The History of the Conquest of Mexico is of about the same length as its predecessor. The narrative, simpler in some ways and more vivacious in others, is gorgeously colored throughout. Prescott was disturbed by the picturesqueness of his own treatment. ‘Very like Miss Porter’ and ‘Rather boarding schoolish finery’ were his comments on certain chapters.
The first of the seven ‘books’ into which the work is divided contains an account of Aztec civilization. Sixty years have elapsed since these pages were written, during which time American archæology has made great advances. That the value of Prescott’s introduction is not wholly destroyed is due to the healthy sceptical spirit which controlled his work.
The story has every element of romance. A young Spanish gentleman, handsome, witty, daring, an idler in college and a libertine, joins the army of adventurers in the New World. For ten or fifteen years he leads the life of men of his class. He becomes a planter in Hayti and varies the monotony of watching Indians till the soil by suppressing insurrections of their brother Indians.
He goes to Cuba as secretary to the governor of that island, quarrels with his chief, makes his peace, and quarrels with him again. Thrown repeatedly into prison, he escapes with the ease of a Baron Trenck. Reconciled to the governor, he is appointed to lead an expedition into the newly discovered kingdom of Mexico. On this venture he stakes his every penny. With five hundred soldiers he proposes to subdue the natives; two priests go along to convert the natives as fast as they are subdued. His sailors number one hundred and ten; his pilot had served under Columbus.
Arriving on the coast, he secretly scuttles his ships, all but one, that there may be no retreat, and then begins that wonderful march to the great city of the Aztecs. He fights by craft as well as by physical force. The jealousy of mutually hostile tribes helps to win his battles. Superstition comes to his aid, for the Spaniards are thought to be gods, and the horses they bestride carry terror into the hearts of the natives.
At length he makes his entry into the city of flowers, and takes up his abode there, Cortés and his little army of four hundred and fifty Spaniards, with twice as many native allies, among sixty thousand cannibals. Boldness marks every step of his course. He seizes the native ‘king,’ suppresses plots with rigor, and proves his divinity by tearing down one of the sacrificial pyramids and planting the cross in its stead. Leaving a lieutenant in command, he hastens back to the seashore to transact military business there. The lieutenant precipitates a quarrel and slaughters Indians by the hundred. Cortés returns and finds his work must be done again. This time it is thoroughly done. Every step of his progress is marked with blood, and the story of la noche triste and the siege of Mexico are among the most romantic passages in the history of the New World.
In estimating men Prescott aimed to employ the standard of their day. When Cortés lifts up his hands, red with the blood of the miserable natives, to return thanks to Heaven for victory, the historian does not permit himself to forget that this savage Spaniard was a typical soldier of the Cross. ‘Whoever has read the correspondence of Cortés, or, still more, has attended to the circumstances of his career, will hardly doubt that he would have been among the first to lay down his life for the Faith.’ According to Prescott, the charge of cruelty cannot be brought against Cortés. ‘The path of the conqueror is necessarily marked with blood. He was not too scrupulous, indeed, in the execution of his plans. He swept away the obstacles which lay in his track; and his fame is darkened by the commission of more than one act which his boldest apologists will find it hard to vindicate. But he was not wantonly cruel. He allowed no outrage on his unresisting foes.’ The historian likens the Spaniard to Hannibal in his endurance, his courage, and his unpretentiousness.
Later scholarship has assailed portions of The Conquest of Mexico with needless asperity. Prescott could hardly be expected to avail himself prophetically of archæological facts not known until thirty years after his time. Nor was his faith in the early Spanish accounts of the Conquest quite as childlike and uncritical as it is sometimes represented. Historians are the most substantial of men of letters; but they now and then build card houses which topple down under the breath of a single new fact. And they take a very human delight in blowing over one another’s structures. For which reason the reading of history is a fearful joy, like skating on thin ice. The pleasure is intense so long as nothing gives way. Perhaps the layman is unreasonable in his demand for knowledge that shall not require too frequent revision. He can at least read for pleasure, hoping that a part of what he reads is true, and holding himself prepared to relinquish the parts he likes best when the time comes.
In the History of the Conquest of Peru the author brings fresh proof that whatever may be said of his morals, the Spanish soldier cannot be over-praised for his valor. Pizarro was a marvel of courage and endurance. Fanaticism, which explains much in his character, does not explain where such tremendous physical power came from. And he had the true theatrical bravado of the Sixteenth-century adventurer. Add to the native histrionic gifts of the Latin race a special training, such as life in the New World gave, and men like Ojeda, Balboa, Cortés, and Pizarro come into existence quite naturally. They did wonders in the coolest possible way, and with a fine sense of the pictorial aspect of their undertakings. Pizarro, drawing a line from east to west on the sand with his sword and calling on his comrades to choose each man what best becomes a brave Castilian (‘For my part I go to the south’), is a figure for romantic drama. An Englishman equally daring would have been more or less awkward in a pose of this sort, but the Spaniard was perfectly at home. Of what clay were these men compounded that they could imagine such exploits and succeed in them too?
The performance of Pizarro was less splendid than that of Cortés and the man himself less interesting. The conqueror of Mexico was a gentleman; not so the hard soldier who subdued the kingdom of the Incas. His was a violent career, steeped in blood, and ending in assassination. Not only was Pizarro without fear, but of two courses he seized upon the more dangerous as the better suited to his genius. Too ignorant to sign his own name, he could control not alone the brutal soldier but as well the lawyer and the priest. Aside from his masterfulness there was little to admire in his character. Brute force excites wonder, but the exhibition of it becomes wearisome at last. To Prescott ‘the hazard assumed by Pizarro was far greater than that of the Conqueror of Mexico.’ Otherwise the man was a mere bungler upon whom Fortune, with characteristic levity, chanced for a time to smile. Prescott describes him in a sentence: ‘Pizarro was eminently perfidious.’ Furthermore, the conqueror of Peru was not original; he repeated what he had learned from Balboa and Cortés. Had he chanced upon a country less rich and civilized, it may well be doubted whether he would have made any considerable figure in history. The argument from gold was entirely conclusive in those days; just as at the present time an undertaking is said to ‘succeed’ if it pays financially. Manners have improved, but ideals of ‘success’ are pretty much what they were four hundred years ago. When Pizarro extorted from the wretched Atahualpa a promise to fill a room twenty-two feet by seventeen to the height of nine feet with gold, his place in history was assured. The swineherd had become immortal.