It is difficult, amid the intoxication of the imagination on contemplating such a spectacle,—for there is nothing like it in the history of the whole world—it is difficult, dazzled by military triumph, and seduced by the old sophisms of glory and adventure, to bring the mind steadily to contemplate the real nature and consequences of these events. The names of Cortez and Pizarro, indeed, through all the splendour of that renown with which the acclamations of their interested cotemporaries, and the false morality of their historians have surrounded them, still retain the gloom and terror of their cruelties. But this is derived rather from particular acts of outrageous atrocity, than from a just estimate of the total villany and unrighteous nature of their entire undertakings. Their entrance, assault, and subduction of the kingdoms of Mexico and Peru, were from first to last, in limine et in termino, the acts of daring robbers, on flame with the thirst of gold, and of a spurious and fanatical renown,—setting at defiance every sentiment of justice, mercy and right, and bound by no scruples of honour or conscience, in the pursuit of their object. It is not to be denied that in the prosecution of their schemes, they displayed the most chivalrous courage, and Cortez the most consummate address,—but these are the attributes of the arch-fiend himself—boundless ambition, gigantic talent, the most matchless and successful address without one feeling of pity, or one sentiment of goodness! These surely are not the qualities for which Christians ought to applaud such men as Cortez and Pizarro! They are these false and absurd notions, derived from the spirit of gentile antiquity, that have so long mocked the progress of Christianity, and held civilization in abeyance. It is to these old sophisms that we owe all the political evils under which we groan, and under which we have made all nations that have felt our power groan too. To every truly enlightened and Christian philosopher can there be a more melancholy subject of contemplation, than these romantic empires thus barbarously destroyed by an irruption of worse than Goths and Vandals? But that melancholy must be tenfold augmented, when we reflect what would have been the fate of these realms if Europe had been not nominally, but really Christianized at the moment of their discovery. If it had learned that the “peace on earth and good-will towards men,” with which the children of heaven heralded the gospel into the world, was not a mere flourish of rhetoric,—not a mere phrase of eastern poetry, “beautiful exceedingly;” but actually the promulgation of the grandest and most pregnant axiom in social philosophy, that had ever been, or should be made known to mankind, or that it was possible for heaven itself from the infinitude of its blessedness to send down to it. That in it lay concentrated the perfection of civil policy, the beauty of social life, the harmony of nations, and the prosperity of every mercantile adventure. That it was the triumphant basis, on which arts and sciences, literature and poetry, should raise their proudest fabrics, and society from its general adoption, date its genuine civilization and a new era of glory and enjoyment. Suppose that to have been the mind and feeling of Europe at that time—and it is merely to suppose it to be what it pretended to be—in possession of Christianity—what would have been the simple consequence? To the wonder that thrilled through Europe at the tidings of such discovered states, an admiration as lively would have succeeded. Vast kingdoms in the heart of the new world, with cities and cultivated fields; with temples and palaces; monarchs of great state and splendour; vessels of silver and gold in gorgeous abundance; municipal police; national couriers; and hieroglyphic writing, and records of their own invention! Why, what interesting intelligence to every lover of philosophy, of literature, and of the study of human nature! Genuine intelligence, and enlightened curiosity would have flocked thither to look and admire; genuine philanthropy, to give fresh strength and guidance to this germinating civilization,—and Christian spirits would have glowed with delight at the thought of shewing, in the elevated virtues, the justice, generosity and magnanimity derived by them from their faith, the benefits which it could confer on these growing states.
But to have expected anything of this kind from the Spaniards, would have been the height of folly. They had no more notion of what Christianity is, than the Great Mogul had. They knew no more than what Rome chose to tell them. They were not distinguished by one Christian virtue,—for they had been instructed in none. They were not more barbarous to the Americans, than they were faithless, jealous, malignant, and quarrelsome amongst each other. Disorderly and insubordinate as soldiers, nothing but the terrors of their destructive arms, and the fatal paralysis of mind which singular prophesies had cast on the Americans, could have prevented them from being speedily swept away in the midst of their riot and contention. The idea which the Spaniards had of Christianity, is best seen in the form of proclamation which Ojeda made to the inhabitants of Tierra Firmè, and which became the Spanish model in all future usurpations of the kind. After stating that the popes, as the successors of St. Peter, were the possessors of the world, it thus went on: “One of these pontiffs, as lord of the world, hath made a grant of these islands, and of Tierra Firmè of the ocean sea, to the Catholic kings of Castile, Don Ferdinand and Donna Isabella of glorious memory, and their successors, our sovereigns, with all they contain, as is more fully expressed in certain deeds passed upon that occasion, which you may see if you desire it, (Indians, who neither knew Latin, Spanish, nor the art of reading!). Thus his majesty is king and lord of these islands, and of the continent, in virtue of this donation; and as king and lord aforesaid, most of the islands to which his title hath been notified, have recognised his majesty, and now yield obedience and subjection to him as their lord, voluntarily and without resistance! and instantly, as soon as they received information (from the sword and musket!) they obeyed the religious men sent by the king to preach to them, and to instruct them in our holy faith!... You are bound and obliged (true enough!) to act in the same manner.... If you do this, you act well, and perform that to which you are bound and obliged; his majesty, and I in his name, will receive you with love and kindness, and will leave you and your children free and exempt from servitude, and in the enjoyment of all you possess, in the same manner as the inhabitants of the islands! (ay, love and kindness, such as they had shewn to the islanders. Satan’s genuine glozing—“lies like truth, and yet most truly lies.”) Besides this, his majesty will bestow upon you many privileges, exemptions, and rewards! (Ay, such as they had bestowed on the islanders—but here begins the simple truth.) But if you will not comply, or maliciously delay to obey my injunctions, then, with the help of God, I will enter your country by force; I will carry on war against you with the utmost violence; I will subject you to the yoke of the church and the king; I will take your wives and children, and will make slaves of them, and sell or dispose of them according to his majesty’s pleasure; I will seize your goods, and do all the mischief in my power to you as rebellious subjects, who will not acknowledge or submit to their lawful sovereign. And I protest that all the bloodshed and calamities which shall follow are to be imputed to you, and not to his majesty, or to me, or to the gentlemen who serve under me, etc.”—Herrera.
Here then we have the romance stripped away from such ruffians as Cortez and Pizarro. We have here the very warrant under which they acted—a tissue of such most impudent fictions, and vindictive truths, as could only issue from that great office of delusion and oppression which corrupted all Europe with its abominable doctrine. The last sentence, however, betrays the inward feeling and consciousness of those who used it, that blood-guiltiness was not perfectly removed to their satisfaction, and is a miserable attempt at further self-delusion. These apostles of the sword, before whose proclamation our sarcasms against Mahomet and his sword-creed, fall to the ground, knew only too well that all their talk of love and kindness to the islanders was the grossest falsehood. The Pope’s bull could not blind them to that; and though the misery they inflicted is past, Europe still needs the warning of their deeds, to open its eyes to the nature of much of its own morality.
Cortez commenced his career against Mexico with breach of faith to his employer. It was villain using villain, and with the ordinary results. Velasquez, the governor of Cuba, who had sent out Grijalva, roused by the description of the new and beautiful country which he had coasted, now sought for a man, so humble in his pretensions and so destitute of alliance, that he might trust him with a fleet and force for the acquisition of it. Such a man he believed he had found in Hernando Cortez,—a man, like many other men in Spain, of noble blood, but very ignoble fortune—poor, proud, so hot and overbearing in his disposition and so dissipated in his habits, that his father was glad to send him out as an adventurer. Ovando, governor of Hispaniola, the notorious betrayer of Anacoana, and murderer of her chiefs, was his relation, and received him with open arms as a fit instrument in such work as he had to do. Cortez attended Velasquez in that expedition to Cuba in which the cazique Hatuey was burnt at the stake for his resistance to their invasion, and died bearing that memorable testimony to Spanish Christianity. Velasquez, who had acted the traitor towards Diego Columbus, whose deputy in the government of Cuba he was, had however scarcely sent out Cortez, when he conceived a suspicion that he would show no better faith than he himself had done. Scarcely had Cortez sailed for Trinidad, when Velasquez sent instructions after him, to deprive him of his commission. Cortez eluded this by hastening to the Havanna, where an express also to arrest him was forwarded. Cortez, fully justified the suspicions of Velasquez; for, from the moment that he found himself at the head of a fleet, he abandoned every idea of acknowledging the authority which had put it into his command. He boldly avowed his intentions to his fellow adventurers, and as their views, like his own, were plunder and dominion, he received their applause and their vows of adherence. Thus supported in his schemes of ambition, he set sail for the Mexican coast, with eleven vessels of various burdens and characters. His own, or admiral’s ship, was of a hundred tons, three of seventy or eighty tons, and the others were open boats. He carried with him six hundred and seventeen men; amongst whom were to be found only thirteen muskets, thirty-two cross-bows, sixteen horses, ten small field-pieces, and four falconets. Behold Cortez and his comrades thus on their way to conquer the great kingdom of Mexico, bearing on their great banner the figure of a large cross, and this inscription,—Let us follow the Cross, for under this sign we shall conquer!
“So powerfully,” says Robertson,—to whose curious remarks I shall occasionally draw the attention of my readers,—“were Cortez and his followers animated with both these passions (religion and avarice) that no less eager to plunder the opulent country whither they were bound, than zealous to propagate the Christian faith (!) among its inhabitants, they set out, not with the solicitude natural to men going upon dangerous services, but with that confidence which arises from security of success, and certainty of the divine protection.” No doubt they believed the cross which they followed was the cross of Christ, but every one now will be quite as well satisfied that it was the cross of one of the two thieves, a most fitting ensign for such an expedition. Cortez, indeed, was a fiery zealot, and frequently endangered the success of his enterprise by his assault on the gods and temples of the natives, just as Mahomet or Omar would have done; for there was not a pin to choose between the faith in which he had been educated, and that of the prophet of Mecca. One followed the cross, the other the crescent, but their faith alike was—the sword.[6]
After touching at different spots, to remind the natives of the Christian faith by “routing them with great slaughter,” and carrying off provisions, cotton garments, gold, and twenty female slaves, one of whom was the celebrated woman, called by the Spaniards Donna Marina, who rendered them such services as interpreter, they entered, on the 2nd of April 1519, the harbour of St. Juan de Ulua. Here we are told by the Spanish historians, that the natives came on board in the most friendly and unsuspicious manner. Two of them were officers from the local government, sent to inquire what was the object of Cortez in coming thither, and offering any assistance that might be necessary to enable him to proceed in his voyage. Cortez assured them that he came with the most friendly intentions, to seek an interview with the king, of great importance to the welfare of their country; and next morning, in proof of the sincerity and friendliness of his views, landed his troops and ammunition, and began a fortification. This brought Teutile and Pilpatoe, as Robertson calls them, or Teuhtlile and Cuitlalpita, according to Clavigero, himself a Mexican, the local governors, into the camp with a numerous attendance. Montezuma, the emperor, had been alarmed, as well he might, by the former appearance of the Spaniards on his coast, and these officers urged Cortez to take his departure. He persisted, however, that he must see Montezuma, being come as an ambassador from the king of Spain to him, and charged with communications that could be opened to no one else—falsehoods worthy of a robber, for he not only had no commission from the king of Spain, but was in open rebellion to the Spanish government at the moment. To induce him to depart, these simple people resorted to the same unlucky policy as our ancestors the Saxons did with the Danes, and presented him with a present of ten loads of fine cotton cloth, plumes of various colours, and articles in gold and silver of rich and curious workmanship, besides a quantity of provisions. These not only inflamed his cupidity to the utmost, but another circumstance served to convince him that he had stumbled upon a different country to what any of his countrymen had yet found in America; and stimulated equally his ambition to conquer it. He observed painters at work in the train of Teuhtlile and Pitalpatoe,[7] sketching on cotton cloth, himself, his men, his horses, ships and artillery. To give more effect to these drawings, he sounded his trumpets, threw his army into battle array, put it through a variety of striking military movements, and tore up the neighbouring woods with the discharge of his cannon. The Mexicans, struck with terror and admiration at these exhibitions, dispatched speedy information of all these particulars by the couriers, and in seven days received the answer of the emperor, though his capital was one hundred and eighty miles off, that Cortez must instantly depart the country. But had he had the slightest intention of the kind, the unlucky courtesy of the emperor would have changed his resolve. To render his command the more palatable, he sent an ambassador of rank, with a hundred men of burden carrying presents, and they again poured out before Cortez such a flood of treasures, as astonished him and his greedy followers.
There were boxes full of pearls and precious stones; gold in its native state, and gold wrought into the richest trinkets; two wheels, the one of gold, the other of silver. That of gold, representing the Mexican century, had the image of the sun engraved in the middle, round which were different figures in bass-relief. Bernal Diaz says the circumference was thirty palms of Toledo, and the value of it ten thousand sequins. The one of silver, in which the Mexican year was represented, was still larger, with a moon in the middle, surrounded also with figures in bass-relief.[8] Thirty loads or bales of cotton cloths of the most exquisite fineness, and pictures in feather-work of surprising brilliancy and art. These were all opened out on mats in the most tempting manner; and besides these, was a vizor, which Cortez had desired at the last interview might be filled with gold dust, telling the officer most truly—that “the Spaniards had a disease of the heart which could only be cured by gold.”
Cortez took the presents, and coolly assured the ambassador that he should not quit the country till he had seen the emperor. A third message, accompanied by a third and more peremptory order for his departure, producing no greater effect, the officers left the camp in displeasure, and Cortez prepared to march into the country.
But before he commenced his expedition there were a few measures to be taken. He was a traitor to the governor of Cuba who had sent him out; and the governor had still adherents in the army, who objected to what appeared to them this rash enterprise against so powerful and populous an empire. It was necessary to silence these people, and his mode of doing this reminds one of the solemn artifices of Oliver Cromwell. He held out to the soldiers such prospects of booty as secured them to his interests, and on the discontented remonstrating with him, he appeared to fall in with their views, and gave instant orders for the return home, at the same time sending his emissaries amongst the soldiers to exasperate them against the return. When the order for re-embarkation the next day was therefore issued, the whole army seemed in a fury against it, and Cortez feigning to have believed the order for the return was their own desire, now declared that he was ready to lead them forwards. But this was not sufficient. Knowing that he was a traitor to the trust reposed in him, he resorted to one of those grave farces by which usurpers often attempt to give an appearance of title to their power, though they know well enough the emptiness of it. He laid out the plan of a town,—named it Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz, or the Rich Town of the True Cross, established magistrates and a municipal council, and then appeared before them and resigned his command into their hands, having taken good care that the magistrates were so much his creatures as instantly to re-invest him with it. Assuming now this command, not as flowing from the governor of Cuba, but from the constituted authorities under the crown, and therefore from the crown itself, he immediately seized on the officers who had murmured at his breach of faith, clapped them in chains, and sent them aboard the fleet! So far so good; but the reflection still came, how would all these deeds sound at home? and Cortez therefore took the only means that could secure him in that quarter. He collected all the gold that could be procured by any means, and sent it by the hand of two of the mock magistrates of Vera Cruz to the King of Spain, giving a plausible colouring to their assumption of power independent of Cuba, and soliciting a confirmation of it.