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BOOK towards foreign affairs. The account of Cortes's victories filled his countrymen with admiration. The extent and value of his conquests became the object of vaft and interesting hopes. Whatever ftain he might have contracted, by the irregularity of the steps which he took in order to attain power, was fo fully effaced by the fplendor and merit of the great actions which this had enabled him to perform, that every heart revolted at the thought of inflicting any cenfure on a man, whose services entitled him to the highest marks of diftinction. The public voice declared warmly in favour of his pretenfions, and Charles arriving in Spain about this time, adopted the fentiments of his fubjects with a youthful ardour. Notwithstanding the claims of Velasquez, and the partial representations of the bishop of Burgos, the emperor appointed Cortes captain-general and governor of New New Spain Spain, judging that no person was fo capable of maintaining the royal authority, or of establishing good order both among his Spanish and Indian fubjects, as the victorious leader whom the former had long been accustomed to obey, and the latter had been taught to fear and to respect a.

and is ap

pointed captaingeneral and

governor of

• Herrera, dec. 3. lib. iv. c. 3. Gomara Cron. c. 164, 165. B. Diaz. 167, 168.

EVEN

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and ar

EVEN before his jurisdiction received this legal BOOK fanction, Cortes ventured to exercife all the powers of a governor, and, by various arrange. His fchemes ments, endeavoured to render his conqueft a rangements, fecure and beneficial acquifition to his country. He determined to establish the feat of government in its ancient ftation, and to raise Mexico again from its ruins; and having conceived high ideas concerning the future grandeur of the ftate of which he was laying the foundation, he began to rebuild its capital on a plan which hath gradually formed the most magnificent city in the New World. At the fame time, he employed fkilful perfons to fearch for mines in different parts of the country, and opened fome which were found to be richer than any which the Spaniards had hitherto discovered in America. He detached his principal officers into the remote provinces, and encouraged them to fettle there, not only by bestowing upon them large tracts of land, but by granting them the fame dominion over the Indians, and the fame right to their fervice, which the Spaniards had affumed in the islands,

IT was not, however, without difficulty, that the Mexican empire could be entirely reduced into the form of a Spanish colony. Enraged and rendered defperate by oppreffion, the natives

often

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BOOK often forgot the fuperiority of their enemies, and ran to arms in defence of their liberties. In every conteft, however, the European valour and difcipline prevailed. But fatally for the honour of their country, the Spaniards fullied the glory redounding from thefe repeated victories, by their mode of treating the vanquished people. After taking Guatimozin, and becoming masters of his capital, they fuppofed that the king of Caftile entered on poffeffion of all the rights of the captive monarch, and affected to confider every effort of the Mexicans to affert their own independence, as the rebellion of vaffals against their fovereign, or the mutiny of flaves against their mafter. Under the fanction of thofe ill-founded maxims, they violated every right that thould be held facred between hoftile nations. After each infurrection, they reduced the common people, in the provinces which they fubdued, to the moft humiliating of all conditions, that of perfonal fervitude. Their chiefs, fuppofed to be more criminal, were punifhed with greater feverity, and put to death in the most ignominious or the most excruciating mode, that the infolence or the cruelty of their conquerors could devife. In almost every diftrict of the Mexican empire, the progrefs of the Spanish arms is marked with blood, and with deeds fo atrocious, as difgrace the enterprising valour

that

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91

that conducted them to fuccefs. In the country BOOK ef Panuco, fixty caziques or leaders, and four hundred nobles, were burnt at one time. Nor was this fhocking barbarity perpetrated in any fudden fally of rage, or by a commander of inferior note. It was the act of Sandoval, an officer whofe name is entitled to the fecond rank in the annals of New Spain, and executed after a folemn confultation with Cortes; and to complete the horror of the fcene, the children and relations of the wretched victims were affembled, and compelled to be fpectators of their dying agonies. It seems hardly poffible to exceed in horror this dreadful example of severity; but it was followed by another, which affected the Mexicans ftill more fenfibly, as it gave them a moft feeling proof of their own degradation, and of the small regard which their haughty mafters retained for the ancient dignity and fplendor of their flate. On a flight fufpicion, confirmed by very imperfect evidence, that Guatimozin had formed a scheme to shake off the yoke, and to excite his former subjects to take arms, Cortes, without the formality of a trial, ordered the unhappy monarch, together with the caziques of Tezeuco and Tacuba, the two perfons of greatest eminence in the empire,

* Cortes Relat. 291. C. Gomara Cron. c. 155.

to

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1522.

BOOK to be hanged; and the Mexicans, with aftonishment and horror, beheld this disgraceful punishment inflicted upon perfons, to whom they were accustomed to look up with reverence, hardly inferior to that which they paid to the gods themselves. The example of Cortes and his principal officers encouraged and justified persons of fubordinate rank to venture upon committing greater exceffes. Nuno de Guzman, in particular, ftained an illustrious name by deeds of peculiar enormity and rigour, in various expeditions which he conducted f.

First object of induftry among the conquerors.

ONE circumstance, however, faved the Mexicans from farther confumption, perhaps from one as complete as that which had depopulated-the iflands. The first conquerors did not attempt to fearch for the precious metals in the bowels of the earth. They were neither fufficiently wealthy to carry on the expenfive works, which are requifite for opening thofe deep receffes, where nature has concealed the veins of gold and filver, nor fufficiently skilful to perform the ingenious operations by which those precious metals are feparated from their refpective ores. They were fatisfied with the more fimple

3.

f Gomara Cron. c. 170. B. Diaz. c. 177. Herrera, dec. lib. viii. c. 9. See NOTE VII.

Herrera, dec. 4 & 5 paffim.

method,