fighter. But Cortés cannot be put in this class. He had no Idea in advance of his age; in all but courage and military skill he appears behind his times. No noble thought, no lofty sentiment seems to have inspired him; none such breathes in his words or deeds. Mr. Prescott says he was not a "mere fighter," but we see nothing else that can be said to distinguish him from the rest of men. He was one of the most vulgar of fighters; he loved the excitement of adventurous deeds; he sought vulgar fame, and vulgar wealth and power, by vulgar means for vulgar ends. Few distinguished conquerors were so ignoble. He came among the red men of America, they began by calling him a god, and ended with hating him as the devil. In the hot region of Mexico he was treated with great kindness; his companions "experienced every alleviation that could be desired from the attentions of the friendly nations." They made more than a thousand booths for the Spaniards, and freely gave provisions for Cortés and his officers. Montezuma sent to learn who we were, says Diaz, and what we wanted for our ships; we were only to tell what we wanted, and they were to furnish it. The Indians who attached themselves to his standard were faithful; of the Tlascalans only Xicotencatl proved untrue. But Cortés was crafty, insidious, and deceitful. He fomented discontent; he encouraged the disaffected nations to rely on his protection, "as he had come to redress their wrongs," while he came to steal their possessions and their persons. He told his own soldiers they were to fight against rebels who had revolted from their liege lord; against barbarians, the enemies of Christianity; to fight the battles of the cross, to obtain riches and honor in this life and imperishable glory in Heaven.

He was unjust to his own soldiers, seizing more than his share of the booty. Diaz complains of this oftener than Mr. Prescott; even the food was sometimes unjustly divided. (Diaz, Cap. 105 et al.) Did the soldiers complain, Cortés made a speech full of "the most honeyed phrases and arguments most specious," (palabras muy mellifluas,

razones muy bien dichas.) Some he bribed into silence with gold, others with promises; some he put in chains. Were the captives to be divided, he not only selected first the king's fifth thereof and his own, but the finest of the women were secretly set apart, so that, as one of these missionaries complains, (Diaz, Cap. 135,) the common soldiers found only "old and ugly women" left for them. After the spoil was divided in

this unjust fashion, he would not always allow the soldiers to keep their scanty share, but once demanded one third of it back again, and insisted that if it were not restored, he would take the whole. Under pretence of loans, he extorted a good deal from his own soldiers- a circumstance which injured him much, says Diaz. Mr. Prescott thinks such occasions were "critical conjunctures which taxed all the address and personal authority of Cortés. He never shrank from them, but on such occasions was true to himself." (Vol. II., p. 207.) But truth to himself was falseness to his soldiers. He would violate his word to them for the sake of more plunder. Much as they honored and feared him, few loved him much, and in one of his most trying times, says the same old soldier we have often quoted, they all grudged him a handful of maize to stay his hunger. (Cap. 156.)

Cortés was needlessly cruel; this appears in the slaughter at Tabasco, and in the massacre at Cholula, which even Mr. Prescott thinks a dark stain on the memory of the conquerors. His punishments often appear wanton: -he orders a man to be killed for stealing a pair of fowls, another for speaking angrily to Montezuma; he has the feet of his pilot chopped off for some offence; he took fifty Tlascalans who came to his camp as spies, cut off their hands, and sent them home. The friendly Indians were curious to see the Spaniards, and came too near the lines of their encampment, and Cortés coolly relates that fifteen or twenty of them were shot down by the sentries. Mr. Prescott excuses this: the "jealousy of the court and the cautions he had received from his allies seem to have given an unnatural acuteness . to his perceptions of danger." (Vol. II., p. 59.) After the conquest an insurrection took place and was speedily put down; four hundred chiefs were sentenced to the stake or the gibbet, "by which means," says Cortés, "God be praised, the safety of the Spaniards was secured." He burnt alive some of Montezuma's officers, who were guilty of no offence but that of obeying their king; at the same time he punished Montezuma for giving them the order. He tortured the members of Guatemozin's household, putting boiling oil upon their feet. This great apostle to the Gentiles put Guatemozin himself and the cacique of Tacuba to the torture - not exactly to save his soul," so as by fire," but to get his gold. Afterwards, on a groundless suspicion, he treacherously hung them both. Mr. Prescott shows little horror at these cruelties, little sense

of their injustice; nay, he seems to seek to mitigate the natural indignation which a man feels at such tyranny of the strong over the weak. We confess our astonishment that an historian who thinks the desire of converting the heathen was the paramount motive in the breast of Cortés, has no more censure to bestow on such wanton cruelties, so frequently perpetrated as they were. The soldiers of the cross, going on their mission of mercy, to snatch the Indians from the fires of hell, dress the wounds of their horses with melted fat cut from the bodies of the natives they were to convert (Diaz, Cap. 34); Mr. Prescott makes no comment. Cortés has the slaves branded with a hot iron in the cheek. Diaz mentions this more than ten times; Mr. Prescott but twice, and then has no word to say more than if they had been baptized with water.

The massacre at Cholula was terrible as it was needless and wanton. "More than three thousand of the enemy perished in ten hours," says Cortés. Mr. Prescott confesses this has "left a dark stain on the memory of the conquerors," that he does not intend to vindicate their cruel deeds, and then undertakes to excuse this very cruelty. We confess our astonishment at such an excuse. (Vol. II., (Vol. II., 29-36.)

The massacre at Mexico, after the capture of the city, was terrible. We will not dwell upon it, nor recount its bloody details. Cortés had destroyed town after town; army after army had he swept off. It is within bounds to say that half a million men had been put to the sword since the Spaniards came thither, desirous above all things to convert their precious souls; now the mighty capital - the centre of civilization in North America, whose influence had been felt from the Mexique Gulf to the Bay of Fundy, along either shore of the continent has fallen; Guatemozin is captured; the wide rich empire lies submissive at his feet; Cortés himself— all iron as he was and smeared with guiltless blood-is moved with compassion; the nation is to be blotted out. But Mr. Prescott has no sympathy with the Mexicans; nay, he pauses to avert the sympathy of other men, interposing his shield of ice between the victim and the compassion of mankind. He says:

"We cannot regret the fall of an empire which did so little to promote the happiness of its subjects or the real interests of humanity." The Aztecs were emphatically a fierce and brutal race, little calculated, in their best aspects, to excite our sympathy and regard. Their civilization, such as it was, was not their

own, but reflected, perhaps imperfectly, from a race whom they had succeeded. It was a generous graft on a vicious stock, and could have brought no fruit to perfection. They ruled over their wide domains with a sword instead of a sceptre. They did nothing in any way to ameliorate the condition, or in any way promote the progress, of their vassals. Their vassals were serfs, used only to minister to their pleasure." (Vol. III., pp. 215, 216.)

"The feeble light of civilization," he says, "was growing fainter and fainter." He gives not a single fact to warrant this latter statement, but even if it were true, the Spaniards did not mend the matter by overturning the candlestick and putting their bloody heel on the flickering torch. He attempts to remove any little compassion which may linger in his reader's heart the Mexicans were guilty of human sacrifices; they also were cannibals. True, and it is a horrible thing to think of; but think of the butcheries committed by the Spaniards, also in the name of God; try each nation by its light, and which is the worse the cannibal or the Christian? Mr. Prescott tries to excuse the barbarities of the conquerors: when any of the inhabitants fell into their hands, "they were kindly entertained, their wants supplied, and every means taken to infuse into them a spirit of conciliation." The sad shades of Montezuma and Guatemozin-what will they say to that? Diaz informs us of the "means taken" in many an instance. They were reduced to slavery, branded with a hot iron in the cheek. This was the kindly entertainment they met with from those Christian missionaries, who held their lands on condition of converting the natives. We might nat urally look for justice from an American writer, with no national prejudice to blind him. But no, his sympathy is wholly with the conquerors; the Spirit of Chivalry is mightier with him than the Spirit of Humanity. Bustamente, however, spite of the Spanish blood in his veins, writing on the spot made famous by the deeds of Cortés and his followers, wishes a monument might be erected to Guatemozin, on the spot where he was taken captive, and an inscription thereon to "devote to eternal execration the detested memory of those banditti." The work is needless; themselves have erected a monument "more lasting than brass," telling of their power and their prowess, but also of their more than heathen cruelty, their tyranny, and their shame. The rhetoric of Mr. Prescott cannot hide them from the justice of mankind.

We have little to say of the subsequent career of Cortés. He made a bold and desperate expedition to the southern part of North America, enduring wonderful hardships, fighting with his usual skill and courage. Mexico was settled by hungry Spaniards, the natives mainly reduced to slavery. Cortés became rich and powerful. He was accused before the Emperor, and defended himself. He received great honors in Spain, when he returned thither. He settled down on an estate in Mexico. He died at length in Spain, but in his will expresses doubts "whether one can conscientiously hold property in Indian slaves." Mr. Prescott writes the eulogy of his hero, which we have not space to criticize. But there are two ways of judging such a man: one is that of Humanity. Here the inquirer looks over the whole field of history, impartially weighs the good and ill of a man, allows for his failings if they belong to his age, and detracts from his individual merits if they also are held in common with the mass of men, but judges the age and its institutions by the standard of absolute justice. This is the work of the philosophic historian. The other way is that of Personal Admiration of the hero. We are sorry to say that Mr. Prescott has taken the latter course. Crime is one thing; but the theory which excuses, defends, justifies crime is quite a different thing, is itself not to be justified, defended, or excused. We are sorry to add the name of Mr. Prescott to the long list of writers who have a theory which attempts to justify the crime against mankind, the tyranny of Might over Right. We are sorry to say of this work in general, and on the whole, that it is not written in the Philosophy of this age, and, still worse, not in the Christianity, the wide Humanity, which is of mankind. We know this is a severe judgment, and wish we might be mistaken in pronouncing it, but such are the facts.

Mr. Prescott has little sympathy with the natives. Marina, unmarried and a captive, becomes the concubine of Cortés, a married man and a conqueror. Her religion allowed the connection, it was not uncommon; his religion forbade it, and he was living" in mortal sin." She seems to have loved him truly and with all her heart. To him she was a useful instrument, personally as his concubine, politically as his interpreter and diplomatic agent. Mr. Prescott says, "she had her errors, as we have seen.' (Vol. I., p. 297.) The only error he alludes to was her connection with Cortés, not held unlaw. ful, against nature or custom, there; but no censure is passed