and in the decadence of his powers and his hopes; but as the mighty conqueror of one of the most compact and well-ordered barbaric nations of the world-a conqueror who with a few hundreds of his fellow countrymen, not all of them his partizans, overcame hundreds of thousands of fanatic and resolute men fighting against him with immense resources, and with a resolution nearly equal to his own. Let us give him the benefit of his sincere belief in Christianity, and his determination to substitute that beneficent religion for the hideous and cruel superstition of the people he was resolved to conquer. And let us echo the wish of that good common soldier, Bernal Diaz, who, though having his grievances against Cortes, as all the other Conquistadores thought they had, could yet, after watching every turn in the fortunes of the great Marquis, and knowing almost varon muchos parlamentos, sin discrepar palabra, de gente en gente, hasta que vinieron los Españoles, que en nostra letra escrivieron muchas oraciones, y cantares, que yo vi, y assí se han conservado. Y con esto queda respondido á la última pregunta, de Cómo era possible tener estos memoria de las palabras,' etc."-JUAN DE TOVAR, Historia de los Indios Mexicanos, MS. CHARACTER OF CORTES. 307 every sin that he had committed, write most tenderly of the great captain whose plume he had so often followed to victory. After saying that subsequently to the conquest of Mexico Cortes had not had good fortune either in his Californian or his Honduras expeditions, or indeed in anything else he had undertaken, Bernal Diaz adds, "Perhaps it was that he might have felicity in heaven. And I believe it was so, for he was an honourable cavalier, and a devoted worshipper of the Virgin, the Apostle St. Peter, and other Saints. May God pardon his sins, and mine too, and give me a righteous ending, which things are of more concern than the conquests and victories that we had over the Indians." THE END. CHISWICK PRESS:-PRINTED BY WHITTINGHAM AND WILKINS, TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. |