Hurrah! Hurrah! for Cortés! Come victors, drink as we rise!
Song of the Spanish Cavaliers, 1519.
HERNANDO CORTÉS:
CONQUEROR OF MEXICO.
(1485-1547)
TO the brave belong the spoils. To him, who ventures much, sometimes comes a great reward.
Here is the story of a man who determined to conquer an empire with but a handful of followers,—and accomplished his purpose. Although it seems to be a romance, it is a series of facts. Strange, wonderful, almost unbelievable, yet true; for truth, they say, is sometimes stranger than fiction. Listen, then, to this tale of as valiant a soul as ever led fighting men on to victory!
Long, long ago, when fat King Henry the Eighth ruled over Merrie England, and Charles the Fifth was King of Spain, there lived a young Spanish cavalier called Hernando Cortés. He was a wild youth and did not care for books or study. In fact, although his parents wished him to be a lawyer and, when he was fourteen years of age, sent him to an excellent school, he would not learn his lessons and so was asked to leave the institution. Returning home, he greatly annoyed his good father and mother by cutting up and playing all kinds of pranks, so that they were glad to learn he had determined to join an expedition which was setting out for that New World so lately discovered by Columbus.