The increasing reputation of Solís attracted the notice of the

Court, and in 1661 he was made secretary to the queen dowager,--an

office which he had declined under Philip the Fourth,--and he was

also preferred to the still more important post of Historiographer

of the Indies, an appointment which stimulated his ambition to a

bold career, different from anything he had yet attempted. Five

years after this event, at the age of fifty-six, he made a most

important change in his way of life, by embracing the religious

profession, and was admitted to priest’s orders in 1666. From this

time he discontinued his addresses to the comic Muse, and, if we

may credit his biographers, even refused, from conscientious

scruples, to engage in the composition of the religious dramas,

styled _autos sacramentales_, although the field was now open to

him by the death of the poet Calderon. But such tenderness of

conscience it seems difficult to reconcile with the publication of

his various comedies, which took place in 1681. It is certain,

however, that he devoted himself zealously to his new profession,

and to the historical studies in which his office of chronicler had

engaged him. At length the fruits of these studies were given to

the world in his _Conquista de Méjico_, which appeared at Madrid in

1684. He designed, it is said, to continue the work to the times

after the Conquest. But, if so, he was unfortunately prevented by

his death, which occurred about two years after the publication of

his history, on the 13th of April, 1686. He died at the age of

seventy-six, much regarded for his virtues and admired for his

genius, but in that poverty with which genius and virtue are too

often requited.

The miscellaneous poems of Solís were collected and published a few

years after his death, in one volume quarto; which has since been

reprinted. But his great work, that on which his fame is

permanently to rest, is his _Conquista de Méjico_. Notwithstanding

the field of history had been occupied by so many eminent Spanish

scholars, there was still a new career open to Solís. His

predecessors, with all their merits, had shown a strange ignorance

of the principles of art. They had regarded historical writing not

as a work of art, but as a science. They had approached it on that

side only, and thus divorced it from its legitimate connection with

_belles-lettres_. They had thought only of the useful, and nothing

of the beautiful; had addressed themselves to the business of

instruction, not to that of giving pleasure; to the man of letters,

studious to hive up knowledge, not to the man of leisure, who turns

to books as a solace or a recreation. Such writers are never in the

hands of the many,--not even of the cultivated many. They are

condemned to the closet of the student, painfully toiling after

truth, and little mindful of the coarse covering under which she

may be wrapped. Some of the most distinguished of the national

historiographers, as, for example, Herrera and Zurita, two of the

greatest names in Castile and Aragon, fall under this censure. They

display acuteness, strength of argument, judicious criticism,

wonderful patience and industry in accumulating details for their

varied and voluminous compilations; but in all the graces of

composition--in elegance of style, skilful arrangement of the

story, and selection of incidents--they are lamentably deficient.

With all their high merits, intellectually considered, they are so

defective on the score of art that they can neither be popular, nor

reverenced as the great classics of the nation.

Solís saw that the field was unappropriated by his predecessors,

and had the address to avail himself of it. Instead of spreading

himself over a vast range, where he must expend his efforts on cold

and barren generalities, he fixed his attention on one great

theme,--one that, by its picturesque accompaniments, the romantic

incidents of the story, the adventurous character of the actors and

their exploits, was associated with many a proud and patriotic

feeling in the bosom of the Spaniard,--one, in fine, that, by the

brilliant contrast it afforded of European civilization to the

barbaric splendors of an Indian dynasty, was remarkably suited to

the kindling imagination of the poet. It was accordingly under its

poetic aspect that the eye of Solís surveyed it. He distributed the

whole subject with admirable skill, keeping down the subordinate

parts, bringing the most important into high relief, and by a

careful study of its proportions giving an admirable symmetry to

the whole. Instead of bewildering the attention by a variety of

objects, he presented to it one great and predominant idea, which

shed its light, if I may so say, over his whole work. Instead of

the numerous episodes, leading, like so many blind galleries, to

nothing, he took the student along a great road, conducting

straight towards the mark. At every step which we take in the

narrative, we feel ourselves on the advance. The story never

falters or stands still. That admirable _liaison_ of the parts is

maintained, by which one part is held to another, and each

preceding event prepares the way for that which is to follow. Even

those occasional interruptions, the great stumbling-block of the

historian, which cannot be avoided, in consequence of the important

bearing which the events that cause them have on the story, are

managed with such address that, if the interest is suspended, it is

never snapped. Such halting-places, indeed, are so contrived as to

afford a repose not unwelcome after the stirring scenes in which

the reader has been long involved; as the traveller, exhausted by

the fatigues of his journey, finds refreshment at places which in

their own character have little to recommend them.

The work, thus conducted, affords the interest of a grand

spectacle,--of some well-ordered drama, in which scene succeeds to

scene, act to act, each unfolding and preparing the mind for the

one that is to follow, until the whole is consummated by the grand

and decisive _dénouement_. With this _dénouement_, the fall of

Mexico, Solís has closed his history, preferring to leave the full

impression unbroken on the reader’s mind rather than to weaken it

by prolonging the narrative to the Conqueror’s death. In this he

certainly consulted effect.

Solís used the same care in regard to style that he showed in the

arrangement of his story. It is elaborated with the nicest art, and

displays that varied beauty and brilliancy which remind us of those

finely variegated woods which, under a high polish, display all the

rich tints that lie beneath the surface. Yet this style finds

little favor with foreign critics, who are apt to condemn it as

tumid, artificial, and verbose. But let the foreign critic beware

how he meddles with style, that impalpable essence which surrounds

thought as with an atmosphere, giving to it its life and peculiar

tone of color, differing in different nations, like the atmospheres

which envelop the different planets of our system, and which

require to be comprehended that we may interpret the character of

the objects seen through their medium. None but a native can

pronounce with any confidence upon style, affected as it is by so

many casual and local associations that determine its propriety and

its elegance. In the judgment of eminent Spanish critics, the style

of Solís claims the merits of perspicuity, copiousness, and classic

elegance. Even the foreigner will not be insensible to its power of

conveying a living picture to the eye. Words are the colors of the

writer, and Solís uses them with the skill of a consummate artist;

now displaying the dark tumult of battle, and now refreshing the

mind by scenes of quiet magnificence or of soft luxury and repose.

Solís formed himself to some extent on the historical models of

antiquity. He introduced set speeches into the mouths of his

personages, speeches of his own composing. The practice may claim

high authority among moderns as well as ancients, especially among

the great Italian historians. It has its advantages, in enabling

the writer to convey in a dramatic form the sentiments of the

actors, and thus to maintain the charm of historic illusion by

never introducing the person of the historian. It has also another

advantage, that of exhibiting the author’s own sentiments under

cover of his hero’s,--a more effective mode than if they were

introduced as his own. But to one trained in the school of the

great English historians the practice has something in it

unsatisfactory and displeasing. There is something like deception

in it. The reader is unable to determine what are the sentiments of

the characters and what those of the author. History assumes the

air of romance, and the bewildered student wanders about in an

uncertain light, doubtful whether he is treading on fact or

fiction.

It is open to another objection, when, as it frequently does, it

violates the propriety of costume. Nothing is more difficult than

to preserve the keeping of the piece when the new is thus laid on

the old,--the imitation of the antique on the antique itself. The

declamations of Solís are much prized as specimens of eloquence.

But they are too often misplaced; and the rude characters in whose

mouths they are inserted are as little in keeping with them as were

the Roman heroes with the fashionable wig and sword with which they

strutted on the French stage in Louis the Fourteenth’s time.

As to the value of the researches made by Solís in the compilation

of his work it is not easy to speak, for the page is supported by

none of the notes and references which enable us to track the

modern author to the quarry whence he has drawn his materials. It

was not the usage of the age. The people of that day, and, indeed,

of preceding times, were content to take the author’s word for his

facts. They did not require to know why he affirmed this thing or

doubted that; whether he built his story on the authority of a

friend or of a foe, of a writer of good report or of evil report.

In short, they did not demand a reason for their faith. They were

content to take it on trust. This was very comfortable to the

historian. It saved him a world of trouble in the process, and it

prevented the detection of error, or, at least, of negligence. It

prevented it with all who did not carefully go over the same ground

with himself. They who have occasion to do this with Solís will

probably rise from the examination with no very favorable idea of

the extent of his researches; they will find that, though his

situation gave him access to the most valuable repositories in the

kingdom, he rarely ascends to original documents, but contents

himself with the most obvious and accessible; that he rarely

discriminates between the contemporary testimony and that of later

date; in a word, that in all that constitutes the _scientific_

value of history he falls far below his learned predecessor

Herrera,--rapid as was the composition of this last.

Another objection that may be made to Solís is his bigotry, or

rather his fanaticism. This defect, so repugnant to the philosophic

spirit which should preside over the labors of the historian, he

possessed, it is true, in common with many of his countrymen. But

in him it was carried to an uncommon height; and it was peculiarly

unfortunate, since his subject, being the contest between the

Christian and the Infidel, naturally drew forth the full display of

this failing. Instead of regarding the benighted heathen with the

usual measure of aversion in which they were held in the Peninsula

after the subjugation of Granada, he considered them as part of the

grand confederacy of Satan, not merely breathing the spirit and

acting under the invisible influence of the Prince of Darkness, but

holding personal communication with him. He seems to have regarded

them, in short, as his regular and organized militia. In this view,

every act of the unfortunate enemy was a crime. Even good acts were

misrepresented, or referred to evil motives; for how could goodness

originate with the Spirit of Evil? No better evidence of the

results of this way of thinking need be given than that afforded by

the ill-favored and unauthorized portrait which the historian has

left us of Montezuma,--even in his dying hours. The war of the

Conquest was, in short, in the historian’s eye, a conflict between

light and darkness, between the good principle and the evil

principle, between the soldiers of Satan and the chivalry of the

Cross. It was a Holy War, in which the sanctity of the cause

covered up the sins of the Conquerors, and every one--the meanest

soldier who fell in it--might aspire to the crown of martyrdom.

With sympathies thus preoccupied, what room was there for that

impartial criticism which is the life of history?

The historian’s overweening partiality to the Conquerors is still

further heightened by those feelings of patriotism--a bastard

patriotism--which, identifying the writer’s own glory with that of

his countrymen, makes him blind to their errors. This partiality is

especially shown in regard to Cortés, the hero of the piece. The

lights and shadows of the picture are all disposed with reference

to this principal character. The good is ostentatiously paraded

before us, and the bad is winked out of sight. Solís does not stop

here, but, by the artful gloss which makes the worse appear the

better cause, he calls on us to admire his hero sometimes for his

very transgressions. No one, not even Gomara himself, is such a

wholesale encomiast of the great Conqueror; and, when his views are

contradicted by the statements of honest Diaz, Solís is sure to

find a motive for the discrepancy in some sinister purpose of the

veteran. He knows more of Cortés, of his actions and his motives,

than his companion in arms or his admiring chaplain.

In this way Solís has presented a beautiful image of his hero,--but

it is a hero of romance; a character without a blemish. An eminent

Castilian critic has commended him for “having conducted his

history with so much art that it has become a panegyric.” This may

be true; but, if history be panegyric, panegyric is not history.

Yet, with all these defects,--the existence of which no candid

critic will be disposed to deny,--the History of Solís has found

such favor with his own countrymen that it has been printed and

reprinted, with all the refinements of editorial luxury. It has

been translated into the principal languages of Europe; and such is

the charm of its composition, and its exquisite finish as a work of

art, that it will doubtless be as imperishable as the language in

which it is written, or the memory of the events which it records.

At this place also we are to take leave of Father Sahagun, who has

accompanied us through our narrative. As his information was

collected from the traditions of the natives, the contemporaries of

the Conquest, it has been of considerable importance in

corroborating or contradicting the statements of the Conquerors.

Yet its value in this respect is much impaired by the wild and

random character of many of the Aztec traditions,--so absurd,

indeed, as to carry their own refutation with them. Where the

passions are enlisted, what is too absurd to find credit?

The Twelfth Book--as it would appear from his Preface, the Ninth

Book originally--of his _Historia de la Nueva-España_ is devoted to

the account of the Conquest. In 1585, thirty years after the first

draft, he re-wrote this part of his great work, moved to it, as he

tells us, “by the desire to correct the defects of the first

account, in which some things had found their way that had better

been omitted, and other things omitted which were well deserving of

record.”{*} It might be supposed that the obloquy which the

missionary had brought on his head by his honest recital of the

Aztec traditions would have made him more circumspect in this

_rifacimento_ of his former narrative. But I have not found it so,

or that there has been any effort to mitigate the statements that

bore hardest on his countrymen. As this manuscript copy must have

been that which the author himself deemed the most correct, since

it is his last revision, and as it is more copious than the printed

narrative, I have been usually guided by it.

Señor Bustamante is mistaken in supposing that the edition of this

Twelfth Book which he published in Mexico in 1829 is from the

_reformed_ copy of Sahagun. The manuscript cited in these pages is

undoubtedly a transcript of that copy. For in the Preface to it, as

we have seen, the author himself declares it. In the intrinsic

value of the two drafts there is, after all, but little difference.

{*} [“En el libro nono, donde se trata esta Conquista, se hiciéron

ciertos defectos; y fué, que algunas cosas se pusiéron en la narracion

de este Conquista que fuéron mal puestas; y otras se calláron, que

fuéron mal calladas. Por esta causa, este año de mil quinientos ochenta

y cinco, enmende este Libro.” MS.]

BOOK VII

(CONCLUSION)

SUBSEQUENT CAREER OF CORTÉS

CHAPTER I

TORTURE OF GUATEMOZIN--SUBMISSION OF THE COUNTRY--REBUILDING OF THE

CAPITAL--MISSION TO CASTILE--COMPLAINTS AGAINST CORTÉS--HE IS

CONFIRMED IN HIS AUTHORITY

1521-1522

The history of the Conquest of Mexico terminates with the surrender of

the capital. But the history of the Conquest is so intimately blended

with that of the extraordinary man who achieved it, that there would

seem to be an incompleteness in the narrative if it were not continued

to the close of his personal career. This part of the subject has been

very imperfectly treated by preceding writers. I shall therefore avail

myself of the authentic materials in my possession to give a brief

sketch of the brilliant but checkered fortunes which marked the

subsequent career of Cortés.

The first ebullition of triumph was succeeded in the army by very

different feelings, as they beheld the scanty spoil gleaned from the

conquered city, and as they brooded over the inadequate compensation

they were to receive for all their toils and sufferings. Some of the

soldiers of Narvaez, with feelings of bitter disappointment, absolutely

declined to accept their shares. Some murmured audibly against the

general, and others against Guatemozin, who, they said, could reveal, if

he chose, the place where the treasures were secreted. The white walls

of the barracks were covered with epigrams and pasquinades levelled at

Cortés, whom they accused of taking “one-fifth of the booty as

commander-in-chief, and another fifth as king.” As Guatemozin refused to

make any revelation in respect to the treasure, or rather declared there

was none to make, the soldiers loudly insisted on his being put to the

torture. But for this act of violence, so contrary to the promise of

protection recently made to the Indian prince, Cortés was not prepared;

and he resisted the demand, until the men, instigated, it is said, by

the royal treasurer, Alderete, accused the general of a secret

understanding with Guatemozin, and of a design to defraud the Spanish

sovereigns and themselves. These unmerited taunts stung Cortés to the

quick, and in an evil hour he delivered the Aztec prince into the hands

of his enemies, to work their pleasure on him.

But the hero who had braved death in its most awful forms was not to be

intimidated by bodily suffering. When his companion, the cacique of

Tacuba, who was put to the torture with him, testified his anguish by

his groans, Guatemozin coldly

[Illustration: THE TORTURE OF GUATEMOZIN]

rebuked him by exclaiming, “And do you think I, then, am taking my

pleasure in my bath?”[137] At length Cortés, ashamed of the base part he

was led to play, rescued the Aztec prince from his tormentors before it

was too late,--not, however, before it was too late for his own honour,

which has suffered an indelible stain from this treatment of his royal

prisoner.

All that could be wrung from Guatemozin by the extremity of his

sufferings was the confession that much gold had been thrown into the

water. But, although the best divers were employed, under the eye of

Cortés himself, to search the oozy bed of the lake, only a few articles

of inconsiderable value were drawn from it. They had better fortune in

searching a pond in Guatemozin’s gardens, where a sun, as it is called,

probably one of the Aztec calendar wheels, made of pure gold, of great

size and thickness, was discovered. The cacique of Tacuba had confessed

that a quantity of treasure was buried in the ground at one of his own

villas. But when the Spaniards carried him to the spot, he alleged that

“his only motive for saying so was the hope of dying on the road!” The

soldiers, disappointed in their expectations, now, with the usual

caprice of an unlicensed mob, changed their tone, and openly accused

their commander of cruelty to his captive. The charge was well

deserved,--but not from them.[138]

The tidings of the fall of Mexico were borne on the wings of the wind

over the plateau, and down the broad sides of the Cordilleras. Many

envoys made their appearance from the remote Indian tribes, anxious to

learn the truth of the astounding intelligence and to gaze with their

own eyes on the ruins of the detested city. Among these were ambassadors

from the kingdom of Michoacán, a powerful and independent state,

inhabited by one of the kindred Nahuatlac races, and lying between the

Mexican Valley and the Pacific. The embassy was soon followed by the

king of the country in person, who came in great state to the Castilian

quarters. Cortés received him with equal parade, astonished him by the

brilliant evolutions of his cavalry and by the thunders of his ordnance,

and escorted him in one of the brigantines round the fallen city, whose

pile of smouldering palaces and temples was all that now remained of the

once dread capital of Anahuac. The Indian monarch gazed with silent awe

on the scene of desolation, and eagerly craved the protection of the

invincible beings who had caused it.[139] His example was followed by

ambassadors from the remote regions which had never yet had intercourse

with the Spaniards. Cortés, who saw the boundaries of his empire thus

rapidly enlarging, availed himself of the favorable dispositions of the

natives to ascertain the products and resources of their several

countries.

Two small detachments were sent into the friendly state of Michoacán,

through which country they penetrated to the borders of the great

Southern ocean. No European had as yet descended on its shores so far

north of the equator. The Spaniards eagerly advanced into its waters,

erected a cross on the sandy margin, and took possession of it, with all

the usual formalities, in the name of their Catholic Majesties. On their

return, they visited some of the rich districts towards the north, since

celebrated for their mineral treasures, and brought back samples of gold

and Californian pearls, with an account of their discovery of the ocean.

The imagination of Cortés was kindled, and his soul swelled with

exultation, at the splendid prospects which their discoveries unfolded.

“Most of all,” he writes to the emperor, “do I exult in the tidings

brought me of the Great Ocean. For in it, as cosmographers, and those

learned men who know most about the Indies, inform us, are scattered the

rich isles teeming with gold and spices and precious stones.”[140] He at

once sought a favorable spot for a colony on the shores of the Pacific,

and made arrangements for the construction of four vessels to explore

the mysteries of these unknown seas. This was the beginning of his noble

enterprises for discovery in the Gulf of California.

Although the greater part of Anahuac, over-awed by the successes of the

Spaniards, had tendered their allegiance, there were some, especially on

the southern slopes of the Cordilleras, who showed a less submissive

disposition. Cortés instantly sent out strong detachments under Sandoval

and Alvarado to reduce the enemy and establish colonies in the conquered

provinces. The highly colored reports which Alvarado, who had a quick

scent for gold, gave of the mineral wealth of Oaxaca, no doubt operated

with Cortés in determining him to select this region for his own

particular domain.

The commander-in-chief, with his little band of Spaniards, now daily

recruited by reinforcements from the Islands, still occupied the

quarters of Cojohuacan, which they had taken up at the termination of

the siege. Cortés did not immediately decide in what quarter of the

Valley to establish the new capital which was to take the place of the

ancient Tenochtitlan. The situation of the latter, surrounded by water

and exposed to occasional inundations, had some obvious disadvantages.

But there was no doubt that in some part of the elevated and central

plateau of the Valley the new metropolis should be built, to which both

European and Indian might look up as to the head of the colonial empire

of Spain. At length he decided on retaining the site of the ancient

city, moved to it, as he says, “by its past renown, and the memory”--not

an enviable one, surely--“in which it was held among the nations;” and

he made preparations for the reconstruction of the capital on a scale of

magnificence which should, in his own language, “raise her to the rank

of Queen of the surrounding provinces, in the same manner as she had

been of yore.”[141]

The labor was to be performed by the Indian population, drawn from all

quarters of the Valley, and including the Mexicans themselves, great

numbers of whom still lingered in the neighborhood of their ancient

residence. At first they showed reluctance, and even symptoms of

hostility, when called to this work of humiliation by their conquerors.

But Cortés had the address to secure some of the principal chiefs in his

interests, and under their authority and direction the labor of their

countrymen was conducted. The deep groves of the Valley and the forests

of the neighboring hills supplied cedar, cypress, and other durable

woods for the interior of the buildings, and the quarries of _tetzontli_

and the ruins of the ancient edifices furnished abundance of stone. As

there were no beasts of draught employed by the Aztecs, an immense

number of hands was necessarily required for the work. All within the

immediate control of Cortés were pressed into the service. The spot so

recently deserted now swarmed with multitudes of Indians of various

tribes, and with Europeans, the latter directing, while the others

labored. The prophecy of the Aztecs was accomplished.[142] And the work

of reconstruction went forward with a rapidity like that shown by an

Asiatic despot, who concentrates the population of an empire on the

erection of a favorite capital.[143]

Yet the condition of Cortés, notwithstanding the success of his arms,

suggested many causes for anxiety. He had not received a word of

encouragement from home,--not a word, indeed, of encouragement or

censure. In what light his irregular course was regarded by the

government or the nation was still matter of painful uncertainty. He now

prepared another Letter to the emperor, the Third in the published

series, written in the same simple and energetic style which has

entitled his Commentaries, as they may be called, to a comparison with

those of Cæsar. It was dated at Cojohuacan, May 15th, 1522, and in it he

recapitulated the events of the final siege of the capital, and his

subsequent operations, accompanied by many sagacious reflections, as

usual, on the character and resources of the country. With this letter

he purposed to send the royal fifth of the spoils of Mexico, and a rich

collection of fabrics, especially of gold and jewelry wrought into many

rare and fanciful forms. One of the jewels was an emerald, cut in a

pyramidal shape, of so extraordinary a size that the base was as broad

as the palm of the hand![144] The collection was still further augmented

by specimens of many of the natural products, as well as of animals

peculiar to the country.[145]

The army wrote a letter to accompany that of Cortes, in which they

expatiated on his manifold services and besought the emperor to ratify

his proceedings and confirm him in his present authority. The important

mission was intrusted to two of the general’s confidential officers,

Quiñones and Avila. It proved to be unfortunate. The agents touched at

the Azores, where Quiñones lost his life in a brawl. Avila, resuming his

voyage, was captured by a French privateer, and the rich spoils of the

Aztecs went into the treasury of his Most Christian Majesty. Francis the

First gazed with pardonable envy on the treasures which his Imperial

rival drew from his colonial domains; and he intimated his discontent by

peevishly expressing a desire “to see the clause in Adam’s testament

which entitled his brothers of Castile and Portugal to divide the New

World between them.” Avila found means, through a private hand, of

transmitting his letters, the most important part of his charge, to

Spain, where they reached the court in safety.[146]

While these events were passing, affairs in Spain had been taking an

unfavorable turn for Cortés. It may seem strange that the brilliant

exploits of the Conqueror of Mexico should have attracted so little

notice from the government at home. But the country was at that time

distracted by the dismal feuds of the _comunidades_. The sovereign was

in Germany, too much engrossed by the cares of the empire to allow

leisure for those of his own kingdom. The reins of government were in

the hands of Adrian, Charles’s preceptor; a man whose ascetic and

studious habits better qualified him to preside over a college of monks

than to fill, as he successively did, the most important posts in

Christendom,--first as Regent of Castile, afterwards as Head of the

Church. Yet the slow and hesitating Adrian could not have so long passed

over in silence the important services of Cortés, but for the hostile

interference of Velasquez, the governor of Cuba, sustained by Fonseca,

bishop of Burgos, the chief person in the Spanish colonial department.

This prelate, from his elevated station, possessed paramount authority

in all matters relating to the Indies, and he had exerted it from the

first, as we have already seen, in a manner most prejudicial to the

interests of Cortés. He had now the address to obtain a warrant from the

regent, which was designed to ruin the Conqueror at the very moment when

his great enterprise had been crowned with success. The instrument,

after recapitulating the offences of Cortés in regard to Velasquez,

appoints a commissioner with full power to visit the country, to

institute an inquiry into the general’s conduct, to suspend him from his

functions, and even to seize his person and sequestrate his property,

until the pleasure of the Castilian court could be known. The warrant

was signed by Adrian, at Burgos, on the 11th of April, 1521, and

countersigned by Fonseca.[147]

The individual selected for the delicate task of apprehending Cortés and

bringing him to trial on the theatre of his own discoveries and in the

heart of his own camp was named Cristóval de Tápia, _veedor_, or

inspector, of the gold founderies in St. Domingo. He was a feeble,

vacillating man, as little competent to cope with Cortés in civil

matters as Narvaez had shown himself to be in military.

The commissioner, clothed in his brief authority, landed, in December,

at Villa Rica. But he was coldly received by the magistrates of the

city. His credentials were disputed, on the ground of some technical

informality. It was objected, moreover, that his commission was founded

on obvious misrepresentations to the government; and, notwithstanding a

most courteous and complimentary epistle which he received from Cortés,

congratulating him, as an old friend, on his arrival, the _veedor_ soon

found that he was neither to be permitted to penetrate far into the

country nor to exercise any control there. He loved money; and, as

Cortés knew the weak side of his “old friend,” he proposed to purchase

his horses, slaves, and equipage, at a tempting price. The dreams of

disappointed ambition were gradually succeeded by those of avarice and

the discomfited commissioner consented to reëmbark for Cuba, well

freighted with gold, if not with glory, and provided with fresh matter

of accusation against the high-handed measures of Cortés.[148]

Thus left in undisputed possession of authority, the Spanish commander

went forward with vigor in his plans for the settlement of his

conquests. The Panuchese, a fierce people on the borders of the Panuco,

on the Atlantic coast, had taken up arms against the Spaniards. Cortés

marched at the head of a considerable force into their country, defeated

them in two pitched battles, and, after a severe campaign, reduced the

warlike tribe to subjection.

A subsequent insurrection was punished with greater severity. They rose

on the Spaniards, massacred five hundred of their oppressors, and

menaced with destruction the neighboring settlement of San Estevan.

Cortés ordered Sandoval to chastise the insurgents; and that officer,

after a campaign of incredible hardship, completely routed the

barbarians, captured four hundred of their chiefs, and, after the

affected formalities of a trial, sentenced every man of them to the

stake or the gibbet. “By which means,” says Cortés, “God be praised! the

safety of the Spaniards was secured, and the province once more restored

to tranquillity and peace.”[149] He had omitted to mention in his letter

his ungenerous treatment of Guatemozin. But the undisguised and _naïve_

manner, so to speak, in which he details these circumstances to the

emperor, shows that he attached no discredit to the deed. It was the

just recompense of _rebellion_; a word that has been made the apology

for more atrocities than any other word,--save _religion_.

During this interval the great question in respect to Cortés and the

colony had been brought to a decisive issue. The general must have

succumbed under the insidious and implacable attacks of his enemies, but

for the sturdy opposition of a few powerful friends zealously devoted to

his interests. Among them may be mentioned his own father, Don Martin

Cortés, a discreet and efficient person,[150] and the duke de Bejar, a

powerful nobleman, who from an early period had warmly espoused the

cause of Cortés. By their representations the timid regent was at length

convinced that the measures of Fonseca were prejudicial to the

interests of the crown, and an order was issued interdicting him from

further interference in any matters in which Cortés was concerned.

While the exasperated prelate was chafing under this affront, both the

commissioners Tápia and Narvaez arrived in Castile. The latter had been

ordered to Cojohuacan after the surrender of the capital, where his

cringing demeanor formed a striking contrast to the swaggering port

which he had assumed on first entering the country. When brought into

the presence of Cortés, he knelt down, and would have kissed his hand,

but the latter raised him from the ground, and, during his residence in

his quarters, treated him with every mark of respect. The general soon

afterwards permitted his unfortunate rival to return to Spain, where he

proved, as might have been anticipated, a most bitter and implacable

enemy.[151]

These two personages, reinforced by the discontented prelate, brought

forward their several charges against Cortés with all the acrimony which

mortified vanity and the thirst of vengeance could inspire. Adrian was

no longer in Spain, having been called to the chair of St. Peter; but

Charles the Fifth, after his long absence, had returned to his

dominions, in July, 1522. The royal ear was instantly assailed with

accusations of Cortés on the one hand and his vindication on the other,

till the young monarch, perplexed, and unable to decide on the merits of

the question, referred the whole subject to the decision of a board

selected for the purpose. It was drawn partly from the members of his

privy council, and partly from the Indian department, with the Grand

Chancellor of Naples as its president, and constituted altogether a

tribunal of the highest respectability for integrity and wisdom.[152]

By this learned body a patient and temperate hearing was given to the

parties. The enemies of Cortés accused him of having seized and finally

destroyed the fleet intrusted to him by Velasquez and fitted out at the

governor’s expense; of having afterwards usurped powers in contempt of

the royal prerogative; of the unjustifiable treatment of Narvaez and

Tápia, when they had been lawfully commissioned to supersede him; of

cruelty to the natives, and especially to Guatemozin; of embezzling the

royal treasures, and remitting but a small part of its dues to the

crown; of squandering the revenues of the conquered countries in useless

and wasteful schemes, and particularly in rebuilding the capital on a

plan of unprecedented extravagance; of pursuing, in short, a system of

violence and extortion, without respect to the public interest or any

other end than his own selfish aggrandizement.

In answer to these grave charges, the friends of Cortés adduced evidence

to show that he had defrayed with his own funds two-thirds of the cost

of the expedition. The powers of Velasquez extended only to traffic,

not to establish a colony. Yet the interest of the crown required the

latter. The army had therefore necessarily assumed this power to

themselves; but, having done so, they had sent intelligence of their

proceedings to the emperor and solicited his confirmation of them. The

rupture with Narvaez was that commander’s own fault; since Cortés would

have met him amicably, had not the violent measures of his rival,

threatening the ruin of the expedition, compelled him to an opposite

course. The treatment of Tápia was vindicated on the grounds alleged to

that officer by the municipality at Cempoalla. The violence to

Guatemozin was laid at the door of Alderete, the royal treasurer, who

had instigated the soldiers to demand it. The remittances to the crown,

it was clearly proved, so far from falling short of the legitimate

fifth, had considerably exceeded it. If the general had expended the

revenues of the country on costly enterprises and public works, it was

for the interest of the country that he did so, and he had incurred a

heavy debt by straining his own credit to the utmost for the same great

objects. Neither did they deny that, in the same spirit, he was now

rebuilding Mexico on a scale suited to the metropolis of a vast and

opulent empire.

They enlarged on the opposition he had experienced throughout his whole

career from the governor of Cuba, and still more from the bishop of

Burgos, which latter functionary, instead of affording him the aid to

have been expected, had discouraged recruits, stopped his supplies,

sequestered such property as from time to time he had sent to Spain,

and falsely represented his remittances to the crown as coming from the

governor of Cuba. In short, such and so numerous were the obstacles

thrown in his path that Cortés had been heard to say “he had found it

more difficult to contend against his own countrymen than against the

Aztecs.” They concluded with expatiating on the brilliant results of his

expedition, and asked if the council were prepared to dishonor the man

who, in the face of such obstacles and with scarcely other resources

than what he found in himself, had won an empire for Castile such as was

possessed by no European potentate![153]

This last appeal was irresistible. However irregular had been the manner

of proceeding, no one could deny the grandeur of the results. There was

not a Spaniard that could be insensible to such services, or that would

not have cried out “Shame!” at an ungenerous requital of them. There

were three Flemings in the council; but there seems to have been no

difference of opinion in the body. It was decided that neither Velasquez

nor Fonseca should interfere further in the concerns of New Spain. The

difficulties of the former with Cortés were regarded in the nature of a

private suit; and, as such, redress must be sought by the regular course

of law. The acts of Cortés were confirmed in their full extent. He was

constituted Governor, Captain-General, and Chief Justice of New Spain,

with power to appoint to all offices, civil and military, and to order

any person to leave the country whose residence there he might deem

prejudicial to the interests of the crown. This judgment of the council

was ratified by Charles the Fifth, and the commission investing Cortés

with these ample powers was signed by the emperor at Valladolid, October

15th, 1522. A liberal salary was provided, to enable the governor of New

Spain to maintain his office with suitable dignity. The favor of his

sovereign was rendered still more welcome by a letter of the same date,

written by him to the general, in which, after expatiating on the

services of Cortés, he declares it to be his intention to make him such

a requital as they well deserve.[154] The principal officers were

recompensed with honors and substantial emoluments; and the troops,

together with some privileges grateful to the vanity of the soldier,

received the promise of liberal grants of land. The emperor still

further complimented them by a letter written to the army with his own

hand, in which he acknowledged its services in the fullest manner.[155]

From this hour the influence of Fonseca in the Indian department was at

an end. He did not long survive his chagrin, as he died in the

following year. No man was in a situation to do more for the prosperity

of his country than the bishop of Burgos. For more than thirty years,

ever since the first dawn of discovery under Columbus, he had held

supreme control over colonial affairs; and it lay with him, therefore,

in an especial degree, to give ardor to enterprise, and to foster the

youthful fortunes of the colonies. But he lay like a blight upon them.

He looked with an evil eye on the most illustrious of the Spanish

discoverers, and sought only to throw impediments in their career. Such

had been his conduct towards Columbus, and such to Cortés. By a wise and

generous policy, he might have placed his name among the great lights of

his age. As it was, he only served to bring these into greater lustre by

contrast with his own dark and malignant nature. His career shows the

overweening ascendency which the ecclesiastical profession possessed in

Castile in the sixteenth century; when it could raise a man to so

important a station, for which he was totally unfit, and keep him there

after he had proved himself to be so.[156]

The messengers who bore the commission of Cortés to Mexico touched on

their way at Cuba, where the tidings were proclaimed by sound of

trumpet. It was a death-blow to the hopes of Velasquez. Exasperated by

the failure of his schemes, impoverished by the expense of expeditions

of which others had reaped the fruits, he had still looked forward to

eventual redress, and cherished the sweet hope of vengeance,--long

delayed. That hope was now gone. There was slight chance of redress, he

well knew, in the tedious and thorny litigation of the Castilian courts.

Ruined in fortune, dishonored before the nation, the haughty spirit of

the governor was humbled in the dust. He would take no comfort, but fell

into a solemn melancholy, and in a few months died--if report be

true--of a broken heart.[157]

The portrait usually given of Velasquez is not favorable. Yet Las Casas

speaks kindly of him, and, when his prejudices are not involved, there

can be no better authority. But Las Casas knew him when, in his earlier

days, the missionary first landed in Cuba. The governor treated him with

courtesy, and even confidence; and it was natural that the condescension

of a man of high family and station should have made its impression on

the feelings of the poor ecclesiastic. In most accounts he is depicted

as a haughty, irascible person, jealous of authority and covetous of

wealth. He quarrelled with Grijaiva, Cortés’ predecessor, apparently

without cause. With as little reason, he broke with Cortés before he

left the port. He proposed objects to himself in their nature

incompatible. He proposed that others should fight his battles, and that

he should win the laurels; that others should make discoveries, and that

he should reap the fruits of them. None but a weak mind would have

conformed to his conditions, and a weak mind could not have effected

his objects. His appointment of Cortés put him in a false position for

the rest of his life. His efforts to retrieve his position only made

things worse. The appointment of Cortés to the command was scarcely a

greater error than the subsequent appointment of Narvaez and of Tápia.

The life of Velasquez was a series of errors.

Narvaez had no better fate than his friend the governor of Cuba. In the

hope of retrieving his fortunes, he continued to pursue his adventurous

career, and embarked in an expedition to Honduras. It was his last; and

Las Casas, who had little love for the Conquerors, and who had watched

the acts of cruelty perpetrated by Narvaez, concludes the notice of his

death with the assurance that the “devil took possession of his soul.”

The announcement of the emperor’s commission confirming Cortés in the

supreme authority of New Spain was received there with general

acclamation. The army rejoiced in having at last secured not merely an

amnesty for their irregular proceedings, but a distinct acknowledgment

of their services. The nomination of Cortés to the supreme command put

his mind at ease as to the past, and opened to him a noble theatre for

future enterprise. The soldiers congratulated themselves on the broad

powers conferred on their commander, and, as they reckoned up their

scars and their services, indulged in golden dreams and the most vague

and visionary expectations. It is not strange that their expectations

should have been disappointed.

CHAPTER II

MODERN MEXICO--SETTLEMENT OF THE COUNTRY--CONDITION OF THE

NATIVES--CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES--CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL--VOYAGES

AND EXPEDITIONS

1522-1524

In less than four years from the destruction of Mexico, a new city had

risen on its ruins, which, if inferior to the ancient capital in extent,

surpassed it in magnificence and strength. It occupied so exactly the

same site as its predecessor, that the _plaza mayor_, or great square,

was the same spot which had been covered by the huge _teocalli_ and the

palace of Montezuma; while the principal streets took their departure as

before from this central point, and, passing through the whole length of

the city, terminated at the principal causeways. Great alterations,

however, took place in the fashion of the architecture. The streets were

widened, many of the canals were filled up, and the edifices were

constructed on a plan better accommodated to European taste and the

wants of a European population.

On the site of the temple of the Aztec war-god rose the stately

cathedral dedicated to St. Francis;[158] and, as if to complete the

triumphs of the Cross, the foundations were laid with the broken images

of the Aztec gods.[159] In a corner of the square, on the ground once

covered by the House of Birds, stood a Franciscan convent, a magnificent

pile, erected a few years after the Conquest by a lay brother, Pedro de

Gante, a natural son, it is said, of Charles the Fifth.[160] In an

opposite quarter of the same square Cortés caused his own palace to be

constructed. It was built of hewn stone, and seven thousand cedar beams

are said to have been used for the interior.[161] The government

afterwards appropriated it to the residence of the viceroys; and the

Conqueror’s descendants, the dukes of Monteleone, were allowed to erect

a new mansion in another part of the _plaza_,{*} on the spot which, by

an ominous coincidence, had been covered by the palace of

Montezuma.[162]

{*} [The two palaces “were built on the sites of the old and new palaces

of Montezuma, located respectively in the western and southeastern parts

of the ancient square.” Bancroft, Mexico, ii. 12. “Humboldt’s Essai

Politique misleads Prescott about the location of the old palace and

places the new where the old really stood.” Ibid.--M.]

The houses occupied by the Spaniards were of stone: combining with

elegance a solid strength which made them capable of defence like so

many fortresses.[163] The Indian buildings were for the most part of an

inferior quality. They were scattered over the ancient district of

Tlatelolco, where the nation had made its last stand for freedom. This

quarter was also provided with a spacious cathedral;[164] and thirty

inferior churches attested the care of the Spaniards for the spiritual

welfare of the natives.[165] It was in watching over his Indian flock,

and in the care of the hospitals with which the new capital was speedily

endowed, that the good Father Olmedo, when oppressed by growing

infirmities, spent the evening of his days.[166]

To give greater security to the Spaniards, Cortés caused a strong

fortress to be erected in a place since known as the _Matadero_.[167] It

was provided with a dock-yard, and the brigantines which had served in

the siege of Mexico were long preserved there as memorials of the

Conquest. When the fortress was completed, the general, owing to the

evil offices of Fonseca, found himself in want of artillery and

ammunition for its defence. He supplied the former deficiency by causing

cannon to be cast in his own founderies, made of the copper which was

common in the country, and tin which he obtained with more difficulty

from the mines of Tasco. By this means, and a contribution which he

received from the shipping, he contrived to mount his walls with

seventy pieces of ordnance. Stone balls, much used in that age, could

easily be made; but for the manufacture of his powder, although there

was nitre in abundance, he was obliged to seek the sulphur by a perilous

expedition into the bowels of the great _volcan_.[168] Such were the

resources displayed by Cortés, enabling him to supply every deficiency,

and to triumph over every obstacle which the malice of his enemies had

thrown in his path.

The general’s next care was to provide a population for the capital. He

invited the Spaniards thither by grants of lands and houses, while the

Indians, with politic liberality, were permitted to live under their own

chiefs as before, and to enjoy various immunities. With this

encouragement, the Spanish quarter of the city in the neighborhood of

the great square could boast in a few years two thousand families; while

the Indian district of Tlatelolco included no less than thirty

thousand.[169] The various trades and occupations were resumed; the

canals were again covered with barges; two vast markets in the

respective quarters of the capital displayed all the different products

and manufactures of the surrounding country; and the city swarmed with a

busy, industrious population, in which the white man and the Indian, the

conqueror and the conquered, mingled together promiscuously in peaceful

and picturesque confusion. Not twenty years had elapsed since the

Conquest, when a missionary who visited it had the confidence, or the

credulity, to assert that “Europe could not boast a single city so fair

and opulent as Mexico.”[170]

The metropolis of our day would seem to stand in a different situation

from that reared by the Conquerors; for the waters no longer flow

through its streets, nor wash the ample circumference of its walls.

These waters have retreated within the diminished basin of Tezcuco; and

the causeways, which anciently traversed the depths of the lake, are not

now to be distinguished from the other avenues to the capital. But the

city, embellished, it is true, by the labors of successive viceroys, is

substantially the same as in the days of the Conquerors; and the massive

grandeur of the few buildings that remain of the primitive period, and

the general magnificence and symmetry of its plan, attest the

far-sighted policy of its founder, which looked beyond the present to

the wants of coming generations.

The attention of Cortés was not confined to the capital. He was careful

to establish settlements in every part of the country which afforded a

favorable position for them. He founded Zacatula on the shores of the

miscalled Pacific, Coliman in the territory of Michoacán, San Estevan on

the Atlantic coast, probably not far from the site of Tampico, Medellin

(so called after his own birthplace) in the neighborhood of the modern

Vera Cruz, and a port near the river Antigua, from which it derived its

name. It was designed to take the place of Villa Rica, which, as

experience has shown, from its exposed situation, afforded no protection

to shipping against the winds that sweep over the Mexican Gulf. Antigua,

sheltered within the recesses of a bay, presented a more advantageous

position. Cortés established there a board of trade, connected the

settlement by a highway with the capital, and fondly predicted that his

new city would become the great emporium of the country.[171] But in

this he was mistaken. From some cause, not very obvious, the port of

entry was removed, at the close of the sixteenth century, to the modern

Vera Cruz, which, without any superiority, probably, of topographical

position, or even of salubrity of climate, has remained ever since the

great commercial capital of New Spain.

Cortés stimulated the settlement of his several colonies by liberal

grants of land and municipal privileges. The great difficulty was to

induce women to reside in the country; and without them he felt that the

colonies, like a tree without roots, must soon perish. By a singular

provision, he required every settler, if a married man, to bring over

his wife within eighteen months, on pain of forfeiting his estate. If he

were too poor to do this himself, the government would assist him.

Another law imposed the same penalty on all bachelors who did not

provide themselves with wives within the same period. The general seems

to have considered celibacy as too great a luxury for a young

country.[172]

His own wife, Doña Catalina Xuarez, was among those who came over from

the Islands to New Spain. According to Bernal Diaz, her coming gave him

no particular satisfaction.[173] It is possible; since his marriage with

her seems to have been entered into with reluctance, and her lowly

condition and connections stood somewhat in the way of his future

advancement. Yet they lived happily together for several years,

according to the testimony of Las Casas;[174] and, whatever he may have

felt, he had the generosity, or the prudence, not to betray his feelings

to the world. On landing, Doña Catalina was escorted by Sandoval to the

capital, where she was kindly received by her husband, and all the

respect paid to her to which she was entitled by her elevated rank. But

the climate of the table-land was not suited to her constitution, and

she died in three months after her arrival.[175] An event so auspicious

to his worldly prospects did not fail, as we shall see hereafter, to

provoke the tongue of scandal to the most malicious, but, it is scarcely

necessary to say, unfounded, inferences.

In the distribution of the soil among the Conquerors, Cortés adopted the

vicious system of _repartimientos_, universally practised among his

countrymen. In a letter to the emperor, he states that the superior

capacity of the Indians in New Spain had made him regard it as a

grievous thing to condemn them to servitude, as had been done in the

Islands. But, on further trial, he had found the Spaniards so much

harassed and impoverished that they could not hope to maintain

themselves in the land without enforcing the services of the natives,

and for this reason he had at length waived his own scruples in

compliance with their repeated remonstrances.[176] This was the wretched

pretext used on the like occasions by his countrymen to cover up this

flagrant act of injustice. The crown, however, in its instructions to

the general, disavowed the act and annulled the _repartimientos_.[177]

It was all in vain. The necessities, or rather the cupidity, of the

colonists, easily evaded the royal ordinances.{*} The colonial

legislation of Spain shows, in the repetition of enactments against

slavery, the perpetual struggle that subsisted between the crown and the

colonists, and the impotence of the former to enforce measures repugnant

to the interests, at all events to the avarice, of the latter. New Spain

furnishes no exception to the general fact.

{*} [This remark would imply that the instructions were published and

some attempts at least made to enforce them. That such was not the case

we learn from a remarkable private letter of Cortés to the emperor, sent

with the “Relacion Quarta,” and bearing the same date,--October 15,

1524. Referring first to an order that the Spanish settlers should be

allowed to have free intercourse with the Indian population as a means

of promoting conversion, he declines to comply with it on the ground

that the effects would be most pernicious. The natives, he says, would

be subjected to violence, robbery, and vexations of all kinds. Even with

the present rigorous rule forbidding any Spaniard to leave his

settlement and go among the Indians without a special license, the evils

resulting from this intercourse were so great that if he and his

officers should attend solely to their suppression they would be unable

to effect it, the territory being so vast. If all the Spaniards now in

the country or on their way to it were friars engaged in the work of

conversion, entire freedom of intercourse would no doubt be profitable.

But, the reverse being the case, such also would be the effect. Most of

the Spaniards who came were men of base condition and manners, addicted

to every sort of vice and sin; and if free intercourse were allowed, the

natives would be converted to evil rather than to good, and, seeing the

difference between what was preached and what was practised, would make

a jest of what was taught them by the priests, thinking it was meant

merely to bring them into servitude. The injuries done them would lead

to rebellion; they would profit by their acquired knowledge to arm

themselves better, and being so many and the Spaniards so few, the

latter would be cut off singly, as had already happened in many cases,

and the greatest work of conversion since the time of the apostles would

come to a stop.

Turning then to the emperor’s prohibition of the _repartimientos_, as a

thing which his conscience would not suffer, the theologians having

declared that since God had made the Indians free their liberty ought

not to be taken away, Cortés states that he has not only not complied

with this order, but he has kept it secret except from the officials,

whom he has forbidden to make it public. His reasons for thus acting are

as follows: 1st. The Spaniards are unable to live except by the labor of

the Indians, and if deprived of this they would be obliged to leave the

country. 2d. His system of _repartimientos_ is such that by it the

Indians are in fact taken out of captivity, their condition under their

former masters having been one of intolerable servitude, in which they

were not only deprived of all but the barest means of subsistence, but

they and their children were sacrificed to the idols in numbers horrible

to hear of, it being a certified fact that in the great temple of Mexico

alone, at a single festival, one of many that were held annually, eight

thousand persons had been sacrificed; all this, with innumerable other

wrongs, had now ceased; and the surest punishment which could be

inflicted on the Indians was the threat to send them back to their

former masters. 3d. Enumerating the various provisions he has made for

obviating the evils of the system as practised in the Islands, where,

during a residence of twenty years, he had ample knowledge of its

workings, he asserts that, in the mode in which it has been established

and regulated by him, it will lead not to the diminution but to the

preservation and increase of the natives, besides securing a provision

for the settlers and large revenues to the crown, and he contends that

the _repartimientos_, instead of being abrogated, should be made

hereditary, so that the possessors might have a stronger interest in the

proper cultivation of the soil, instead of seeking to extract from it

the most that was possible in a given time.

The letter, which concludes by noticing and rejecting some minor points

in the emperor’s instructions, has been recently discovered, and is

perhaps the ablest document that has come down to us with the signature

of Cortés. It has been published by Señor Icazbalceta, in his Col. de

Doc. para la Hist. de México, tom. i.--K.]

The Tlascalans, in gratitude for their signal services, were exempted,

at the recommendation of Cortés, from the doom of slavery. It should be

added that the general, in granting the _repartimientos_, made many

humane regulations for limiting the power of the master, and for

securing as many privileges to the natives as were compatible with any

degree of compulsory service.[178] These limitations, it is true, were

too often disregarded; and in the mining districts, in particular, the

situation of the poor Indian was often deplorable. Yet the Indian

population, clustering together in their own villages and living under

their own magistrates, have continued to prove by their numbers, fallen

as these have below their primitive amount, how far superior was their

condition to that in most other parts of the vast colonial empire of

Spain.[179] This condition has been gradually ameliorated, under the

influence of higher moral views and larger ideas of government, until

the servile descendants of the ancient lords of the soil have been

permitted, in republican Mexico, to rise--nominally, at least--to a

level with the children of their conquerors.

Whatever disregard he may have shown to the political rights of the

natives, Cortés manifested a commendable solicitude for their spiritual

welfare. He requested the emperor to send out holy men to the country;

not bishops and pampered prelates, who too often squandered the

substance of the Church in riotous living, but godly persons, members

of religious fraternities, whose lives might be a fitting commentary on

their teaching. Thus only, he adds,--and the remark is worthy of

note,--can they exercise any influence over the natives, who have been

accustomed to see the least departure from morals in their own

priesthood punished with the utmost rigor of the law.[180] In obedience

to these suggestions, twelve Franciscan friars embarked for New Spain,

which they reached early in 1524. They were men of unblemished purity of

life, nourished with the learning of the cloister, and, like many others

whom the Romish Church has sent forth on such apostolic missions,

counted all personal sacrifices as little in the sacred cause to which

they were devoted.[181]

The presence of the reverend fathers in the country was greeted with

general rejoicing. The inhabitants of the towns through which they

passed came out in a body to welcome them; processions were formed of

the natives bearing wax tapers in their hands, and the bells of the

churches rang out a joyous peal in honor of their arrival. Houses of

refreshment were provided for them along their route to the capital; and

when they entered it they were met by a brilliant cavalcade of the

principal cavaliers and citizens, with Cortés at their head. The

general, dismounting, and bending one knee to the ground, kissed the

robes of Father Martin of Valencia, the principal of the fraternity. The

natives, filled with amazement at the viceroy’s humiliation before men

whose naked feet and tattered garments gave them the aspect of

mendicants, henceforth regarded them as beings of a superior nature. The

Indian chronicler of Tlascala does not conceal his admiration of this

edifying condescension of Cortés, which he pronounces “one of the most

heroical acts of his life!”[182]

The missionaries lost no time in the good work of conversion. They began

their preaching through interpreters, until they had acquired a

competent knowledge of the language themselves. They opened schools and

founded colleges, in which the native youth were instructed in profane

as well as Christian learning.{*} The ardor of the Indian neophyte

emulated that of his teacher. In a few years every vestige of the

primitive _teocallis_ was effaced from the land. The uncouth idols of

the country, and, unhappily, the hieroglyphical manuscripts, shared the

same fate. Yet the missionary and the convert did much to repair these

losses by their copious accounts of the Aztec institutions, collected

from the most authentic sources.[183]

{*} [A singular tribute to the thoroughness of the instruction thus

given, and the facility with which it was imbibed, is rendered in a long

complaint on the subject addressed to the emperor by Gerónimo Lopez,

under date of October 20, 1541. The writer, a person evidently

commissioned to send home reports on the condition of the country,

denounces the system of education instituted by the Franciscan monks as

diabolically pernicious,--“muy dañoso como el diablo.” He considers that

the Indians should at the most be taught to repeat the Pater Noster and

Ave Maria, the Creed and the Commandments, without any expositions, or

any distinction of the persons of the Trinity and their attributes,

above all without learning to read and write. Instead of this, they are

taught not only these pernicious branches of knowledge, but punctuation,

music,--nay, even grammar! Their natural ability is so great, and the

devil is so largely interested in the matter, that they have acquired a

skill in forming different kinds of letters which is marvellous, and a

great number of them are thus enabled to carry on a correspondence and

learn what is going on in the country from one sea to the other. There

are boys among them who speak as elegant Latin as Tullius. They have

translated and read the whole of the Scriptures,--the same thing that

has ruined so many in Spain and given birth to a thousand heresies. A

secular ecclesiastic told him that, having visited one of the colleges,

he found there two hundred students, who stunned him with questions

about religion, till the place seemed to him hell, and its inmates

disciples of Satan.--Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc. para la Hist, de México,

tom, ii.--K.]

The business of conversion went on prosperously among the several tribes

of the great Nahuatlac family. In about twenty years from the first

advent of the missionaries, one of their body could make the pious vaunt

that nine millions of converts--a number probably exceeding the

population of the country--had been admitted within the Christian

fold![184] The Aztec worship was remarkable for its burdensome

ceremonial, and prepared its votaries for the pomp and splendors of the

Romish ritual. It was not difficult to pass from the fasts and festivals

of the one religion to the fasts and festivals of the other; to transfer

their homage from the fantastic idols of their own creation to the

beautiful forms in sculpture and in painting which decorated the

Christian cathedral. It is true, they could have comprehended little of

the dogmas of their new faith,{*} and little, it may be, of its vital

spirit. But, if the philosopher may smile at the reflection that

conversion, under these circumstances, was one of form rather than of

substance, the philanthropist will console himself by considering how

much the cause of humanity and good morals must have gained by the

substitution of these unsullied rites for the brutal abominations of the

Aztecs.

{*} [As little as did Clovis and his Franks, when that doughty warrior

embraced Christianity.--M.]

The Conquerors settled in such parts of the country as best suited their

inclinations. Many occupied the southeastern slopes of the Cordilleras

towards the rich valley of Oaxaca. Many more spread themselves over the

broad surface of the table-land, which, from its elevated position,

reminded them of the plateau of their own Castiles. Here, too, they were

in the range of those inexhaustible mines which have since poured their

silver deluge over Europe. The mineral resources of the land were not,

indeed, fully explored or comprehended till at a much later period; but

some few, as the mines of Zacatecas, Guanaxuato, and Tasco,--the last of

which was also known in Montezuma’s time,--had begun to be wrought

within a generation after the Conquest.[185]

But the best wealth of the first settlers was in the vegetable products

of the soil, whether indigenous, or introduced from abroad by the wise

economy of Cortés. He had earnestly recommended the crown to require all

vessels coming to the country to bring over a certain quantity of seeds

and plants.[186] He made it a condition of the grants of land on the

plateau, that the proprietor of every estate should plant a specified

number of vines on it.[187] He further stipulated that no one should get

a clear title to his estate until he had occupied it eight years.[188]

He knew that permanent residence could alone create that interest in the

soil which would lead to its efficient culture, and that the opposite

system had caused the impoverishment of the best plantations in the

Islands. His various regulations, some of them not a little distasteful

to the colonists, augmented the agricultural resources of the country by

the addition of the most important European grains and other vegetables,

for which the diversified climate of New Spain was admirably adapted.

The sugar-cane was transplanted from the neighboring islands to the

lower level of the country, and, together with indigo, cotton, and

cochineal, formed a more desirable staple for the colony than its

precious metals. Under the sun of the tropics, the peach, the almond,

the orange, the vine, and the olive, before unknown there, flourished in

the gardens of the table-land, at an elevation twice as great as that at

which the clouds are suspended in summer above our heads. The

importation of a European fruit or vegetable was hailed by the simple

colonists with delight. The first produce of the exotic was celebrated

by a festival, and the guests greeted each other, as on the appearance

of an old familiar friend, who called up the remembrance of the past and

the tender associations of their native land.[189]

While thus occupied with the internal economy of the country, Cortés was

still bent on his great schemes of discovery and conquest. In the

preceding chapter we have seen him fitting out a little fleet at

Zacatula to explore the shores of the Pacific. It was burnt in the

dock-yard when nearly completed. This was a serious calamity, as most of

the materials were to be transported across the country from Villa Rica.

Cortés, however, with his usual promptness, took measures to repair the

loss. He writes to the emperor that another squadron will soon be got

ready at the same port, and, “he doubts not, will put his Majesty in

possession of more lands and kingdoms than the nation has ever heard

of!”[190] This magnificent vaunt shows the common sentiment of the

Spaniards at that time, who looked on the Pacific as the famed Indian

Ocean, studded with golden islands and teeming with the rich treasures

of the East.

A principal object of this squadron was the discovery of a strait which

should connect the Atlantic with the Pacific. Another squadron,

consisting of five vessels, was fitted out in the Gulf of Mexico, to

take the direction of Florida, with the same view of detecting a strait.

For Cortés trusted--we at this day may smile at the illusion--that one

might be found in that direction which should conduct the navigator to

those waters which had been traversed by the keels of Magellan![191]

The discovery of a strait was the great object to which nautical

enterprise in that day was directed, as it had been ever since the time

of Columbus. It was in the sixteenth century what the discovery of the

Northwest passage has been in our own age,--the _ignis fatuus_ of

navigators. The vast extent of the American continent had been

ascertained by the voyages of Cabot in the North, and of Magellan very

recently in the South. The proximity, in certain quarters, of the two

great oceans that washed its eastern and western shores had been

settled by the discoveries both of Balboa and of Cortés. European

scholars could not believe that Nature had worked on a plan so

repugnant, apparently, to the interests of humanity, as to interpose,

through the whole length of the great continent, such a barrier to

communication between the adjacent waters. The correspondence of men of

science,[192] the instructions of the Court, the letters of Cortés, like

those of Columbus, touch frequently on this favorite topic. “Your

Majesty may be assured,” he writes, “that, as I know how much you have

at heart the discovery of _this great secret of a strait_, I shall

postpone all interests and projects of my own, some of them of the

highest moment, for the fulfilment of this great object.”[193]

It was partly with the same view that the general caused a considerable

armament to be equipped and placed under the command of Cristóval de

Olid, the brave officer who, as the reader will remember, had charge of

one of the great divisions of the besieging army. He was to steer for

Honduras and plant a colony on its northern coast. A detachment of

Olid’s squadron was afterwards to cruise along its southern shore

towards Darien in search of the mysterious strait. The country was

reported to be full of gold; so full that “the fishermen used gold

weights for their nets.” The life of the Spanish discoverers was one

long day-dream. Illusion after illusion chased one another like the

bubbles which the child throws off from his pipe, as bright, as

beautiful, and as empty. They lived in a world of enchantment.[194]

Together with these maritime expeditions, Cortés fitted out a powerful

expedition by land. It was intrusted to Alvarado, who, with a large

force of Spaniards and Indians, was to descend the southern slant of the

Cordilleras and penetrate into the countries that lay beyond the rich

valley of Oaxaca. The campaigns of this bold and rapacious chief

terminated in the important conquest of Guatemala. The general required

his captains to send him minute accounts of the countries which they

visited, the productions of the soil, and their general resources. The

result was several valuable and interesting communications.[195] In his

instructions for the conduct of these expeditions, he enjoined a

considerate treatment of the natives, and inculcated a policy which may

be called humane, as far as humanity is compatible with a system of

subjugation.[196] Unfortunately, the character of his officers too often

rendered these instructions unavailing.

In the prosecution of his great enterprises, Cortés, within three short

years after the Conquest, had reduced under the dominion of Castile an

extent of country more than four hundred leagues in length, as he

affirms, on the Atlantic coast, and more than five hundred on the

Pacific, and, with the exception of a few interior provinces of no great

importance, had brought them to a condition of entire tranquillity.[197]

In accomplishing this, he had freely expended the revenues of the crown,

drawn from tributes similar to those which had been anciently paid by

the natives to their own sovereigns; and he had, moreover, incurred a

large debt on his own account, for which he demanded remuneration from

the government. The celebrity of his name, and the dazzling reports of

the conquered countries, drew crowds of adventurers to New Spain, who

furnished the general with recruits for his various enterprises.

Whoever would form a just estimate of this remarkable man must not

confine himself to the history of the Conquest. His military career,

indeed, places him on a level with the greatest captains of his age. But

the period subsequent to the Conquest affords different, and in some

respects nobler, points of view for the study of his character. For we

then see him devising a system of government for the motley and

antagonist races, so to speak, now first brought under a common

dominion; repairing the mischiefs of war; and employing his efforts to

detect the latent resources of the country and to stimulate it to its

highest power of production. The narrative may seem tame, after the

recital of exploits as bold and adventurous as those of a paladin of

romance. But it is only by the perusal of this narrative that we can

form an adequate conception of the acute and comprehensive genius of

Cortés.

CHAPTER III

DEFECTION OF OLID--DREADFUL MARCH TO HONDURAS--EXECUTION OF

GUATEMOZIN--DOÑA MARINA--ARRIVAL AT HONDURAS

1524-1526

In the last chapter we have seen that Cristóval de Olid was sent by

Cortés to plant a colony in Honduras. The expedition was attended with

consequences which had not been foreseen. Made giddy by the possession

of power, Olid, when he had reached his place of destination, determined

to assert an independent jurisdiction for himself. His distance from

Mexico, he flattered himself, might enable him to do so with impunity.

He misunderstood the character of Cortés, when he supposed that any

distance would be great enough to shield a rebel from his vengeance.

It was long before the general received tidings of Olid’s defection. But

no sooner was he satisfied of this than he despatched to Honduras a

trusty captain and kinsman, Francisco de las Casas, with directions to

arrest his disobedient officer. Las Casas was wrecked on the coast, and

fell into Olid’s hands, but eventually succeeded in raising an

insurrection in the settlement, seized the person of Olid, and beheaded

that unhappy delinquent in the market-place of Naco.[198]

Of these proceedings, Cortés learned only what related to the shipwreck

of his lieutenant. He saw all the mischievous consequences that must

arise from Olid’s example, especially if his defection were to go

unpunished. He determined to take the affair into his own hands, and to

lead an expedition in person to Honduras. He would thus, moreover, be

enabled to ascertain from personal inspection the resources of the

country, which were reputed great on the score of mineral wealth, and

would perhaps detect the point of communication between the great

oceans, which had so long eluded the efforts of the Spanish discoverers.

He was still further urged to this step by the uncomfortable position in

which he had found himself of late in the capital. Several functionaries

had recently been sent from the mother country for the ostensible

purpose of administering the colonial revenues. But they served as spies

on the general’s conduct, caused him many petty annoyances, and sent

back to court the most malicious reports of his purposes and

proceedings. Cortés, in short, now that he was made Governor-General of

the country, had less real power than when he held no legal commission

at all.

The Spanish force which he took with him did not probably exceed a

hundred horse and forty or perhaps fifty foot; to which were added about

three thousand Indian auxiliaries.[199] Among them were Guatemozin and

the cacique of Tacuba, with a few others of highest rank, whose

consideration with their countrymen would make them an obvious nucleus

round which disaffection might gather. The general’s personal retinue

consisted of several pages, young men of good family, and among them

Montejo, the future conqueror of Yucatan; a butler and steward; several

musicians, dancers, jugglers, and buffoons, showing, it might seem, more

of the effeminacy of an Oriental satrap than the hardy valor of a

Spanish cavalier.[200] Yet the imputation of effeminacy is sufficiently

disproved by the terrible march which he accomplished.

Towards the end of October, 1524, Cortés began his march. As he

descended the sides of the Cordilleras, he was met by many of his old

companions in arms, who greeted their commander with a hearty welcome,

and some of them left their estates to join the expedition.[201] He

halted in the province of Coatzacualco (Huazacualco) until he could

receive intelligence respecting his route from the natives of Tabasco.

They furnished him with a map, exhibiting the principal places whither

the Indian traders who wandered over these wild regions were in the

habit of resorting. With the aid of this map, a compass, and such

guides as from time to time he could pick up on his journey, he proposed

to traverse that broad and level tract which forms the base of Yucatan

and spreads from the Coatzacualco River to the head of the Gulf of

Honduras. “I shall give your Majesty,” he begins his celebrated Letter

to the emperor, describing this expedition, “an account, as usual, of

the most remarkable events of my journey, every one of which might form

the subject of a separate narration.” Cortés did not exaggerate.[202]

The beginning of the march lay across a low and marshy level,

intersected by numerous little streams, which form the head-waters of

the Rio de Tabasco, and of the other rivers that discharge themselves,

to the north, into the Mexican Gulf. The smaller streams they forded, or

passed in canoes, suffering their horses to swim across as they held

them by the bridle. Rivers of more formidable size they crossed on

floating bridges. It gives one some idea of the difficulties they had to

encounter in this way, when it is stated that the Spaniards were obliged

to construct no less than fifty of these bridges in a distance of less

than a hundred miles![203] One of them was more than nine hundred paces

in length. Their troubles were much augmented by the difficulty of

obtaining subsistence, as the natives frequently set fire to their

villages on their approach, leaving to the way-worn adventurers only a

pile of smoking ruins.

It would be useless to encumber the page with the names of Indian towns

which lay in the route of the army, but which may be now obsolete, and,

at all events, have never found their way into a map of the

country.[204] The first considerable place which they reached was

Iztapan, pleasantly situated in the midst of a fruitful region, on the

banks of one of the tributaries of the Rio de Tabasco. Such was the

extremity to which the Spaniards had already, in the course of a few

weeks, been reduced by hunger and fatigue, that the sight of a village

in these dreary solitudes was welcomed by his followers, says Cortés,

“with a shout of joy that was echoed back from all the surrounding

woods.” The army was now at no great distance from the ancient city of

Palenque, the subject of so much speculation in our time. The village of

_Las Tres Cruzes_, indeed, situated between twenty and thirty miles from

Palenque, is said still to commemorate the passage of the Conquerors by

the existence of three crosses which they left there. Yet no allusion is

made to the ancient capital. Was it then the abode of a populous and

flourishing community, such as once occupied it, to judge from the

extent and magnificence of its remains? Or was it, even then, a heap of

mouldering ruins, buried in a wilderness of vegetation, and thus hidden

from the knowledge of the surrounding country? If the former, the

silence of Cortés is not easy to be explained.

On quitting Iztapan, the Spaniards struck across a country having the

same character of a low and marshy soil, checkered by occasional patches

of cultivation, and covered with forests of cedar and Brazil wood, which

seemed absolutely interminable. The overhanging foliage threw so deep a

shade that, as Cortés says, the soldiers could not see where to set

their feet.[205] To add to their perplexity, their guides deserted them;

and, when they climbed to the summits of the tallest trees, they could

see only the same cheerless, interminable line of waving woods. The

compass and the map furnished the only clue to extricate them from this

gloomy labyrinth; and Cortés and his officers, among whom was the

constant Sandoval, spreading out their chart on the ground, anxiously

studied the probable direction of their route. Their scanty supplies

meanwhile had entirely failed them, and they appeased the cravings of

appetite by such roots as they dug out of the earth, or by the nuts and

berries that grew wild in the woods. Numbers fell sick, and many of the

Indians sank by the way, and died of absolute starvation.

When at length the troops emerged from these dismal forests, their path

was crossed by a river of great depth, and far wider than any which they

had hitherto traversed. The soldiers, disheartened, broke out into

murmurs against their leader, who was plunging them deeper and deeper in

a boundless wilderness, where they must lay their bones. It was in vain

that Cortés encouraged them to construct a floating bridge, which might

take them to the opposite bank of the river. It seemed a work of

appalling magnitude, to which their wasted strength was unequal. He was

more successful in his appeal to the Indian auxiliaries, till his own

men, put to shame by the ready obedience of the latter, engaged in the

work with a hearty good will, which enabled them, although ready to drop

from fatigue, to accomplish it at the end of four days. It was, indeed,

the only expedient by which they could hope to extricate themselves from

their perilous situation. The bridge consisted of one thousand pieces of

timber, each of the thickness of a man’s body and full sixty feet

long.[206] When we consider that the timber was all standing in the

forest at the commencement of the labor, it must be admitted to have

been an achievement worthy of the Spaniards. The well-compacted beams

presented a solid structure which nothing, says Cortés, but fire could

destroy. It excited the admiration of the natives, who came from a great

distance to see it; and “the bridge of Cortés” remained for many a year

the enduring monument of that commander’s energy and perseverance.

The arrival of the army on the opposite bank of the river involved them

in new difficulties. The ground was so soft and saturated with water

that the horses floundered up to their girths, and, sometimes plunging

into quagmires, were nearly buried in the mud. It was with the greatest

difficulty that they could be extricated by covering the wet soil with

the foliage and the boughs of trees, when a stream of water, which

forced its way through the heart of the morass, furnished the jaded

animals with the means of effecting their escape by swimming.[207] As

the Spaniards emerged from these slimy depths, they came on a broad and

rising ground, which, by its cultivated fields teeming with maize,

_agi_, or pepper of the country, and the _yuca_ plant, intimated their

approach to the capital of the fruitful province of Aculan. It was in

the beginning of Lent, 1525, a period memorable for an event of which I

shall give the particulars from the narrative of Cortés.

The general at this place was informed, by one of the Indian converts in

his train, that a conspiracy had been set on foot by Guatemozin, with

the cacique of Tacuba, and some other of the principal Indian nobles, to

massacre the Spaniards. They would seize the moment when the army should

be entangled in the passage of some defile, or some frightful morass

like that from which it had just escaped, where, taken at disadvantage,

it could be easily overpowered by the superior number of the Mexicans.

After the slaughter of the troops, the Indians would continue their

march to Honduras and cut off the Spanish settlements there. Their

success would lead to a rising in the capital, and, indeed, throughout

the land, until every Spaniard should be exterminated, and the vessels

in the ports be seized, and secured from carrying the tidings across the

waters.

No sooner had Cortés learned the particulars of this formidable plot

than he arrested Guatemozin and the principal Aztec lords in his train.

The latter admitted the fact of the conspiracy, but alleged that it had

been planned by Guatemozin and that they had refused to come into it.

Guatemozin and the chief of Tacuba neither admitted nor denied the truth

of the accusation, but maintained a dogged silence. Such is the

statement of Cortés.[208] Bernal Diaz, however, who was present in the

expedition, assures us that both Guatemozin and the cacique of Tacuba

declared their innocence. They had indeed, they said, talked more than

once together of the sufferings they were then enduring, and had said

that death was preferable to seeing so many of their poor followers

dying daily around them. They admitted, also, that a project for rising

on the Spaniards had been discussed by some of the Aztecs; but

Guatemozin had discouraged it from the first, and no scheme of the kind

could have been put into execution without his knowledge and

consent.[209] These protestations did not avail the unfortunate princes;

and Cortés, having satisfied, or affected to satisfy, himself of their

guilt, ordered them to immediate execution.

When brought to the fatal tree, Guatemozin displayed the intrepid spirit

worthy of his better days. “I knew what it was,” said he, “to trust to

your false promises, Malinche; I knew that you had destined me to this

fate, since I did not fall by my own hand when you entered my city of

Tenochtitlan. Why do you slay me so unjustly? God will demand it of

you!”[210] The cacique of Tacuba, protesting his innocence, declared

that he desired no better lot than to die by the side of his lord. The

unfortunate princes, with one or more inferior nobles (for the number is

uncertain), were then executed by being hung from the huge branches of a

_ceiba_-tree which overshadowed the road.[211]

Such was the sad end of Guatemozin, the last emperor of the Aztecs, if

we might not rather call him “the last of the Aztecs;” since from this

time, broken in spirit and without a head, the remnant of the nation

resigned itself, almost without a struggle, to the stern yoke of its

oppressors. Among all the names of barbarian princes, there are few

entitled to a higher place on the roll of fame than that of Guatemozin.

He was young, and his public career was not long; but it was glorious.

He was called to the throne in the convulsed and expiring hours of the

monarchy, when the banded nations of Anahuac and the fierce European

were thundering at the gates of the capital. It was a post of tremendous

responsibility; but Guatemozin’s conduct fully justified the choice of

him to fill it. No one can refuse his admiration to the intrepid spirit

which could prolong a defence of his city while one stone was left upon

another; and our sympathies, for the time, are inevitably thrown more

into the scale of the rude chieftain, thus battling for his country’s

freedom, than into that of his civilized and successful antagonist.[212]

In reviewing the circumstances of Guatemozin’s death, one cannot attach

much weight to the charge of conspiracy brought against him. That the

Indians, brooding over their wrongs and present sufferings, should have

sometimes talked of revenge, would not be surprising. But that any

chimerical scheme of an insurrection, like that above mentioned, should

have been set on foot, or even sanctioned, by Guatemozin, is altogether

improbable. That prince’s explanation of the affair, as given by Diaz,

is, to say the least, quite as deserving of credit as the accusation of

the Indian informer.[213] The defect of testimony and the distance of

time make it difficult for us, at the present day, to decide the

question. We have a surer criterion of the truth in the opinion of those

who were eye-witnesses of the transaction. It is given in the words of

the old chronicler so often quoted. “The execution of Guatemozin,” says

Diaz, “was most unjust, and was thought wrong by all of us.”[214]

The most probable explanation of the affair seems to be that Guatemozin

was a troublesome and, indeed, formidable captive. Thus much is

intimated by Cortés himself, in his Letter to the emperor.[215] The

fallen sovereign of Mexico, by the ascendency of his character, as well

as by his previous station, maintained an influence over his countrymen

which would have enabled him with a breath, as it were, to rouse their

smothered, not extinguished, animosity into rebellion. The Spaniards,

during the first years after the Conquest, lived in constant

apprehension of a rising of the Aztecs. This is evident from numerous

passages in the writings of the time. It was under the same apprehension

that Cortés consented to embarrass himself with his royal captive on

this dreary expedition. And in such distrust did he hold him that, even

while in Mexico, he neither rode abroad, nor walked to any great

distance, according to Gomara, without being attended by

Guatemozin.[216]

Parties standing in such relations to each other could have been the

objects only of mutual distrust and aversion. The forlorn condition of

the Spaniards on the present march, which exposed them in a peculiar

degree to any sudden assault from their wily Indian vassals, increased

the suspicions of Cortés. Thus predisposed to think ill of Guatemozin,

the general lent a ready ear to the first accusation against him.

Charges were converted into proofs, and condemnation followed close upon

the charges. By a single blow he proposed to rid himself and the state

forever of a dangerous enemy,--the more dangerous, that he was an enemy

in disguise. Had he but consulted his own honor and his good name,

Guatemozin’s head was the last on which he should have suffered an

injury to fall. “He should have cherished him,” to borrow the homely

simile of his encomiast, Gomara, “like gold in a napkin, as the best

trophy of his victories.”[217]

Whatever may have been the real motives of his conduct in this affair,

it seems to have left the mind of Cortés but ill at ease. For a long

time he was moody and irritable, and found it difficult to sleep at

night. On one occasion, as he was pacing an upper chamber of a

_teocalli_ in which he was quartered, he missed his footing in the dark,

and was precipitated from a height of some twelve feet to the ground,

which occasioned him a severe contusion on the head,--a thing too

palpable to be concealed, though he endeavored, says the gossiping Diaz,

to hide the knowledge of it, as well as he could, from the

soldiers.[218]

It was not long after the sad scene of Guatemozin’s execution that the

wearied troops entered the head town of the great province of Aculan; a

thriving community of traders, who carried on a profitable traffic with

the farthest quarters of Central America. Cortés notices in general

terms the excellence and beauty of the buildings, and the hospitable

reception which he experienced from the inhabitants.

After renewing their strength in these comfortable quarters, the

Spaniards left the capital of Aculan, the name of which is to be found

on no map, and held on their toilsome way in the direction of what is

now called the Lake of Peten. It was then the property of an emigrant

tribe of the hardy Maya family, and their capital stood on an island in

the lake, “with its houses and lofty _teocallis_ glistening in the sun,”

says Bernal Diaz, “so that it might be seen for the distance of two

leagues.”[219] These edifices, built by one of the races of Yucatan,

displayed, doubtless, the same peculiarities of construction as the

remains still to be seen in that remarkable peninsula. But, whatever may

have been their architectural merits, they are disposed of in a brief

sentence by the Conquerors.

The inhabitants of the island showed a friendly spirit, and a docility

unlike the warlike temper of their countrymen of Yucatan. They willingly

listened to the Spanish missionaries who accompanied the expedition, as

they expounded the Christian doctrines through the intervention of

Marina. The Indian interpreter was present throughout this long march,

the last in which she remained at the side of Cortés. As this, too, is

the last occasion on which she will appear in these pages, I will

mention, before parting with her, an interesting circumstance that

occurred when the army was traversing the province of Coatzacualco.

This, it may be remembered, was the native country of Marina, where her

infamous mother sold her, when a child, to some foreign traders, in

order to secure her inheritance to a younger brother. Cortés halted for

some days at this place, to hold a conference with the surrounding

caciques on matters of government and religion. Among those summoned to

this meeting was Marina’s mother, who came, attended by her son. No

sooner did they make their appearance than all were struck with the

great resemblance of the cacique to her daughter. The two parties

recognized each other, though they had not met since their separation.

The mother, greatly terrified, fancied that she had been decoyed into a

snare in order to punish her inhuman conduct. But Marina instantly ran

up to her, and endeavored to allay her fears, assuring her that she

should receive no harm, and, addressing the bystanders, said “that she

was sure her mother knew not what she did when she sold her to the

traders, and that she forgave her.” Then, tenderly embracing her

unnatural parent, she gave her such jewels and other little ornaments as

she wore about her own person, to win back, as it would seem, her lost

affection. Marina added that “she felt much happier than before, now

that she had been instructed in the Christian faith and given up the

bloody worship of the Aztecs.”[220]

In the course of the expedition to Honduras, Cortés gave Marina away to

a Castilian knight, Don Juan Xaramillo,[221] to whom she was wedded as

his lawful wife. She had estates assigned to her in her native province,

where she probably passed the remainder of her days.[222] From this time

the name of Marina disappears from the page of history. But it has been

always held in grateful remembrance by the Spaniards, for the important

aid which she gave them in effecting the Conquest, and by the natives,

for the kindness and sympathy which she showed them in their

misfortunes. Many an Indian ballad commemorates the gentle virtues of

Malinche,--her Aztec epithet. Even now her spirit, if report be true,

watches over the capital which she helped to win; and the peasant is

occasionally startled by the apparition of an Indian princess, dimly

seen through the evening shadows, as it flits among the groves and

grottos of the royal Hill of Chapoltepec.[223]

By the Conqueror, Marina left one son, Don Martin Cortés. He rose to

high consideration, and was made a _comendador_ of the order of St.

Jago. He was subsequently suspected of treasonable designs against the

government; and neither his parents’ extraordinary services, nor his own

deserts, could protect him from a cruel persecution; and in 1568 the son

of Hernando Cortés was shamefully subjected to the torture in the very

capital which his father had acquired for the Castilian crown!

The inhabitants of the isles of Peten--to return from our

digression--listened attentively to the preaching of the Franciscan

friars, and consented to the instant demolition of their idols, and the

erection of the Cross upon their ruins.[224] A singular circumstance

showed the value of these hurried conversions. Cortés, on his departure,

left among this friendly people one of his horses, which had been

disabled by an injury in the foot. The Indians felt a reverence for the

animal, as in some way connected with the mysterious power of the white

men. When their visitors had gone, they offered flowers to the horse,

and, as it is said, prepared for him many savory messes of poultry, such

as they would have administered to their own sick. Under this

extraordinary diet the poor animal pined away and died. The affrighted

Indians raised his effigy in stone, and, placing it in one of their

_teocallis_, did homage to it, as to a deity. In 1618, when two

Franciscan friars came to preach the gospel in these regions, then

scarcely better known to the Spaniards than before the time of Cortés,

one of the most remarkable objects which they found was this statue of a

horse, receiving the homage of the Indian worshippers, as the god of

thunder and lightning![225]

It would be wearisome to recount all the perils and hardships endured by

the Spaniards in the remainder of their journey. It would be repeating

only the incidents of the preceding narrative, the same obstacles in

their path, the same extremities of famine and fatigue,--hardships more

wearing on the spirits than encounters with an enemy, which, if more

hazardous, are also more exciting. It is easier to contend with man than

with Nature. Yet I must not omit to mention the passage of the _Sierra

de los Pedernales_, “the Mountain of Flints,” which, though only

twenty-four miles in extent, consumed no less than twelve days in

crossing it! The sharp stones cut the horses’ feet to pieces, while many

were lost down the precipices and ravines; so that when they had reached

the opposite side sixty-eight of these valuable animals had perished,

and the remainder were, for the most part, in an unserviceable

condition![226]

The rainy season had now set in, and torrents of water, falling day and

night, drenched the adventurers to the skin, and added greatly to their

distresses. The rivers, swollen beyond their usual volume, poured along

with a terrible impetuosity that defied the construction of bridges; and

it was with the greatest difficulty that by laying trunks of trees from

one huge rock to another, with which these streams were studded, they

effected a perilous passage to the opposite banks.[227]

At length the shattered train drew near the Golfo Dolce, at the head of

the Bay of Honduras. Their route could not have been far from the site

of Copan, the celebrated city whose architectural ruins have furnished

such noble illustrations for the pencil of Catherwood. But the Spaniards

passed on in silence. Nor, indeed, can we wonder that at this stage of

the enterprise they should have passed on without heeding the vicinity

of a city in the wilderness, though it were as glorious as the capital

of Zenobia; for they were arrived almost within view of the Spanish

settlements, the object of their long and wearisome pilgrimage.

The place which they were now approaching was Naco, or San Gil de Buena

Vista, a Spanish settlement on the Golfo Dolce. Cortés advanced

cautiously, prepared to fall on the town by surprise. He had held on his

way with the undeviating step of the North American Indian, who,

traversing morass and mountain and the most intricate forests, guided by

the instinct of revenge, presses straight towards the mark, and, when he

has reached it, springs at once on his unsuspecting victim. Before

Cortés made his assault, his scouts fortunately fell in with some of the

inhabitants of the place, from whom they received tidings of the death

of Olid, and of the re-establishment of his own authority. Cortés,

therefore, entered the place like a friend, and was cordially welcomed

by his countrymen, greatly astonished, says Diaz, “by the presence among

them of the general so renowned throughout these countries.”[228]

The colony was at this time sorely suffering from famine; and to such

extremity was it soon reduced that the troops would probably have found

a grave in the very spot to which they had looked forward as the goal of

their labors, but for the seasonable arrival of a vessel with supplies

from Cuba. With a perseverance which nothing could daunt, Cortés made an

examination of the surrounding country, and occupied a month more in

exploring dismal swamps, steaming with unwholesome exhalations, and

infected with bilious fevers and with swarms of venomous insects which

left peace neither by day nor night. At length he embarked with a part

of his forces on board of two brigantines, and, after touching at one or

two ports in the bay, anchored off Truxillo, the principal Spanish

settlement on that coast. The surf was too high for him easily to effect

a landing; but the inhabitants, overjoyed at his arrival, rushed into

the shallow water and eagerly bore back the general in their arms to the

shore.[229]

After he had restored the strength and spirits of his men, the

indefatigable commander prepared for a new expedition, the object of

which was to explore and to reduce the extensive province of Nicaragua.

One may well feel astonished at the adventurous spirit of the man who,

unsubdued by the terrible sufferings of his recent march, should so soon

be prepared for another enterprise equally appalling. It is difficult,

in this age of sober sense, to conceive the character of a Castilian

cavalier of the sixteenth century, a true counterpart of which it would

not have been easy to find in any other nation, even at that time,--or

anywhere, indeed, save in those tales of chivalry, which, however wild

and extravagant they may seem, were much more true to character than to

situation. The mere excitement of exploring the strange and the unknown

was a sufficient compensation to the Spanish adventurer for all his

toils and trials. It seems to have been ordered by Providence that such

a race of men should exist contemporaneously with the discovery of the

New World, that those regions should be brought to light which were

beset with dangers and difficulties so appalling as might have tended to

overawe and to discourage the ordinary spirit of adventure. Yet Cortés,

though filled with this spirit, proposed nobler ends to himself than

those of the mere vulgar adventurer. In the expedition to Nicaragua he

designed, as he had done in that to Honduras, to ascertain the resources

of the country in general, and, above all, the existence of any means of

communication between the great oceans on its borders. If none such

existed, it would at least establish this fact, the knowledge of which,

to borrow his own language, was scarcely less important.

The general proposed to himself the further object of enlarging the

colonial empire of Castile. The conquest of Mexico was but the

commencement of a series of conquests. To the warrior who had achieved

this, nothing seemed impracticable; and scarcely would anything have

been so, had he been properly sustained. It is no great stretch of

imagination to see the Conqueror of Mexico advancing along the provinces

of the vast Isthmus,--Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Darien,--until he had

planted his victorious banner on the shores of the Gulf of Panamá; and,

while it was there fanned by the breezes from the golden South, the

land of the Incas, to see him gathering such intelligence of this land

as would stimulate him to carry his arms still farther, and to

anticipate, it might be, the splendid career of Pizarro!

But from these dreams of ambition Cortés was suddenly aroused by such

tidings as convinced him that his absence from Mexico was already too

far prolonged, and that he must return without delay, if he would save

the capital or the country.

CHAPTER IV

DISTURBANCES IN MEXICO--RETURN OF CORTÉS--DISTRUST OF THE

COURT--CORTÉS RETURNS TO SPAIN--DEATH OF SANDOVAL--BRILLIANT

RECEPTION OF CORTÉS--HONORS CONFERRED ON HIM

1526-1530

The intelligence alluded to in the preceding chapter was conveyed in a

letter to Cortés from the licentiate Zuazo, one of the functionaries to

whom the general had committed the administration of the country during

his absence. It contained full particulars of the tumultuous proceedings

in the capital. No sooner had Cortés quitted it, than dissensions broke

out among the different members of the provisional government. The

misrule increased as his absence was prolonged. At length tidings were

received that Cortés with his whole army had perished in the morasses of

Chiapa. The members of the government showed no reluctance to credit

this story. They now openly paraded their own authority; proclaimed the

general’s death; caused funeral ceremonies to be performed in his honor;

took possession of his property wherever they could meet with it,

piously devoting a small part of the proceeds to purchasing masses for

his soul, while the remainder was appropriated to pay off what was

called his debt to the state. They seized, in like manner, the property

of other individuals engaged in the expedition. From these outrages they

proceeded to others against the Spanish residents in the city, until the

Franciscan missionaries left the capital in disgust, while the Indian

population were so sorely oppressed that great apprehensions were

entertained of a general rising. Zuazo, who communicated these tidings,

implored Cortés to quicken his return. He was a temperate man, and the

opposition which he had made to the tyrannical measures of his comrades

had been rewarded with exile.[230]

The general, greatly alarmed by this account, saw that no alternative

was left but to abandon all further schemes of conquest, and to return

at once, if he would secure the preservation of the empire which he had

won. He accordingly made the necessary arrangements for settling the

administration of the colonies at Honduras, and embarked with a small

number of followers for Mexico.

He had not been long at sea when he encountered such a terrible tempest

as seriously damaged his vessel and compelled him to return to port and

refit. A second attempt proved equally unsuccessful; and Cortés, feeling

that his good star had deserted him, saw in this repeated disaster an

intimation from Heaven that he was not to return.[231] He contented

himself, therefore, with sending a trusty messenger to advise his

friends of his personal safety in Honduras. He then instituted

processions and public prayers to ascertain the will of Heaven and to

deprecate its anger. His health now showed the effects of his recent

sufferings, and declined under a wasting fever. His spirits sank with

it, and he fell into a state of gloomy despondency. Bernal Diaz,

speaking of him at this time, says that nothing could be more wan and

emaciated than his person, and that so strongly was he possessed with

the idea of his approaching end that he procured a Franciscan

habit,--for it was common to be laid out in the habit of some one or

other of the monastic orders,--in which to be carried to the grave.[232]

From this deplorable apathy Cortés was roused by fresh advices urging

his presence in Mexico, and by the judicious efforts of his good friend

Sandoval, who had lately returned, himself, from an excursion into the

interior. By his persuasion, the general again consented to try his

fortunes on the seas. He embarked on board of a brigantine, with a few

followers, and bade adieu to the disastrous shores of Honduras, April

25, 1526. He had nearly made the coast of New Spain, when a heavy gale

threw him off his course and drove him to the island of Cuba. After

staying there some time to recruit his exhausted strength, he again put

to sea, on the 16th of May, and in eight days landed near San Juan de

Ulua, whence he proceeded about five leagues on foot to Medellin.

Cortés was so much changed by disease that his person was not easily

recognized. But no sooner was it known that the general had returned

than crowds of people, white men and natives, thronged from all the

neighboring country to welcome him. The tidings spread far and wide on

the wings of the wind, and his progress to the capital was a triumphal

procession. The inhabitants came from the distance of eighty leagues to

have a sight of him; and they congratulated one another on the presence

of the only man who could rescue the country from its state of anarchy.

It was a resurrection of the dead,--so industriously had the reports of

his death been circulated, and so generally believed.[233]

At all the great towns where he halted he was sumptuously entertained.

Triumphal arches were thrown across the road, and the streets were

strewed with flowers as he passed. After a night’s repose at Tezcuco, he

made his entrance in great state into the capital. The municipality came

out to welcome him, and a brilliant cavalcade of armed citizens formed

his escort; while the lake was covered with barges of the Indians, all

fancifully decorated with their gala dresses, as on the day of his first

arrival among them. The streets echoed to music, and dancing, and sounds

of jubilee, as the procession held on its way to the great convent of

St. Francis, where thanksgivings were offered up for the safe return of

the general, who then proceeded to take up his quarters once more in

his own princely residence.[234] It was in June, 1526, when Cortés

re-entered Mexico; nearly two years had elapsed since he had left it, on

his difficult march to Honduras,--a march which led to no important

results, but which consumed nearly as much time, and was attended with

sufferings quite as severe, as the Conquest of Mexico itself.[235]

Cortés did not abuse his present advantage. He, indeed, instituted

proceedings against his enemies; but he followed them up so languidly as

to incur the imputation of weakness. It is the only instance in which he

has been accused of weakness; and, since it was shown in redressing his

own injuries, it may be thought to reflect no discredit on his

character.[236]

He was not permitted long to enjoy the sweets of triumph. In the month

of July he received advices of the arrival of a _juez de residencia_ on

the coast, sent by the court of Madrid to supersede him temporarily in

the government. The crown of Castile, as its colonial empire extended,

became less and less capable of watching over its administration. It was

therefore obliged to place vast powers in the hands of its viceroys;

and, as suspicion naturally accompanies weakness, it was ever prompt to

listen to accusations against these powerful vassals. In such cases the

government adopted the expedient of sending out a commissioner, or _juez

de residencia_, with authority to investigate the conduct of the

accused, to suspend him in the meanwhile from his office, and, after a

judicial examination, to reinstate him in it or to remove him

altogether, according to the issue of the trial. The enemies of Cortés

had been for a long time busy in undermining his influence at court, and

in infusing suspicions of his loyalty in the bosom of the emperor. Since

his elevation to the government of the country they had redoubled their

mischievous activity, and they assailed his character with the foulest

imputations. They charged him with appropriating to his own use the gold

which belonged to the crown, and especially with secreting the treasures

of Montezuma. He was said to have made false reports of the provinces he

had conquered, that he might defraud the exchequer of its lawful

revenues. He had distributed the principal offices among his own

creatures, and had acquired an unbounded influence, not only over the

Spaniards, but the natives, who were all ready to do his bidding. He had

expended large sums in fortifying both the capital and his own palace;

and it was evident, from the magnitude of his schemes and his

preparations, that he designed to shake off his allegiance and to

establish an independent sovereignty in New Spain.[237]

The government, greatly alarmed by these formidable charges, the

probability of which they could not estimate, appointed a commissioner

with full power to investigate the matter. The person selected for this

delicate office was Luis Ponce de Leon, a man of high family, young for

such a post, but of a mature judgment and distinguished for his

moderation and equity. The nomination of such a minister gave assurance

that the crown meant to do justly by Cortés.

The emperor wrote at the same time with his own hand to the general,

advising him of this step, and assuring him that it was taken, not from

distrust of his integrity, but to afford him the opportunity of placing

that integrity in a clear light before the world.[238]

Ponce de Leon reached Mexico in July, 1526. He was received with all

respect by Cortés and the municipality of the capital; and the two

parties interchanged those courtesies with each other which gave augury

that the future proceedings would be conducted in a spirit of harmony.

Unfortunately, this fair beginning was blasted by the death of the

commissioner in a few weeks after his arrival, a circumstance which did

not fail to afford another item in the loathsome mass of accusation

heaped upon Cortés. The commissioner fell the victim of a malignant

fever, which carried off a number of those who had come over in the

vessel with him.[239]

On his death-bed, Ponce de Leon delegated his authority to an infirm old

man, who survived but a few months,{*} and transmitted the reins of

government to a person named Estrada, or Strada, the royal treasurer,

one of the officers sent from Spain to take charge of the finances, and

who was personally hostile to Cortés. The Spanish residents would have

persuaded Cortés to assert for himself at least an equal share of the

authority, to which they considered Estrada as having no sufficient

title. But the general, with singular moderation, declined a competition

in this matter, and determined to abide a more decided expression of his

sovereign’s will. To his mortification, the nomination of Estrada was

confirmed; and this dignitary soon contrived to inflict on his rival all

those annoyances by which a little mind in possession of unexpected

power endeavors to assert superiority over a great one. The

recommendations of Cortés were disregarded, his friends mortified and

insulted, his attendants outraged by injuries. One of the domestics of

his friend Sandoval, for some slight offence, was sentenced to lose his

hand; and when the general remonstrated against these acts of violence

he was peremptorily commanded to leave the city! The Spaniards,

indignant at this outrage, would have taken up arms in his defence; but

Cortés would allow no resistance, and, simply remarking “that it was

well that those who at the price of their blood had won the capital

should not be allowed a footing in it,” withdrew to his favorite villa

of Cojohuacan, a few miles distant, to await there the result of these

strange proceedings.[240]

{*} [This person, the licentiate Marcos de Aguilar, showed, during his

short tenure of office, much greater zeal and activity than would be

inferred from the slight mention of him by historians. Prescott has

omitted to state that a principal point in the instructions given to

Ponce de Leon related to the question of the _repartimientos_ and other

methods of treating the Indians, in regard to which he was to obtain the

opinions of the authorities and other principal persons and of the

Dominican and Franciscan friars. Sir Arthur Helps, who notices this

fact, adds that it “led to no result,” the instructions on this subject

to Ponce de Leon being on his death “forgotten or laid aside.” But a

series of documents published by Señor Icazbalceta (Col. de Doc. para la

Hist. de México, tom. ii.) shows, on the contrary, that they were

promptly and fully carried out by Aguilar, who considered this to be the

principal business of the commission, and one, as he wrote to the

emperor, requiring despatch, since the very existence of the native

population depended on immediate action. He accordingly consulted all

the officials, Cortés himself included, the other chief residents of the

city, such as Alvarado and Sandoval, and the members of the two

religious orders, obtaining written opinions, individual as well as

collective, which he transmitted with his own report to the emperor. The

great majority of the persons consulted, including all the monks, while

differing on some matters of detail, concurred in urging the necessity

of the _repartimientos_ and in recommending that they should be made

hereditary.

The same result followed an inquiry instituted in 1532 and the following

years. Among the opinions delivered on that occasion is one deserving of

particular notice, both for the manner in which it is enforced and the

character of the writer,--Fray Domingo de Batanzos, whose career has

been agreeably sketched, though his views on the present matter have

been misapprehended, by Sir Arthur Helps. The three objects to be kept

in view, he begins by remarking, are the good treatment and preservation

of the natives, the establishment and security of the Spanish settlers,

and the augmentation of the royal revenues. The proper means to be

adopted are also threefold: the _repartimientos_ extended and

perpetuated, the abandonment of the idea of reserving certain _pueblos_

to be held by the crown and managed by its officers, and the appointment

of good governors, since the best measures are of no avail if not ably

administered. The objections to the crown’s reserving any _pueblos_ for

itself are, that the officers will be employed solely in collecting the

tribute, the Indians will receive no protection or religious

instruction, and the cultivation of the soil will be always

degenerating, since no one will have an interest in maintaining or

improving its condition. The _repartimientos_, on the contrary, by

giving the holders a direct interest in the better cultivation of the

soil and the increase of the people, will insure both these results; and

though under this system the royal revenues may be diminished for a

time, they will in the end be greatly augmented through the general

improvement of the country. The great misfortune has been that the

authorities at home pursue a policy which directly contravenes their own

intentions: wishing to benefit, they destroy; wishing to enrich, they

impoverish; wishing to save the Indians, they exterminate them. There is

needed a man with the mind and resolution of Charlemagne or Cæsar, to

adopt a plan and carry it out. Instead of this, the course pursued is

that of endless changes and experiments like a perpetual litigation. It

is a sure sign that God intends destruction when men are unable to find

a remedy. In the present case, well-meaning and holy men have sought one

in vain. In his opinion, which he knows will be unheeded, the system

which has in it the least evil and the most good is that of hereditary

_repartimientos_, which should be established once for all. In a later

letter he says, “The person least deceived about the affairs of this

country is I, who know its fate as if I saw it with my eyes and touched

it with my hands.” He predicts the extermination of the Indians within

fifty years. He has always believed and asserted that they would perish,

and the laws and measures founded on any other supposition have all been

bad. The wonderful thing is, he remarks, with an apparent allusion to

Las Casas, that the men of greatest sanctity and zeal for good are those

who have done the most harm. (Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc. para la Hist. de

México, tom. ii.) That the prediction of Batanzos has been falsified by

the event may be attributed to a variety of causes: the vastness of the

country and the comparative density of the native population; the social

and industrial habits of the latter, so different from those of more

northern tribes; the decline of the Spanish power and of that spirit of

conquest which, by keeping up a constant stream of emigration and ardor

of enterprise, might have led to a conflict of races; and the sedulous

protection afforded to the Indians by the government and the church.

Their welfare was the object of constant investigation and a long series

of enactments. Slavery was in their case entirely abolished. The

_repartimientos_ were made hereditary, but the rights and power of the

_encomenderos_ were carefully restricted, and the personal services at

first exacted were ultimately commuted for a fixed tribute. Living

together in communities which resembled so many small republics,

governed by their own laws and chiefs, guided and protected by the

priests, exempt from military service and all the burdens imposed by the

state on the rest of the population, the Indians constituted, down to

the period of Independence, a separate and privileged class, despised,

it is true, but not oppressed, by the superior race.--K.]

The suspicions of the court of Madrid, meanwhile, fanned by the breath

of calumny, had reached the most preposterous height. One might have

supposed that it fancied the general was organizing a revolt throughout

the colonies and meditated nothing less than an invasion of the mother

country. Intelligence having been received that a vessel might speedily

be expected from New Spain, orders were sent to the different ports of

the kingdom, and even to Portugal, to sequestrate the cargo, under the

expectation that it contained remittances to the general’s family which

belonged to the crown; while his letters, affording the most luminous

account of all his proceedings and discoveries, were forbidden to be

printed. Fortunately, however, three letters, constituting the most

important part of the Conqueror’s correspondence, had been given to the

public, some years previous, by the indefatigable press of Seville.

The court, moreover, made aware of the incompetency of the treasurer,

Estrada, to the present delicate conjuncture, now intrusted the whole

affair of the inquiry to a commission dignified with the title of the

Royal Audience of New Spain. This body was clothed with full powers to

examine into the charges against Cortés, with instructions to send him

back, as a preliminary measure, to Castile,--peacefully if they could,

but forcibly if necessary. Still afraid that its belligerent vassal

might defy the authority of this tribunal, the government resorted to

artifice to effect his return. The president of the Indian Council was

commanded to write to him, urging his presence in Spain to vindicate

himself from the charges of his enemies, and offering his personal

co-operation in his defence. The emperor further wrote a letter to the

Audience, containing his commands for Cortés to return, as the

government wished to consult him on matters relating to the Indies, and

to bestow on him a recompense suited to his high deserts. This letter

was intended to be shown to Cortés.[241]

But it was superfluous to put in motion all this complicated machinery

to effect a measure on which Cortés was himself resolved. Proudly

conscious of his own unswerving loyalty, and of the benefits he had

rendered to his country, he was deeply sensible to this unworthy

requital of them, especially on the very theatre of his achievements. He

determined to abide no longer where he was exposed to such indignities,

but to proceed at once to Spain, present himself before his sovereign,

boldly assert his innocence, and claim redress for his wrongs and a just

reward for his services. In the close of his letter to the emperor,

detailing the painful expedition to Honduras, after enlarging on the

magnificent schemes he had entertained of discovery in the South Sea,

and vindicating himself from the charge of a too lavish expenditure, he

concludes with the lofty yet touching declaration “that he trusts his

Majesty will in time acknowledge his deserts; but, if that unhappily

shall not be, the world at least will be assured of his loyalty, and he

himself shall have the conviction of having done his duty; and no better

inheritance than this shall he ask for his children.”[242]

No sooner was the intention of Cortés made known, than it excited a

general sensation through the country. Even Estrada relented; he felt

that he had gone too far, and that it was not his policy to drive his

noble enemy to take refuge in his own land. Negotiations were opened,

and an attempt at a reconciliation was made, through the bishop of

Tlascala. Cortés received these overtures in a courteous spirit, but his

resolution was unshaken. Having made the necessary arrangements,

therefore, in Mexico, he left the Valley, and proceeded at once to the

coast. Had he entertained the criminal ambition imputed to him by his

enemies, he might have been sorely tempted by the repeated offers of

support which were made to him, whether in good or in bad faith, on the

journey, if he would but reassume the government and assert his

independence of Castile. But these disloyal advances he rejected with

the scorn they merited.[243]

On his arrival at Villa Rica he received the painful tidings of the

death of his father, Don Martin Cortés, whom he had hoped so soon to

embrace after his long and eventful absence. Having celebrated his

obsequies with every mark of filial respect, he made preparations for

his speedy departure. Two of the best vessels in the port were got ready

and provided with everything requisite for a long voyage. He was

attended by his friend the faithful Sandoval, by Tápia, and some other

cavaliers most attached to his person. He also took with him several

Aztec and Tlascalan chiefs, and among them a son of Montezuma, and

another of Maxixca, the friendly old Tlascalan lord, both of whom were

desirous to accompany the general to Castile.{*} He carried home a large

collection of plants and minerals, as specimens of the natural resources

of the country; several wild animals, and birds of gaudy plumage;

various fabrics of delicate workmanship, especially the gorgeous

feather-work; and a number of jugglers, dancers, and buffoons, who

greatly astonished the Europeans by the marvellous facility of their

performances, and were thought a suitable present for his Holiness the

Pope.[244] Lastly, Cortés displayed his magnificence in a rich treasure

of jewels, among which were emeralds of extraordinary size and lustre,

gold to the amount of two hundred thousand _pesos de oro_, and fifteen

hundred marks of silver. “In fine,” says Herrera, “he came in all the

state of a great lord.”[245]

{*} [In order to increase the number of his retinue, and thereby to

impress the people of Spain with a sense of his importance, Cortés

offered free passage and maintenance to all who wished to accompany him

to the court of his sovereign.--M.]

After a brief and prosperous voyage, Cortés came in sight once more of

his native shores, and, crossing the bar of Saltes, entered the little

port of Palos in May, 1528,{*}--the same spot where Columbus had landed

five-and-thirty years before, on his return from the discovery of the

Western World. Cortés was not greeted with the enthusiasm and public

rejoicings which welcomed the great navigator; and, indeed, the

inhabitants were not prepared for his arrival. From Palos he soon

proceeded to the convent of La Rabida, the same place, also, within the

hospitable walls of which Columbus had found a shelter. An interesting

circumstance is mentioned by historians, connected with his short stay

at Palos. Francisco Pizarro, the Conqueror of Peru, had arrived there,

having come to Spain to solicit aid for his great enterprise.[246] He

was then in the commencement of his brilliant career, as Cortés might be

said to be at the close of his. He was an old acquaintance, and a

kinsman, as is affirmed, of the general, whose mother was a

Pizarro.[247] The meeting of these two extraordinary men, the Conquerors

of the North and of the South in the New World, as they set foot, after

their eventful absence, on the shores of their native land, and that,

too, on the spot consecrated by the presence of Columbus, has something

in it striking to the imagination. It has accordingly attracted the

attention of one of the most illustrious of living poets, who, in a

brief but beautiful sketch, has depicted the scene in the genuine

coloring of the age.[248]

{*} [Sandoval (Carlos V. i. 895) and Gomara (Hist. Mexico, p. 283) make

Cortés to have landed in the latter part of the year 1528.--M.]

While reposing from the fatigues of his voyage, at La Rabida, an event

occurred which afflicted Cortés deeply and which threw a dark cloud over

his return. This was the death of Gonzalo de Sandoval, his trusty

friend, and so long the companion of his fortunes. He was taken ill in a

wretched inn at Palos, soon after landing;{*} and his malady gained

ground so rapidly that it was evident his constitution, impaired,

probably, by the extraordinary fatigues he had of late years undergone,

would be unable to resist it. Cortés was instantly sent for, and arrived

in time to administer the last consolations of friendship to the dying

cavalier. Sandoval met his approaching end with composure, and, having

given the attention which the short interval allowed to the settlement

of both his temporal and spiritual concerns, he breathed his last in the

arms of his commander.

{*} [While Sandoval was lying helpless upon his bed his host entered the

room and, supposing him to be asleep, proceeded to examine his luggage.

As the sick man feigned sleep in order to escape murder, the other broke

open the treasure-box, took therefrom the bars of gold, and fled with

his booty to Portugal. No trace of him could afterward be found.--M.]

Sandoval died at the premature age of thirty-one.[249] He was in many

respects the most eminent of the great captains formed under the eye of

Cortés. He was of good family, and a native of Medellin, also the

birthplace of the general, for whom he had the warmest personal regard.

Cortés soon discerned his uncommon qualities, and proved it by uniformly

selecting the young officer for the most difficult commissions. His

conduct on these occasions fully justified the preference. He was a

decided favorite with the soldiers; for, though strict in enforcing

discipline, he was careful of their comforts and little mindful of his

own. He had nothing of the avarice so common in the Castilian cavalier,

and seemed to have no other ambition than that of faithfully discharging

the duties of his profession. He was a plain man, affecting neither the

showy manners nor the bravery in costume which distinguished Alvarado,

the Aztec _Tonatiuh_. The expression of his countenance was open and

manly; his chestnut hair curled close to his head; his frame was strong

and sinewy. He had a lisp in his utterance, which made his voice

somewhat indistinct. Indeed, he was no speaker; but, if slow of speech,

he was prompt and energetic in action. He had precisely the qualities

which fitted him for the perilous enterprise in which he had embarked.

He had accomplished his task; and, after having escaped death, which lay

waiting for him in every step of his path, had come home, as it would

seem, to his native land, only to meet it there.

His obsequies were performed with all solemnity by the Franciscan friars

of La Rabida, and his remains were followed to their final resting-place

by the comrades who had so often stood by his side in battle. They were

laid in the cemetery of the convent, which, shrouded in its forest of

pines, stood, and may yet stand, on the bold eminence that overlooks the

waste of waters so lately traversed by the adventurous soldier.[250]

It was not long after this melancholy event that Cortés and his suite

began their journey into the interior. The general stayed a few days at

the castle of the duke of Medina Sidonia, the most powerful of the

Andalusian lords, who hospitably entertained him, and, at his departure,

presented him with several noble Arabian horses. Cortés first directed

his steps towards Guadalupe, where he passed nine days, offering up

prayers and causing masses to be performed at Our Lady’s shrine for the

soul of his departed friend.

Before his departure from La Rabida, he had written to the court,

informing it of his arrival in the country. Great was the sensation

caused there by the intelligence; the greater, that the late reports of

his treasonable practices had made it wholly unexpected. His arrival

produced an immediate change of feeling. All cause of jealousy was now

removed; and, as the clouds which had so long settled over the royal

mind were dispelled, the emperor seemed only anxious to show his sense

of the distinguished services of his so dreaded vassal. Orders were sent

to different places on the route to provide him with suitable

accommodations, and preparations were made to give him a brilliant

reception in the capital.

Meanwhile, Cortés had formed the acquaintance at Guadalupe of several

persons of distinction, and among them of the family of the _comendador_

of Leon, a nobleman of the highest consideration at court. The general’s

conversation, enriched with the stores of a life of adventure, and his

manners, in which the authority of habitual command was tempered by the

frank and careless freedom of the soldier, made a most favorable

impression on his new friends; and their letters to the court, where he

was yet unknown, heightened the interest already felt in this remarkable

man. The tidings of his arrival had by this time spread far and wide

throughout the country; and, as he resumed his journey, the roads

presented a spectacle such as had not been seen since the return of

Columbus. Cortés did not usually affect an ostentation of dress, though

he loved to display the pomp of a great lord in the number and

magnificence of his retainers. His train was now swelled by the Indian

chieftains, who by the splendors of their barbaric finery gave

additional brilliancy, as well as novelty, to the pageant. But his own

person was the object of general curiosity. The houses and the streets

of the great towns and villages were thronged with spectators, eager to

look on the hero who with his single arm, as it were, had won an empire

for Castile, and who, to borrow the language of an old historian, “came

in the pomp and glory, not so much of a great vassal, as of an

independent monarch.”[251]

As he approached Toledo, then the rival of Madrid, the press of the

multitude increased till he was met by the duke de Bejar, the count de

Aguilar, and others of his steady friends, who, at the head of a large

body of the principal nobility and cavaliers of the city, came out to

receive him, and attended him to the quarters prepared for his

residence. It was a proud moment for Cortés; and distrusting, as he well

might, his reception by his countrymen, it afforded him a greater

satisfaction than the brilliant entrance which, a few years previous, he

had made into the capital of Mexico.

The following day he was admitted to an audience by the emperor, and

Cortés, gracefully kneeling to kiss the hand of his sovereign, presented

to him a memorial which succinctly recounted his services and the

requital he had received for them. The emperor graciously raised him,

and put many questions to him respecting the countries he had conquered.

Charles was pleased with the general’s answers, and his intelligent mind

took great satisfaction in inspecting the curious specimens of Indian

ingenuity which his vassal had brought with him from New Spain. In

subsequent conversations the emperor repeatedly consulted Cortés on the

best mode of administering the government of the colonies, and by his

advice introduced some important regulations, especially for

ameliorating the condition of the natives and for encouraging domestic

industry.

The monarch took frequent opportunity to show the confidence which he

now reposed in Cortés. On all public occasions he appeared with him by

his side; and once, when the general lay ill of a fever, Charles paid

him a visit in person, and remained some time in the apartment of the

invalid. This was an extraordinary mark of condescension in the haughty

court of Castile; and it is dwelt upon with becoming emphasis by the

historians of the time, who seem to regard it as an ample compensation

for all the sufferings and services of Cortés.[252]

The latter had now fairly triumphed over opposition. The courtiers, with

that ready instinct which belongs to the tribe, imitated the example of

their master; and even envy was silent, amidst the general homage that

was paid to the man who had so lately been a mark for the most envenomed

calumny. Cortés, without a title, without a name but what he had created

for himself, was at once, as it were, raised to a level with the

proudest nobles in the land.

He was so still more effectually by the substantial honors which were

accorded to him by his sovereign in the course of the following year. By

an instrument dated July 6th, 1529, the emperor raised him to the

dignity of the Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca;[253] and the title of

“marquis,” when used without the name of the individual, has been always

appropriated in the colonies, in an especial manner, to Cortés, as the

title of “admiral” was to Columbus.[254]

Two other instruments, dated in the same month of July, assigned to

Cortés a vast tract of land in the rich province of Oaxaca, together

with large estates in the city of Mexico, and other places in the

Valley.[255] The princely domain thus granted comprehended more than

twenty large towns and villages, and twenty-three thousand vassals. The

language in which the gift was made greatly enhanced its value. The

preamble of the instrument, after enlarging on the “good services

rendered by Cortés in the Conquest, and the great benefits resulting

therefrom, both in respect to the increase of the Castilian empire and

the advancement of the Holy Catholic Faith,” acknowledges the

“sufferings he had undergone in accomplishing this glorious work, and

the fidelity and obedience with which, as a good and trusty vassal, he

had ever served the crown.”[256] It declares, in conclusion,

[Illustration: FAC-SIMILE OF THE SIGNATURE OF CORTÉS.]

that it grants this recompense of his deserts because it is “the duty of

princes to honor and reward those who serve them well and loyally, in

order that the memory of their great deeds should be perpetuated, and

others be incited by their example to the performance of the like

illustrious exploits.” The unequivocal testimony thus borne by his

sovereign to his unwavering loyalty was most gratifying to Cortés,--how

gratifying, every generous soul who has been the subject of suspicion

undeserved will readily estimate. The language of the general in

after-time shows how deeply he was touched by it.[257]

Yet there was one degree in the scale, above which the royal gratitude

would not rise. Neither the solicitations of Cortés, nor those of the

duke de Bejar and his other powerful friends, could prevail on the

emperor to reinstate him in the government of Mexico. The country,

reduced to tranquillity, had no longer need of his commanding genius to

control it; and Charles did not care to place again his formidable

vassal in a situation which might revive the dormant spark of jealousy

and distrust. It was the policy of the crown to employ one class of its

subjects to effect its conquests, and another class to rule over them.

For the latter it selected men in whom the fire of ambition was tempered

by a cooler judgment naturally, or by the sober influence of age. Even

Columbus, notwithstanding the terms of his original “capitulation” with

the crown, had not been permitted to preside over the colonies; and

still less likely would it be to concede this power to one possessed of

the aspiring temper of Cortés.

But, although the emperor refused to commit the civil government of the

colony into his hands, he reinstated him in military command. By a royal

ordinance, dated also in July, 1529, the marquis of the Valley was named

Captain-General of New Spain and of the coasts of the South Sea. He was

empowered to make discoveries in the Southern Ocean, with the right to

rule over such lands as he should colonize,[258] and by a subsequent

grant he was to become proprietor of one-twelfth of all his

discoveries.[259] The government had no design to relinquish the

services of so able a commander. But it warily endeavored to withdraw

him from the scene of his former triumphs, and to throw open a new

career of ambition, that might stimulate him still further to enlarge

the dominions of the crown.

Thus gilded by the sunshine of royal favor, “rivalling,” to borrow the

homely comparison of an old chronicler, “Alexander in the fame of his

exploits, and Crassus in that of his riches,”[260] with brilliant

manners, and a person which, although it showed the effects of hard

service, had not yet lost all the attractions of youth, Cortés might now

be regarded as offering an enviable alliance for the best houses in

Castile. It was not long before he paid his addresses, which were

favorably received, to a member of that noble house which had so

steadily supported him in the dark hour of his fortunes. The lady’s name

was Doña Juana de Zuñiga, daughter of the second count de Aguilar, and

niece of the duke de Bejar.[261] She was much younger than himself,

beautiful, and, as events showed, not without spirit. One of his

presents to his youthful bride excited the admiration and envy of the

fairer part of the court. This was five emeralds, of wonderful size and

brilliancy. These jewels had been cut by the Aztecs into the shapes of

flowers, fishes, and into other fanciful forms, with an exquisite style

of workmanship which enhanced their original value.[262] They were, not

improbably, part of the treasure of the unfortunate Montezuma, and,

being easily portable, may have escaped the general wreck of the _noche

triste_. The queen of Charles the Fifth, it is said,--it may be the idle

gossip of a court,--had intimated a willingness to become proprietor of

some of these magnificent baubles; and the preference which Cortés gave

to his fair bride caused some feelings of estrangement in the royal

bosom, which had an unfavorable influence on the future fortunes of the

marquis.

Late in the summer of 1529, Charles the Fifth left his Spanish dominions

for Italy. Cortés accompanied him on his way, probably to the place of

embarkation; and in the capital of Aragon we find him, according to the

national historian, exciting the same general interest and admiration

among the people as he had done in Castile. On his return, there seemed

no occasion for him to protract his stay longer in the country. He was

weary of the life of idle luxury which he had been leading for the last

year, and which was so foreign to his active habits and the stirring

scenes to which he had been accustomed. He determined, therefore, to

return to Mexico, where his extensive property required his presence,

and where a new field was now opened to him for honorable enterprise.

CHAPTER V

CORTÉS REVISITS MEXICO--RETIRES TO HIS ESTATES--HIS VOYAGES OF

DISCOVERY--FINAL RETURN TO CASTILE--COLD RECEPTION--DEATH OF

CORTÉS--HIS CHARACTER

1530-1547

Early in the spring of 1530, Cortés embarked for New Spain. He was

accompanied by the marchioness, his wife, together with his aged mother,

who had the good fortune to live to see her son’s elevation, and by a

magnificent retinue of pages and attendants, such as belonged to the

household of a powerful noble. How different from the forlorn condition

in which, twenty-six years before, he had been cast loose, as a wild

adventurer, to seek his bread upon the waters!

The first point of his destination was Hispaniola, where he was to

remain until he received tidings of the organization of the new

government that was to take charge of Mexico.[263] In the preceding

chapter it was stated that the administration of the country had been

intrusted to a body called the Royal Audience; one of whose first duties

it was to investigate the charges brought against Cortés. Nuñez de

Guzman, his avowed enemy, was placed at the head of this board; and the

investigation was conducted with all the rancor of personal hostility. A

remarkable document still exists, called the _Pesquisa Secreta_, or

“Secret Inquiry,” which contains a record of the proceedings against

Cortés. It was prepared by the secretary of the Audience, and signed by

the several members. The document is very long, embracing nearly a

hundred folio pages. The name and the testimony of every witness are

given, and the whole forms a mass of loathsome details, such as might

better suit a prosecution in a petty municipal court than that of a

great officer of the crown.

The charges are eight in number; involving, among other crimes, that of

a deliberate design to cast off his allegiance to the crown; that of the

murder of two of the commissioners who had been sent out to supersede

him; of the murder of his own wife, Catalina Xuarez;[264] of extortion,

and of

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF HERNANDO CORTÉS

_Goupil & Cº., Paris_]

licentious practices,--of offences, in short, which, from their private

nature, would seem to have little to do with his conduct as a public

man. The testimony is vague and often contradictory; the witnesses are

for the most part obscure individuals, and the few persons of

consideration among them appear to have been taken from the ranks of his

decided enemies. When it is considered that the inquiry was conducted in

the absence of Cortés, before a court the members of which were

personally unfriendly to him, and that he was furnished with no

specification of the charges, and had no opportunity, consequently, of

disproving them, it is impossible, at this distance of time, to attach

any importance to this paper as a legal document. When it is added that

no action was taken on it by the government to whom it was sent, we may

be disposed to regard it simply as a monument of the malice of his

enemies. It has been drawn by the curious antiquary from the obscurity

to which it had been so long consigned in the Indian archives at

Seville; but it can be of no further use to the historian than to show

that a great name in the sixteenth century exposed its possessor to

calumnies as malignant as it has at any time since.[265]

The high-handed measures of the Audience, and the oppressive conduct of

Guzman, especially towards the Indians, excited general indignation in

the colony and led to serious apprehensions of an insurrection. It

became necessary to supersede an administration so reckless and

unprincipled. But Cortés was detained two months at the island, by the

slow movements of the Castilian court, before tidings reached him of the

appointment of a new Audience for the government of the country. The

person selected to preside over it was the bishop of St. Domingo, a

prelate whose acknowledged wisdom and virtue gave favorable augury for

the conduct of his administration. After this, Cortés resumed his

voyage, and landed at Villa Rica on the 15th of July, 1530.

After remaining for a time in the neighborhood, where he received some

petty annoyances from the Audience, he proceeded to Tlascala, and

publicly proclaimed his powers as Captain-General of New Spain and the

South Sea. An edict issued by the empress during her husband’s absence

had interdicted Cortés from approaching within ten leagues of the

Mexican capital while the present authorities were there.[266] The

empress was afraid of a collision between the parties. Cortés, however,

took up his residence on the opposite side of the lake, at Tezcuco.

No sooner was his arrival there known in the metropolis than multitudes,

both of Spaniards and natives, crossed the lake to pay their respects to

their old commander, to offer him their services, and to complain of

their manifold grievances. It seemed as if the whole population of the

capital was pouring into the neighboring city, where the marquis

maintained the state of an independent potentate. The members of the

Audience, indignant at the mortifying contrast which their own

diminished court presented, imposed heavy penalties on such of the

natives as should be found in Tezcuco, and, affecting to consider

themselves in danger, made preparations for the defence of the city. But

these belligerent movements were terminated by the arrival of the new

Audience; though Guzman had the address to maintain his hold on a

northern province, where he earned a reputation for cruelty and

extortion unrivalled even in the annals of the New World.

Everything seemed now to assure a tranquil residence to Cortés. The new

magistrates treated him with marked respect, and took his advice on the

most important measures of government. Unhappily, this state of things

did not long continue; and a misunderstanding arose between the parties,

in respect to the enumeration of the vassals assigned by the crown to

Cortés, which the marquis thought was made on principles prejudicial to

his interests and repugnant to the intentions of the grant.[267]{*} He

was still further displeased by finding that the Audience were

intrusted, by their commission, with a concurrent jurisdiction with

himself in military affairs.[268] This led occasionally to an

interference, which the proud spirit of Cortés, so long accustomed to

independent rule, could ill brook. After submitting to it for a time, he

left the capital in disgust, no more to return there, and took up his

residence in his city of Cuernavaca.

{*} [The commission appointed by the Audience to take the census, after

laboring at their task for many weeks, were at last forced to report

that it was impossible to make a correct enumeration, as not more than

one-fifth of the estimated population could be found. The Indians, at

the suggestion of their chiefs, who were all friendly to Cortés, evaded

the count, and threw as many difficulties in the way of the enumerators

as possible.--M.]