“You may consider yourselves fortunate in not losing your lives,” he at last answered. “We have sworn to kill every white man we meet; and you have to thank your friend Manco, on account of the love all the Indians bear him, that we have not killed you; so be content and say no more.”
The old chief who had first taken us prisoners, finding himself thus unceremoniously deprived of our company, left us to our fate, and for some time we rode on in silence among the general’s body-guard. Every man in the army seemed to be talking at the same time. They were, I found, boasting to each other of the deeds of valour they had performed, of the enemies they had slain, and of the booty they had collected. The general after some time called us to his side, and asked us if we could inform him what the Spaniards were about, and whether they were likely to attack the Indian armies.
“Tell him,” I said to Pedro, “that the Spaniards will never consent to yield up the country to the natives. They are only waiting to assemble their forces, to endeavour to regain the places they have lost. If they have not men enough here, they will send to Spain for more, and for guns and artillery, and all the munitions of war. They will soon appear, well armed and disciplined; and a hundred of their troops will be a match for a thousand or even two thousand Indians. The only chance of success the Indians have is to be united, to act under one chief, and to follow up each advantage, till they have driven the Spaniards from their shores.”
“Very good,” said the general. “I will be that chief, and will follow the advice of the English stranger.”
And he drew himself up proudly in his saddle, as if he was about to become Inca of Peru. I saw after this, that any advice I could offer to him would be thrown away; besides, I doubted much whether I was justified in offering encouragement to the Indians. I felt that they had been most unjustly and cruelly treated, and certainly desired to see them obtain their emancipation; but at the same time, I saw that there was little or no hope of their ever regaining their country, or restoring the ancient dynasty of the Incas; and that the attempt would only cause a vast amount of bloodshed, and too probably end in their total destruction. As an Englishman, too. I regretted that I had no business to interfere in a cause which, just as it certainly was, if maintained properly, was not my own; and I resolved, therefore, to be silent for the future.
The dreadful cruelties committed by the Indians had horrified me; and the romance with which I had at first invested their brave attempt at emancipation, had vanished on a nearer inspection of the means by which they were carrying it out. I never did and never can believe that the end justifies the means. God’s righteous laws must be implicitly obeyed; and no reasons which we may offer can excuse us for neglecting them. Yet we may be allowed to believe that he weighs our actions of good or evil by the knowledge we possess through the light of His word; and acts which, committed by us, might be unpardonable, may, when perpetrated by ignorant savages, be overlooked through His mercy in the day of judgment.
From the time that the Christian and the civilised Europeans first landed in Peru, they treated the ignorant and heathen natives with the greatest cruelty; and thus taught by their task-masters, they, on the first opportunity, showed that they had not forgotten the lessons they had received, but treated them as they themselves had been treated. Had the Spaniards taught the Peruvians mercy, justice, and piety, by their own example, this terrible outbreak would never have occurred, and the weaker race would have become willing servants to the stronger. We ought always to bear in mind that it is by the just administration of good laws, and by the conduct of the rich, the educated, and the powerful, that the lower orders are educated, as much, or even more, than by the lessons given them by their nominal instructors.
Ministers of religion will preach in vain from the pulpit, and schoolmasters will find their efforts useless, unless the upper orders set a good example. I entreat my young friends to recollect that they belong to the educated classes, whose behaviour is sure to be imitated by those below them. If their conduct is unchristian, irreligious, or immoral, they will not only have their own sins to answer for at the day of judgment, but the sins of those whom they by their example have led astray. The dreadful excesses committed by the lower orders during the French Revolution were the results of the irreligious and immoral conduct and teaching of the upper classes in France. The Peruvian Indians, who were guilty of the terrible atrocities I have mentioned, were mostly, in name at least, Christians, and had Christian priests ministering to them; but their teaching appears to have had no effect in restraining them from acts totally at variance with all the principles of Christianity. How could they, indeed, have faith in a creed professed by men who, from the time of their first appearance in their country, had not scrupled to murder, to plunder, to ill-treat, and to enslave them?
It is worthy of remark, that when the Indians destroyed every other human being in the places they attacked, they in many instances saved the lives of the priests. I suspect, however, that they did so, not so much that they respected their sacred character, but because in their superstition they fancied they were possessed of supernatural powers, which might be exercised for their punishment if they ventured to injure them. There were many enlightened and patriotic men among the Indians; and from all I heard of Tupac Amaru and his family, they were worthy of a happier fate than befell them. I shall have to describe their subsequent history as I proceed in my narrative.