperor Montezuma, and commanded
him to quiet the Indians. The unhappy man obeyed him. He had made up
his mind that these Spaniards were the white gods, who were to take his
kingdom from him, and he submitted to them like a sheep to the butcher.
He went up to a tower in all his royal robes and jewels. At the sight
the Indians who filled the great square below were all hushed--thousands
threw themselves on their faces; and to their utter astonishment, he
asked them what they meant by rebelling. He was no prisoner, he said,
but the Spaniard's guest and friend. The Spaniards would go peaceably,
if they would let them. In any case he was the Spaniard's friend.
The Indians answered him by a yell of fury and contempt. He was a dog--a
woman--fit only to weave and spin; and a volley of stones and arrows flew
at him. One struck him on the head and dropped him senseless. The
Indians set up a howl of terror; and frightened at what they had done,
fled away ashamed.
The wretched Emperor refused comfort, food, help, tore the bandages from
his wounds, and died in two days. He had been a bad man, a cannibal, and
a butcher, blood-thirsty and covetous, a ravisher of virgins, and a
tyrant to his people. But the Spaniards had got to love him in spite of
all; for a true friend he had been to them, and a fearful loss to them
just now. The battle went on worse than ever. The great idol temple
commanded the palace, and was covered with Mexican warriors. And next
day Cortez sent a party to storm it. They tried to get up the winding
stairs, and were driven back three times with fearful loss. Cortez,
though he had but one hand to fight with, sallied out and cleared the
pyramid himself, after a fearful hand-to-hand fight of three hours, up
the winding stairs, along the platforms, and at last upon the great
square on the top, an acre in breadth. Every Mexican was either killed,
or hurled down the sides. The idol, the war god, with its gold disc of
bleeding hearts smoking before it, was hurled down and the whole accursed
place set on fire and destroyed. Three hundred houses round were also
burnt that night; but of what use?
The Spaniards were starving, hemmed in by hundreds of thousands. They
were like a single wasp inside a bee-hive. Let him kill the bees by
hundreds, he must be killed himself at last. He made up his mind to
evacuate the city, to leave all his conquests behind him. It was a
terrible disappointment, but it had to be done.
They marched out by night in good order, with all their guns and
ammunition, and with immense plunder; as much of poor Montezuma's
treasures as they could carry. The old hands took very little; they knew
what they were about. The fresh ones from Narvaez's army loaded
themselves with gold and jewels, and had to pay dear for them. Cortez, I
ought to tell you, took good care of Dona Marina. He sent her forward
under a strong guard of Tlascalans, with all the other women. The great
street was crossed by many canals. Then the causeway across the lake,
two miles long, was crossed by more canals, and at every one of these the
Indians had taken away the bridges. Cortez knew that, and had made a
movable bridge; but he had only time to make one, and that of course had
to be taken up at the rear, and carried forward to the front every time
they crossed a dyke; and that made endless delay. As long as they were
in the city, however, all went well; but the moment they came out upon
the lake causeway, out thundered the serpent-skin drums from the top of
every temple, the conch shells blew, and out swarmed the whole hive of
bees, against the one brave wasp who was struggling. The Spaniards
cleared the dyke by cavalry and artillery, and got to the first canal,
laid down the bridge, and over slowly but safely, amid a storm of stones
and arrows. They got to the second canal, fifteen or twenty feet broad.
Why, in God's name, was not the bridge brought on? Instead of the bridge
came news from the rear. The weight of the artillery had been too great
for the bridge, and it was jammed fast. And there they were on a narrow
dyke fifty feet broad, in the midst of the lake, in the dark midnight,
with countless thousands of Indians, around, before, behind, and the lord
have mercy on them!
What followed you may guess--though some of the brave men who fought
there, and who wrote the story themselves--which I have read--hardly
knew.
The cavalry tried to swim their horses over. Some got safe, others
rolled into the lake. The infantry followed pell mell, cut down like
sheep by arrows and stones, by the terrible glass swords of the Indians,
who crowded round their canoes. The waggons prest on the men, the guns
on them, the rear on them again, till in a few minutes the canal was
choked with writhing bodies of men and horses, cannon, gold and treasure
inestimable, over which the survivors scrambled to the further bank.
Cortez, who was helping the rear forded the gap on horseback, and hurried
on to find a third and larger canal which no one dare cross. But the
Indians were not so thick here, and plunging into the water they got
through as they could. And woe that night to the soldier who had laden
himself with Indian treasure. Dragged to the bottom by the weight of
their plunder, hundreds died there drowned by that very gold to find
which they had crossed the seas, and fought so many a bloody battle.
What is the use of making a sad story long? They reached the shore, and
sat down like men desperate and foredone in a great idol temple. Several
of their finest officers, three-fourths of their men, were killed and
missing, three-fourths too of their horses--all Cortez's papers, all
their cannon, all their treasure. They had not even a musket left.
Nothing to face the Indians with but twenty-three crippled horses, a few
damaged crossbows, and their good old swords. Cortez's first question
was for poor Dona Marima, and strange to say she was safe. The trusty
Tlascalan Indians had brought her through it all. Alvarado the
lieutenant was safe too. If he had been the cause of all that misery, he
did his best to make up for it. He stayed behind fighting at the last
canal till all were over, and the Indians closing round him. Then he set
his long lance in the water, and to the astonishment of both armies,
leapt the canal clean, while the Indians shouted, "This is indeed the
Tonatiah, the child of the Sun." The gap is shown now, and it is called
to this day, Alvarado's Leap. God forgive him! for if he was a cruel
man, he was at least a brave one!
Cortez sat down, a ruined man, and as he looked round for his old
comrades, and missed one face after another, he covered his face with his
hands and cried like a child.
And was he a ruined man? Never less. No man is ruined till his pluck is
gone. He got his starving and shivering men together, and away for the
mountains to get back to the friendly people of Tlascala. The people
followed them along the hills shouting, "Go on! you will soon find
yourselves where you cannot escape." But he went on--till he saw what
they meant.
Waiting for him in a pass was an army of Indians--two hundred thousand,
some writers say--all fresh and fully armed. What could he do? To
surrender, was to be sacrificed every man to the idols; so he marched on.
He had still twenty horses, and he put ten on each flank. He bade his
men not strike with their sword but give the point. He made a speech to
his men. They had beaten the Indians, he said, many a time at just as
fearful odds. God had brought them through so far, God would not desert
them, for they were fighting on His side against the heathen; and so he
went straight at the vast army of Indians. They were surrounded,
swallowed up by them for a few minutes. In the course of an hour the
Spaniards had routed them utterly with immense slaughter.
Of all the battles I ever read of, this battle of Otumba is one of the
most miraculous. Some say that Cortez conquered Mexico by gunpowder: he
had none then, neither cannon nor musket. The sword and lance did it
all, and they in the hands of men worn out with famine, cold, and
fatigue, and I had said broken-hearted into the bargain. But there was
no breaking those men's hearts--what won that battle, what won Mexico,
was the indomitable pluck of the white man, before which the Indian,
whether American or Hindoo, never has stood, and never will stand to the
world's end. The Spaniards proved it in America of old, though they were
better armed than the Indian. But there are those who have proved it
upon Indians as well armed as themselves. Ay, my friends, I should be no
Englishman, if while I told this story, I could help thinking all the
while of our brave comrades in India, who have conquered as Cortez
conquered, and against just as fearful odds; whose enemies were armed,
not with copper arrows and glass knives, but with European muskets,
European cannon, and most dangerous of all, European discipline. I say
Cortez did wonders in his time; but I say too that our Indian heroes have
done more, and done it in a better cause.
And that is the history of the conquest of Mexico. What, you may ask, is
that the end? When we are leaving the Spaniards a worn-out and starving
handful struggling back for refuge to Tlascala, without anything but
their old swords; do you call _that_ a conquest?
Yes, I do; just as I call the getting back to Cawnpore, after the relief
of Lucknow, the conquest of India. It showed which was the better man,
Englishman or sepoy, just as the retreat from Mexico showed which was the
better man, Spaniard or Indian. The sepoys were cowed from that day,
just as the Mexicans were cowed after Otumba. They had fought with all
possible odds on their side, and been _licked_; and when men are once
cowed, all the rest is merely a work of time.
So it was with Cortez. He went back to Tlascala. He got by mere
accident, as we say, a reinforcement of Spaniards. He stirred up all the
Indian nations round, who were weary of the cruel tyranny of the
Mexicans; he made large boats to navigate the lake, and he marched back
upon Mexico the next year with about six hundred Spaniards and nine
cannon--about half the force which he had had before; but with a hundred
thousand Indian allies, who, like the sturdy Tlascalans, proved as true
to him as steel. Truly, if he was not a great general, who is?
He marched back, taking city after city as he went, and besieged Mexico.
It was a long and weary siege. The Indians fought like fiends. The
causeways had to be taken yard by yard; but Cortez, wise by sad
experience, put his cannon into the boats and swept them from the water.
Then the city had to be taken house by house. The Indians drove him back
again and again, till they were starved to skeletons, and those who used
to eat their enemies were driven to eat each other. Still they would not
give in. At last, after many weeks of fighting, it was all over. The
glorious Mexican empire was crumbled to dust. Those proud nobles, who
used to fat themselves upon the bodies of all the nations round, were
reduced to a handful of starving beggars. The cross of Christ was set
up, where the hearts of human creatures were offered to foul idols, and
Mexico has been ever since the property of the Spaniards, a Christian
land.
And what became of Cortez? He died sadly and in disgrace. He sowed, and
other men reaped. If he was cruel and covetous, he was punished for it
in this world heavily enough. He had many noble qualities though. He
was a better man than those around him; and one good thing he did, which
was to sweep off the face of the earth as devilish a set of tyrants as
ever defiled the face of the earth. Give him all due honour for it, and
let him rest in peace. God shall judge him and not we.
But take home with you, soldiers all, one lesson from this strange story,
that while a man can keep his courage and his temper, he is not only
never really beaten, but no man can tell what great things he may not do.