Having completely subjugated all Anahuac to the east of the Mexican valley, Cortez resolved to found a second Spanish colony in the interior of the country, which should form a half-way station between Villa Rica and the city of Mexico. The site chosen was Tepeaca, and the name given to the settlement was Segura de la Frontera. From this spot Cortez wrote a second letter to Charles V, giving an account of the expedition from the date of the last letter down to the foundation of Segura, and announcing his intention of marching immediately to reconquer Mexico.

It was five months after the date of their expulsion from Mexico before the Spaniards were in a condition once more to march against it. Part of the necessary preparations consisted, as we have seen, in the subjugation of those parts of Anahuac which adjoined the Mexican valley on the east; but another cause of delay was the construction of thirteen brigantines at Tlascala, under the direction of Martin Lopez, a skillful shipwright, who had accompanied Cortez. These vessels were to be taken to pieces, and transported, together with the iron-work and cordage belonging to the ships which Cortez had destroyed off Villa Rica, across the mountains to the great Mexican lake. At length all was ready, and on the 28th of December 1520 the whole army left Tlascala on its march towards Mexico. It consisted of about six hundred Spaniards, with nine cannons, and forty horses, accompanied by an immense multitude of native warriors, Tlascalans, Tepeacans, and Cholulans, amounting probably to sixteen thousand men, besides the tamanes, who were employed in transporting the brigantines. Garrisons had of course been left at Villa Rica and Segura.

No opposition was offered to the invaders on their march, the Mexicans fleeing at their approach; and on the 1st of January, 1521, they took possession of the city of Tezcuco. Cuitlahua, Montezuma’s successor on the throne, was now dead, and his place was occupied by his nephew, Guatemozin, yet a young man, but the most heroic and patriotic of all the Mexicans. The policy of Cortez was first to subdue all the states and cities on the margin of the five lakes, so as to leave Mexico without protection or assistance, and then to direct his whole force to the final reduction of the capital. For four months, therefore, Cortez, Sandoval, Alvarado, and his other officers were employed, sometimes separately, sometimes in concert, in reconnoitering expeditions into various parts of the Mexican valley—​from Chalco, on the banks of the southernmost, to Xaltocan, an island in the northernmost lake. Scarcely a day of these four months was passed in idleness; and it would require far more space than we can afford to do justice to all the engagements in which the Spaniards were victorious, or to all the feats of personal valor performed by Cortez, Alvarado, Olid, Sandoval, and other brave cavaliers. Passing over these, as well as the account of a conspiracy among his men, which the prudence and presence of mind of Cortez enabled him to quash, and of the execution of the Tlascalan chief, Xicotencatl, for deserting the Spaniards, we hasten to the concluding scene.

On the 10th of May, 1521, the siege commenced. Alvarado, with a hundred and fifty Spanish infantry, thirty cavalry, and eight thousand Tlascalans, took up his station at Tlacopan, so as to command the western causeway; Christoval de Olid, with the same number of cavalry and Indians, and a hundred and seventy-five infantry, commanded one of the branches of the southern causeway at Cojohuacan; and Sandoval, with a force nearly equal, the other branch of the same causeway at Iztapalapan. Cortez himself took the command of the flotilla of brigantines. For several days the three captains conducted operations more or less successfully at their respective stations, one of Alvarado’s services having consisted in destroying the pipes which supplied the Mexicans with fresh water, so that, during the rest of the siege, they had no other way of procuring a supply than by means of canoes. The brigantines, when they were launched, did immense service in overturning and dispersing the Mexican canoes, and also in protecting the flanks of the causeways on which the other detachments were pursuing their operations. At length, after much resistance on the part of the Mexicans, the two causeways, the western and the southern, were completely occupied by the Spaniards; and Sandoval having, by Cortez’s orders, made a circuit of the lake, and seized the remaining causeway of Tepejeca, the city was in a state of blockade. But so impatient were the Spaniards of delay, that Cortez resolved on a general assault on the city by all the three causeways at once. Cortez was to advance into the city from Xoloc, Alvarado from his camp on the western causeway, and Sandoval from his camp on the northern, and the three detachments, uniting in the great square in the centre of the city, were to put the inhabitants to the sword. The plan had nearly succeeded. The vanguard of Cortez’s party had chased the retreating Mexicans into the city, and were pushing their way to the great square, when the horn of Guatemozin was heard to sound, and the Aztecs rallying, commenced a furious onset. The neglect of Cortez to fill up a trench in one of the causeways impeded the retreat of the Spaniards in such a way as to cause a dreadful confusion, and it was only by efforts almost superhuman that they were able to regain their quarters. Their loss amounted to upwards of a hundred men, of whom about sixty had been taken alive.

This triumph elated the Mexicans as much as it depressed the Spaniards and their allies. It was prophesied by the Mexican priests that in eight days all the Spaniards should be slain; the gods, they said, had decreed it. This prediction, reported in the quarters of the besiegers, produced an extraordinary effect on the allies. They regarded the Spaniards as doomed men, refused to fight with them, and withdrew to a little distance from the lake. In this dilemma Cortez showed his wonderful presence of mind, by ordering a total cessation of hostilities for the period specified by the Mexican gods. When the eight days were passed, the allies, ashamed of their weakness, returned to the Spanish quarters, and the siege recommenced. These eight days, however, had not been without their horrors. From their quarters the Spaniards could perceive their fellow-countrymen who had been taken prisoners by the Mexicans dragged to the top of the great war temple, compelled to dance round the sanctuary of the gods, then laid on the stone of sacrifice, their hearts torn out, and their bleeding bodies flung down into the square beneath.

Famine now assisted the arms of the Spaniards; still, with that bravery of endurance for which their race is remarkable, the Mexicans continued the defense of the city, and it was not till it had been eaten into, as it were, on all sides, by the Spaniards, that they ceased to fight. On the 14th of August a murderous assault was commenced by the besiegers. It lasted two days; and on the evening of the second some canoes were seen to leave the city, and endeavor to reach the mainland. They were chased, and captured; and on board of one of them was found Guatemozin, with his family and his principal nobles. Guatemozin’s capture was the signal of complete defeat; and on the 16th of August, 1521, the city was surrendered to the Spaniards. The population was reduced to about forty thousand, and in a few days all these had disappeared, no one knew whither. The city was in ruins, like some huge churchyard with the corpses disinterred and the tombstones scattered about.

Thus was the ancient and beautiful city of Mexico destroyed, and its inhabitants slain or dispersed. A monstrous act of unjustifiable aggression had been completed. Following up this great blow, Cortez pursued the conquest of the country generally; and in this, as well as in organizing it into a colony of Spain, he did not experience any serious difficulty. On proceeding to Spain, he was received with honor by Charles V. He returned to Mexico in 1530; and again revisiting Spain in 1540, for the purpose of procuring the redress of real or alleged grievances, he died in 1547, in the sixty-third year of his age. It is very much to be lamented that, in the execution of his purposes of colonization, the monuments of Mexican civilization were everywhere destroyed, leaving nothing to future generations but the broken relics of palaces, temples, and other objects of art, scattered amidst the wilderness. Some of these ruined monuments, recently explored by Stephens and other travelers, show that the ancient Mexicans had made remarkable advances in social life as well as in the arts, more particularly architecture; and what renders all such relics the more interesting to the archæologist, is the growing conviction, that the old Mexican civilization was of an original type—​a thing noway derived from, or connected with, the civilization of Egypt, or any other nation in the eastern hemisphere.

It is consolatory to know that the Spaniards have not succeeded in making Mexico a perpetual tributary of their rapacious monarchy. The cruelties they committed seem to have contained in themselves the elements of retribution. After a career of indolence, oppression, and bigotry, extending to comparatively recent times, their yoke has been thrown off; and their feeble and ignorant successors may be said to be in the course of coming under the thraldom of their Anglo-Saxon neighbors. It is difficult to compassionate the fate which appears to await the slothful and proud race whose ancestors laid the ancient empire of Mexico in ruins.

WILLIAM PENN.

William Penn, the celebrated founder of Pennsylvania, was born in London on the 14th of October, 1644. He was the only son of Sir William Penn, a naval commander of distinction, first during the Protectorate of Cromwell, and afterwards in the service of Charles the II, from whom he received the honor of knighthood. His health having suffered from his active duties, Admiral Penn retired from service in 1666, although then only in the forty-fifth year of his age. His wife, the mother of William Penn, was the daughter of a merchant in Rotterdam.