its highest virtues, its most eminent characteristics. They do for it what cannot be so well done by any other personwhat is done by no other person-and what, until they have shown the contrary, is thought by all other persons to be beyond the reach of performance. They are the people who show, like Alexander, how the knots of Gordius may be untied; like Columbus, how eggs may be made to stand on their own bottoms; like Cortés, how the fierce, goldloving Spaniard, faithless to all beside, may yet be won to follow the footsteps of one man, in the face of seeming certain death, with almost worshipping fidelity. Hernando Cortés was the chosen hero of this great conquest. He had all the requisite endowments for the work. The eye of foresight, directing with the most consummate prudence; the deliberate resolve, which never changes its aspect, nor swerves from its course, when it has once received its impulse from matured reflection; the capacity, so to fathom the souls and resources of the men, his subordinates, as to be able to assign, at a moment, the particular duty to each, which he is best able to perform; the nerve, never to falter or suffer surprise; the will, never to recede when taught by deliberate conviction to advance; the courage, which, not shrinking from fearful deed, when necessary to be done-when necessary to safety and success-yet never indulges in wanton exercise of power;-yields to no bloody mood, no wild caprice of passion, and is beyond the temptations of levity; great physical powers of performance and endurance; a valor swift as light; a soul as pure as principle; a quickness of thought; a promptitude of perception; a ready ingenuity; a comprehensive analysis of difficulties and resources;—these, with many other virtues of character, active and passive, might be enumerated, to establish his claims to the high place which we are prepared to assign him. Of the great moral question, whether the conquest itself might not properly have been forborne,-whether it were justified, not merely by the morals of nations-such morals as nations then possessed-but under the intrinsic and inevitable standards of right and religion;—we shall say nothing. This is a question which we need not here discuss. Tried by the moral judgments of our day, and there would be but one opinion upon the Mexican conquest; such an opinion as we are all prepared to pronounce upon the murderous warfare recently pursued by the English among the junks and cities of the Chinese. The mind naturally revolts from the idea that justification can be found for any conqueror, wantonly overthrowing the altars, defiling the homes, and slaughtering thousands of a people, who have offered no provocation to hostility,-whose lands lie remote from the invader,-whose interests and objects conflict not with his; and, whose whole career has been, so far as he is concerned, of an equally innocent and inoffensive character. And, when this invasion and butchery occur in the history, and at the expense of a people, so far advanced in the arts of civilization as the Mexicans, the enormity becomes exaggerated, and-were we not to consider the standards of morality prevalent in the time of the conquest, and the farther apparent justification to be found in the sanguinary and horrible practices of the Mexicans themselvesour sentence would be one of instant and unqualified condemnation. But, discarding this inquiry, and leaving the question open for future moralists, let us pass to a rapid survey of the prominent events in the life of the remarkable man by whom the conquest of Mexico was undertaken and achieved. Hernando Cortés was born at Medellin, a little town of Estremadura, in the year 1485. He sprung from the people. When he grew famous, the biographers, as if anxious to show that nature could not be the source of greatness, contrived to discover that he was of noble family and illustrious connections. The probability is that this was mere invention. Enough for us, that he was a man. Fortunately for him, he was a poor one. The energies of his original nature were not sapped away by artificial and enfeebling training. He had all the proofs, in his character, of having come from sturdy stocks, with a genius uncramped by sophistication. Nature was left tolerably free to work her will on her favorite. Happily, if schools and colleges did little to improve, they did as little to impair his genius. At an early period, he gave proof of some of those qualities by which he was finally distinguished. With great ardency of temper, he betrayed a resolute will and an independent judgment,— qualities which, though they may sometimes arise from mere blood, are yet quite as frequently the distinguishing attributes of inherent capacity, which, in the consciousness of its own resources, is anxious for their development, and irks at all restraint which delays their exercisc. They would make him a student of law at Salamanca, but though the age and country were decidedly military, Spain was already overstocked with lawyers. Cortés felt no call to this profession, let his parents call never so loudly. He was sent into the world for very different uses. He was a man of action, rather than a wrangler,-of deeds, not of words. His words, however much to the purpose, were usually but few; and the profession of law, in Spain then, as in our day, called for unnatural copiousness. The motives were sufficient for eloquence, then as now, to swarms of hungry seekers; but these motives moved not him. His soul needed a higher stimulus than avarice. He obeyed his destiny, abandoned the pen for the sword, and, at seventeen, we find him preparing to join the army of the great Gonsalvo. But Italy was not to be the theatre of his performance. Fate interfered to keep him from that subordinate position, into which, at his early age, and in the ranks of a warfare filled up with the veterans of the time, he must have fallen. Nay, a farther training was necessary, in less arduous employments. His sinews were not yet sufficiently hardened, his frame not sufficiently formed, his temper not enough subdued, for fields of active warfare. Napoleon, in after days, said to the French, "send me no more boys-they only serve to fill the hospitals." The military career of Cortés, the work for which he was wanted, needed more time, more preparation, a better training than had been his. He fell sick, and before he recovered, the time for marching had gone by. Italy was no longer open to the adventurer, and he turned his eyes upon the Atlantic. Impatient for action, circumstances seem about to favor his desires. His kinsman, Ovando, is made governor of Hispaniola. With him he determines to set sail. All things are in readiness, but his fortune, as if the fruit were not yet ripe for his hands, again interposes, and again, through the medium of suffering, prevents his departure. It is one characteristic of heroism, that it must be doing. The blood of Cortés required to be kept in exercise. Your knight-errant, fierce in conflict, is equally fond in dalliance with the fair. Love seems naturally to supply the intervals of war. Nothing, indeed, would seem more natural, than that the ardency of the warrior should be equally great in all fields of combat. It is Mr. Moore who sings- ""Tis always the youth who is bravest in war, Of the truth of our hero's passion in the present instance, but little need be said. Of its earnestness, we may make the most ample admissions. It must be remembered that he was still only seventeen. Impetuosity of character is scarcely matter of reproach at such a period. As eager after beauty in that day, as, in after years, in pursuit of less hazardous conquests, we find him incurring, with blind passion, dangers almost as serious. He must serenade his mistress before parting. Nay, there are fond last words to be spoken, and he attempts to scale her windows. We must not look too austerely on this achievement. The gallantry of Spain was never of a very sensual order. It was so much mingled with pride and romance, that it became elevated with sentiment. The guitar and the serenade, borrowed from the tender and voluptuous Moor, implied, in the practice of the graver Spaniard, little more than a platonic passion. At least, it is but charity, at this late period, and in the case of a person so very young, to prefer such a conclusion. Besides, in the absence of any knowledge on the subject of the damsel, it would be improper to put any scandalous interpretation on the adventure. A last song, a last sigh-nay, a last kiss-may be permitted to the parting lover, about to pass, seeking his fortune, over that wilderness of sea, into that wilderness of savages that lay beyond. tain it is, that, whether encouraged or not, our hero, hurried by passion beyond propriety, was precipitated from a crumbling wall, and spared more serious injuries at the expense of a broken limb. Cer The expedition sailed without him, and, tossing with feverish, fiery pulses on a bed of sickness, he was compelled to stifle his impatient yearnings for adventure, with what composure was at his command. His eager, impetuous nature, drew good from these disappointments. They formed portions of a necessary training for the tasks that were beyond. They taught him to curb his eager soul, to submit to baffling influences, to meditate calmly his resolves, to wait upon events and bide his time. Did the world go smoothly with the boy, he might never be the man. Rough currents bring out the strength, and teach the straining muscles of the swimmer. But Cortés was not always to be baffled. He sailed for Hispaniola in 1504, when but twenty years of age,-and reached the desired port in safety. Here he was well re ceived by his relation, Ovando, honored with a public office, with lands and slaves assigned him. He became a farmer. In this mode of life, we may well ask what becomes of his ambition, his military passion,-that eager temperament whose tides were perpetually driving him upon the rocks. The life of agriculture seems an unperforming one. Its requisitions are grave, subdued and methodical. A quiet nature, a dogged devotion to the soil, would seem its chief requisites. And yet, a purely agricultural people, particularly where they possess slaves, is usually a martial one,delighting in exercises of the body,-famous in the chase,— admirable in the use of weapons. The management of slaves, such slaves as the Spaniards had to subdue,-the restless, roving savage of the Mexican archipelago, the bloodthirsty Caribbean, the revengeful and kidnapped native of the Combahee,-required the vigilant eye of a master-spirit. We are not to suppose that the true nature of Cortés was left unexcrcised, while he clung to the sober tastes of agriculture. For six years he pursued this vocation, showing no impatience,-none of that feverish, froward temper, which had marked his boyhood. He indulged, as far as we can learn, in no repinings. That he learnt many good lessons in the management of his subjects,-many useful lessons of government as well as of patience and forbearance,schooling into strength that fiery nature, which, as we have seen, was only apt to lead him into mischief,- -we may not unreasonably imagine. At all events, we may conclude him to be exercising a necessary nature in all this period, as it is at variance with all human experience, to suppose a great mind to remain satisfied, for any length of time, with a condition which is uncongenial with its ruling characteristics. In 1511, we find him connected with a military expedition for the conquest of the Island of Cuba,-but not in a military capacity. This duty over, he resumed his farm, with a diligence that looked like devotion. He was successful as a planter. He was the first among the Spaniards to stock his plantation with cattle,-to raise sheep, cows and horses,—in the management of which he betrayed equal pains-taking and success. This was showing singular thoughtfulness in one so young-singular flexibility of the mental nature, which could thus so readily adapt itself to tasks and exercises, in which it had never had any training. Strange, too, that one so ardent, so ambitious, so eager, should thus so VOL. VI.-NO. 11. 23 |