His power over the minds of his soldiers was a natural result of their confidence in his abilities. But it is also to be attributed to his popular manners—that happy union of authority and companionship which fitted him for the command of a band of roving adventurers. It would not have done for him to have fenced himself round with the stately reserve of a commander of regular forces. He was embarked with his men in a common adventure, and nearly on terms of equality, since he held his commission by no legal warrant. But while he indulged this freedom and familiarity with his soldiers, he never allowed it to interfere with their strict obedience, nor to impair the severity of discipline. When he had risen to higher consideration, although he affected more state, he still admitted his veterans to the same intimacy. “He preferred,” says Diaz, “to be called ‘Cortés’ by us, to being called by any title; and with good reason,” continues the enthusiastic old cavalier, “for the name of Cortés is as famous in our day as was that of Cæsar among the Romans, or of Hannibal among the Carthaginians.” He showed the same kind regard toward his ancient comrades in the very last act of his life; for he appropriated a sum by his will for the celebration of two thousand masses for the souls of those who had fought with him in the campaigns of Mexico.
His character has been unconsciously traced by the hand of a master—
“And oft the chieftain deigned to aid
And mingle in the mirth they made;
For though, with men of high degree,
The proudest of the proud was he,
Yet, trained in camps, he knew the art
To win the soldier’s hardy heart.
They love a captain to obey,
Boisterous as March, yet fresh as May;
With open hand, and brow as free,
Lover of wine and minstrelsy;
Ever the first to scale a tower,
As venturous in a lady’s bower;
Such buxom chief shall lead his host
From India’s fires to Zembla’s frost.”
Cortés, without much violence, might have sat for this portrait of Marmion.
Cortés was not a vulgar conqueror. He did not conquer from the mere ambition of conquest. If he destroyed the ancient capital of the Aztecs, it was to build up a more magnificent capital on its ruins. If he desolated the land and broke up its existing institutions, he employed the short period of his administration in digesting schemes for introducing there a more improved culture and a higher civilization. In all his expeditions he was careful to study the resources of the country, its social organization, and its physical capacities. He enjoined it on his captains to attend particularly to these objects. If he was greedy of gold, like most of the Spanish cavaliers in the New World, it was not to hoard it, nor merely to lavish it in the support of a princely establishment, but to secure funds for prosecuting his glorious discoveries. Witness his costly expeditions to the Gulf of California.
His enterprises were not undertaken solely for mercenary objects, as is shown by the various expeditions he set on foot for the discovery of a communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific. In his schemes of ambition he showed a respect for the interests of science, to be referred partly to the natural superiority of his mind, but partly, no doubt, to the influence of early education. It is, indeed, hardly possible that a person of his wayward and mercurial temper should have improved his advantages at the university, but he brought away from it a tincture of scholarship seldom found among the cavaliers of the period, and which had its influence in enlarging his own conceptions. His celebrated letters are written with a simple elegance that, as I have already had occasion to remark, have caused them to be compared to the military narrative of Cæsar. It will not be easy to find in the chronicles of the period a more concise yet comprehensive statement, not only of the events of his campaigns, but of the circumstances most worthy of notice in the character of the conquered countries.
Cortés was not cruel; at least, not cruel as compared with most of those who followed his iron trade. 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 apologist will find it hard to vindicate. But he was not cruel. He allowed no outrage on his unresisting foes. This may seem small praise, but it is an exception to the usual conduct of his countrymen in their conquests, and it is something to be in advance of one’s time. He was severe, it may be added, in enforcing obedience to his orders for protecting their persons and their property. With his licentious crew, it was sometimes not without hazard that he was so. After the Conquest, he sanctioned the system of repartimientos; but so did Columbus. He endeavored to regulate it by the most humane laws, and continued to suggest many important changes for ameliorating the condition of the natives. The best commentary on his conduct, in this respect, is the deference that was shown him by the Indians, and the confidence with which they appealed to him for protection in all their subsequent distresses.
MARTIN LUTHER.
By THOMAS CARLYLE.
[Leader of the German Reformation, born 1483, died 1546. Educated at the University of Erfurt, and originally intending to become a lawyer, he was carried by religious enthusiasm into an Augustinian convent. After taking orders he became in a few years Professor of Philosophy in the Wittenberg University, and Doctor of Theology. It was not till the promulgation of indulgences for sin, issued by Pope Leo V to raise funds for the building of the Cathedral of St. Peter’s at Rome, that Luther took a stand antagonistic to the Roman Church. He posted ninety-five Latin theses on the door of the Wittenberg church as a protest, which contained the germ of the Protestant doctrine. This bold act kindled a fire throughout Europe. Luther’s celebrated disputation with Doctor Eck, and his fierce pamphlets against Rome, which were scattered broadcast by the press, added fuel to the flames, and he was soon supported by the sympathy and adherence of many of the nobles, particularly George of Saxony, the reformer’s own electoral prince, as well as by the support of large masses of the people. Luther was excommunicated in 1520, and in the same year was summoned to answer before Charles V, the German emperor,
