_Cortez_.--Is it possible, William Penn, that you should seriously
compare your glory with mine? The planter of a small colony in North
America presume to vie with the conqueror of the great Mexican Empire?
_Penn_.--Friend, I pretend to no glory--the Lord preserve me from it. All
glory is His; but this I say, that I was His instrument in a more
glorious work than that performed by thee--incomparably more glorious.
_Cortez_.--Dost thou not know, William Penn, that with less than six
hundred Spanish foot, eighteen horse, and a few small pieces of cannon, I
fought and defeated innumerable armies of very brave men; dethroned an
emperor who had been raised to the throne by his valour, and excelled all
his countrymen in the science of war, as much as they excelled all the
rest of the West Indian nations? That I made him my prisoner in his own
capital; and, after he had been deposed and slain by his subjects,
vanquished and took Guatimozin, his successor, and accomplished my
conquest of the whole empire of Mexico, which I loyally annexed to the
Spanish Crown? Dost thou not know that, in doing these wonderful acts, I
showed as much courage as Alexander the Great, as much prudence as Caesar?
That by my policy I ranged under my banners the powerful commonwealth of
Tlascala, and brought them to assist me in subduing the Mexicans, though
with the loss of their own beloved independence? and that, to consummate
my glory, when the Governor of Cuba, Velasquez, would have taken my
command from me and sacrificed me to his envy and jealousy, I drew from
him all his forces and joined them to my own, showing myself as superior
to all other Spaniards as I was to the Indians?
_Penn_.--I know very well that thou wast as fierce as a lion and as
subtle as a serpent. The devil perhaps may place thee as high in his
black list of heroes as Alexander or Caesar. It is not my business to
interfere with him in settling thy rank. But hark thee, friend Cortez.
What right hadst thou, or had the King of Spain himself, to the Mexican
Empire? Answer me that, if thou canst.
_Cortez_.--The Pope gave it to my master.
_Penn_.--The devil offered to give our Lord all the kingdoms of the
earth, and I suppose the Pope, as his vicar, gave thy master this; in
return for which he fell down and worshipped him, like an idolater as he
was. But suppose the high priest of Mexico had taken it into his head to
give Spain to Montezuma, would his grant have been good?
_Cortez_.--These are questions of casuistry which it is not the business
of a soldier to decide. We leave that to gownsmen. But pray, Mr. Penn,
what right had you to the province you settled?
_Penn_.--An honest right of fair purchase. We gave the native savages
some things they wanted, and they in return gave us lands they did not
want. All was amicably agreed on, not a drop of blood shed to stain our
acquisition.
_Cortez_.--I am afraid there was a little fraud in the purchase. Thy
followers, William Penn, are said to think cheating in a quiet and sober
way no mortal sin.
_Penn_.--The saints are always calumniated by the ungodly. But it was a
sight which an angel might contemplate with delight to behold the colony
I settled! To see us living with the Indians like innocent lambs, and
taming the ferocity of their barbarous manners by the gentleness of ours!
To see the whole country, which before was an uncultivated wilderness,
rendered as fertile and fair as the garden of God! O Fernando Cortez,
Fernando Cortez! didst thou leave the great empire of Mexico in that
state? No, thou hadst turned those delightful and populous regions into
a desert--a desert flooded with blood. Dost thou not remember that most
infernal scene when the noble Emperor Guatimozin was stretched out by thy
soldiers upon hot burning coals to make him discover into what part of
the lake of Mexico he had thrown the royal treasures? Are not his groans
ever sounding in the ears of thy conscience? Do not they rend thy hard
heart, and strike thee with more horror than the yells of the furies?
_Cortez_.--Alas! I was not present when that dire act was done. Had I
been there I would have forbidden it. My nature was mild.
_Penn_.--Thou wast the captain of that band of robbers who did this
horrid deed. The advantage they had drawn from thy counsels and conduct
enabled them to commit it; and thy skill saved them afterwards from the
vengeance that was due to so enormous a crime. The enraged Mexicans
would have properly punished them for it, if they had not had thee for
their general, thou lieutenant of Satan.
_Cortez_.--The saints I find can rail, William Penn. But how do you hope
to preserve this admirable colony which you have settled? Your people,
you tell me, live like innocent lambs. Are there no wolves in North
America to devour those lambs? But if the Americans should continue in
perpetual peace with all your successors there, the French will not. Are
the inhabitants of Pennsylvania to make war against them with prayers and
preaching? If so, that garden of God which you say you have planted will
undoubtedly be their prey, and they will take from you your property,
your laws, and your religion.
_Penn_.--The Lord's will be done. The Lord will defend us against the
rage of our enemies if it be His good pleasure.
_Cortez_.--Is this the wisdom of a great legislator? I have heard some
of your countrymen compare you to Solon. Did Solon, think you, give laws
to a people, and leave those laws and that people at the mercy of every
invader? The first business of legislature is to provide a military
strength that may defend the whole system. If a house is built in a land
of robbers, without a gate to shut or a bolt or bar to secure it, what
avails it how well-proportioned or how commodious the architecture of it
may be? Is it richly furnished within? the more it will tempt the hands
of violence and of rapine to seize its wealth. The world, William Penn,
is all a land of robbers. Any state or commonwealth erected therein must
be well fenced and secured by good military institutions; or, the happier
it is in all other respects, the greater will be its danger, the more
speedy its destruction. Perhaps the neighbouring English colonies may
for a while protect yours; but that precarious security cannot always
preserve you. Your plan of government must be changed, or your colony
will be lost. What I have said is also applicable to Great Britain
itself. If an increase of its wealth be not accompanied with an increase
of its force that wealth will become the prey of some of the neighbouring
nations, in which the martial spirit is more prevalent than the
commercial. And whatever praise may be due to its civil institutions, if
they are not guarded by a wise system of military policy, they will be
found of no value, being unable to prevent their own dissolution.
_Penn_.--These are suggestions of human wisdom. The doctrines I held
were inspired; they came from above.
_Cortez_.--It is blasphemy to say that any folly could come from the
Fountain of Wisdom. Whatever is inconsistent with the great laws of
Nature and with the necessary state of human society cannot possibly have
been inspired by God. Self-defence is as necessary to nations as to men.
And shall particulars have a right which nations have not? True
religion, William Penn, is the perfection of reason; fanaticism is the
disgrace, the destruction of reason.
_Penn_.--Though what thou sayest should be true, it does not come well
from thy mouth. A Papist talk of reason! Go to the Inquisition and tell
them of reason and the great laws of Nature. They will broil thee, as
thy soldiers broiled the unhappy Guatimozin. Why dost thou turn pale? Is
it the name of the Inquisition, or the name of Guatimozin, that troubles
and affrights thee? O wretched man! who madest thyself a voluntary
instrument to carry into a new-discovered world that hellish tribunal?
Tremble and shake when thou thinkest that every murder the Inquisitors
have committed, every torture they have inflicted on the innocent
Indians, is originally owing to thee. Thou must answer to God for all
their inhumanity, for all their injustice. What wouldst thou give to
part with the renown of thy conquests, and to have a conscience as pure
and undisturbed as mine?
_Cortez_.--I feel the force of thy words; they pierce me like daggers. I
can never, never be happy, while I retain any memory of the ills I have
caused. Yet I thought I did right. I thought I laboured to advance the
glory of God and propagate, in the remotest parts of the earth, His holy
religion. He will be merciful to well designing and pious error. Thou
also wilt have need of that gracious indulgence, though not, I own, so
much as I.
_Penn_.--Ask thy heart whether ambition was not thy real motive and zeal
the pretence?
_Cortez_.--Ask thine whether thy zeal had no worldly views and whether
thou didst believe all the nonsense of the sect, at the head of which
thou wast pleased to become a legislator.--Adieu. Self-examination
requires retirement.