Is then the dreadful measure of your cruelty not yet complete? Battle!
against whom? Against a king, in whose mild bosom your atrocious injuries,
even yet, have not excited hate; but who, insulted or victorious, still
sues for peace. Against a people, who never wronged the living being their
Creator formed; a people, who received you as cherished guests, with eager
hospitality and confiding kindness. Generously and freely did they share
with you their comforts, their treasures, and their homes; you repaid them
by fraud, oppression, and dishonor.
Pizarro, hear me! Hear me, chieftains! And thou, All-powerful! whose
thunder can shiver into sand the adamantine rock, whose lightnings can
pierce the core of the riven and quaking earth, oh let thy power give
effect to thy servant's words, as thy Spirit gives courage to his will! Do
not, I implore you, chieftains,--do not, I implore, you, renew the foul
barbarities your insatiate avarice has inflicted on this wretched,
unoffending race. But hush, my sighs! fall not, ye drops of useless
sorrow! heart-breaking anguish, choke not my utterance.
--E. B. Sheridan.
Note.--Examples of series. See p. 28.