and courage had endeared him to the Spaniards, who were eager to follow him on any enterprise, however toilsome or perilous; and though guilty of some outrageous cruelties to the Indians, he treated them in general, it is said, with much kindness and justice, and secured their friendship and attachment to a greater degree than any other of the Spanish adventurers. That all his glory should end in disaster and misfortune was a fate which, from the ingratitude of the court or the machinations of their enemies, he shared in common with nearly all the great names of Spanish discovery and conquest.

THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO,

BY HERNANDO CORTES.

CHAPTER I.

THE CONQUEST of cubA-DISCOVERY OF YUCATAN-DISCOVERY OF MEXICO-HERNANDO CORTES-HIS EXPEDITION-BATTLES WITH THE TABASCANS, ETC.-ARRIVAL AT SAN JUAN DE Ulua.

THE brilliancy and rapid succession of Spanish discoveries and conquests, within a few years from the voyage of Columbus, seem astonishing, even in the present age of universal enterprise. Wherever the foot of the Spaniard was planted, the land from that moment seemed subject to his sway, and all its inhabitants the destined ministers to his avarice and pride. Nor was this fatal certainty of triumph confined to those feeble and unwarlike races, such as ever have withered away before the advancing footsteps of the white men. Before the fierce

courage and invincible endurance of Spanish adventure, the most ancient and powerful empires of America, empires strong in a fixed government, and adorned by the graces of civilization, doomed to a destruction as certain as sudden, were destined to vanish from the earth, in the midst of that pride and security from which they had hardly the time to awaken.

It has been mentioned that Columbus, to the day of his death, supposed Cuba to be a portion of the Asiatic continent. Subsequent navigation proved it to be an island, and in 1511 his son Diego, then governor of Hispaniola, dispatched a small expedition, under Diego Velasquez, to reduce it to subjection. The timorous and unwarlike natives opposed little resistance, and, thanks to the good offices of Las Casas, the venerable

advocate of the Indian race, the conquest was disgraced by comparatively few atrocities. One chief, named Hatuey, who had made resistance, was burned alive by the cruel Velasquez. On being urged, at the stake, to embrace Christianity and save his soul, he inquired if the white men would also go to heaven.. On being told that they would, he made the memorable answer, "I will not be a Christian then: for I would not go again to a place where I must find men so cruel."

In February, 1517, one Hernandez de Cordova, sailing from Cuba to the Bahamas in quest of slaves, was driven westward by a succession of gales, and finally found himself on the coast of Yucatan (Cape Catoche). Here he was amazed at the evidences of wealth and civilization-at the massive construction of the buildings, and the native fabrics of cotton and ornaments of gold. Every where the Spaniards were encountered with fierce hostility, and finally, after enduring great suffering, returned to Cuba with less than half their number.

Stimulated by their reports, Velasquez, the governor of that island, in the following year (May 1, 1518) dispatched his nephew Juan de Grijalva, in command of four vessels, to effect fresh discoveries. This squadron, after touching at the island of Cozumel, coasted along the Peninsula, the crews experi encing, wherever they landed, the same fierce and determined resistance. During one contest, they met with annoyance from a singular and ludicrous circumstance. On the field, says one of them, "there was a prodigious swarm of locusts. These animals, during the action, sprang up and struck us in the faces, so that we hardly knew when to put up our shields to guard us, or whether they were arrows or locusts which flew around us, they came so thick together." Coasting westward, the fleet finally arrived at the shores of Mexico. A friendly intercourse was opened with the people, and great store of jewels and gold was obtained in return for trifles. After an absence of six months, during which he had explored much of the Mexican coast, Grijalva returned to Cuba with the renown of his discovery.

The governor, excited by the dispatches which that commander had sent him, was already engaged in the preparation of a larger and more important expedition, the command of which he meant to intrust to Hernando Cortes. This man, so renowned and infamous, was born at Medellin in Estramadura, on the 10th of November, 1485-"the same day," says a pious Spanish author, "that that infernal beast, the false heretic Luther, entered the world-by way of compensation, no doubt, since the labors of the one to pull down the true faith were counterbalanced by those of the other to maintain and extend it." At the age of fourteen, he was sent to the University of Salamanca, where, however, he profited little, passing two years in idleness and dissipation. He returned home, and was on the point of sailing with Ovando for Hispaniola, but was prevented by a serious accident, incurred in the prosecution of an amour. In 1504, at the age of nineteen, he set out to seek his fortune, and sailed for that island in the vessel of one Alonzo Quintero. After a great tempest, the mariners were cheered by seeing a white dove alight on the mast. It has been suggested by some devout Spanish historians that this bird was no other than the Holy Ghost, which thus appeared to take the adventurer under his especial protection.

On arriving at Hispaniola, Cortes met a kind reception from the governor, and was promised a tract of land. "I came to get gold,” he replied, "not to till the soil like a peasant." Nevertheless he accepted the grant, with its accustomed repartiamento of unhappy natives. Under Velasquez, who was then Ovando's lieutenant, he was often employed in suppressing the Indian insurrections, and learned those lessons of daring and cruelty, in which, on a more extended stage, he was yet to prove himself a master.

He accompanied Velasquez in his conquest of Cuba, and, after the subjugation of that island, in 1512, acquired by mining and plantation a considerable sum of money. "God," says the worthy Las Casas, "who alone knows at what cost of Indian

* Of the month, perhaps; for Luther was born in 1483.

lives it was obtained, will take account of it." During this time he married, and was alternately under the favor and displeasure of the governor, who, at one time, it is said, was even on the point of commanding him to be hanged. A reconciliation was, however, effected, and Cortes embarked all his means - in the projected enterprise.

The treasures gained by Grijalva, and his report of the wealth of the country, inflamed a host of rapacious adventurers with the thirst for fresh renown and for richer plunder. "Nothing," says one of them, "was to be seen or spoken of but selling lands to purchase arms and horses, quilting coats of mail, making bread, and salting pork, for sea stores." Three hundred volunteers were speedily assembled in the town of St. Jago. The ambition of Cortes, exalted by the opportunity, induced him to use every exertion to forward the expedition; and the levity and recklessness which he had heretofore displayed, gave way to a grave and aspiring determination.

The instructions of Velasquez were certainly of a liberal and tolerably unexceptionable character. Traffic with the natives, and their conversion, were the principal objects to be attained. Cortes, indeed, was to invite them to give in their allegiance to his master, the king of Spain, "and to manifest it by regaling him with such comfortable presents of gold, pearls, and precious stones, as, by showing their own good-will, would secure his favor and protection." The self-complacent anticipations of the governor were soon grievously disturbed. "One Sunday," says old Diaz,* "going as usual to mass, attended by the most respectable persons of the town and neighborhood, he

* Bernal Diaz del Castillo, the most amusing and reliable of all the Spanish writers on Mexico, was a soldier of distinguished valor, who served throughout the Wars of the Conquest. He was engaged in an hundred and nineteen battles, and was constantly fighting by the side of Cortes, or employed in his service. Being a shrewd and humorous observer, he has left the most lively picture of the manners of the age and nation. In his old age, half a century after the Fall of Mexico, being then Regidor of Guatemala, he sat down to write his story, in which the bluntness of the camp is most agreeably tempered with natural good feeling and the pleasant garrulity of age.