[24] Bernal Diaz.
[25] See [page 434].
[26] It has been estimated that the ransom paid by the Inca would be equal, when the greater value of money at that time is allowed for, to three or four million sterling at the present day. It yielded a sum equal for each foot-soldier to £4000, and for each horseman to £8800.
[27] The prisoner was charged with having usurped the crown and assassinated his brother; with having squandered the revenues of the country; with idolatry and polygamy; with attempting to incite insurrection against the Spaniards.
[28] The gallant De Soto, in later years the discoverer of the Mississippi, was absent from the camp when Atahualpa was put to death. On his return he reproached his chief for the unhappy transaction, and maintained that the Inca had been basely slandered. Pizarro, seemingly penitent, admitted that he had been precipitate.
[29] No Inca inhabited the palace of his predecessor; each built for himself.
[30] In this, however, the Mexicans were not greatly more savage than the Spaniards. After the fall of Mexico, Cortes dismissed his Indian allies with various gifts, among which were many bodies of slain enemies, carefully salted for preservation.
[31] A regulation laid down by the Royal Order of 1601 illustrates the spirit which pervades Spanish legislation. Leave is given to employ Indians in the cultivation of coca. But inasmuch as coca is grown in rainy districts and on humid ground, and the Indians in consequence become ill, the master of the plantation is forbidden, under penalties, to allow Indians to begin work until they are provided with a change of clothes.
[32] This neglect was continued almost to the close. The Duke of Newcastle, who had charge of the colonies during Sir Robert Walpole’s administration, neglected his duties so entirely that he ceased even to read the letters which came to him from America. “It would not be credited what reams of paper, representations, memorials, petitions from that quarter of the world lay mouldering and unopened in his office.”
[33] This intolerable exaction was in course of time reduced to one-fifth, and finally to one-twentieth.