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, show