m he found had neglected anything in this way he severely
reprimanded, and compared them to mangy sheep, whose own wool is too
heavy for them.'

"I have said that he was cruel in conduct, but not in disposition.
This statement requires explanation. Cortes was a man who always
determined to go through with the thing he had once resolved to do.
Human beings, if they came in his way, were to be swept out of it, like
any other material obstacles. He desired no man's death, but if people
would come between him and success, they must bear the consequences.
He did not particularly value human life. The ideas of the nineteenth
century in that respect were unknown to him. He had come to conquer,
to civilize, to convert (for he was really a devout man from his youth
upward); and, as his chaplain takes care to tell us, knew many prayers
and psalms of the choir by heart; and the lives of thousands of
barbarians, for so he deemed them, were of no account in the balance of
his mind, when set against the great objects he had in view. In saying
this, I am not apologizing for this cruelty; I am only endeavoring to
explain it.

"Of all the generals who have been made known {120} to us in history,
or by fiction, Claverhouse, as represented by Sir Walter Scott, most
closely resembles Cortes. Both of them thorough gentlemen, very
dignified, very nice and precise in all their ways and habits, they
were sadly indifferent to the severity of the means by which they
compassed their ends; and bloody deeds sat easily, for the most part,
upon their well-bred natures. I make these comments once for all; and
shall hold myself excused from making further comments of a like nature
when any of the cruelties of Cortes come before us--cruelties which one
must ever deeply deplore on their own account, and bitterly regret as
ineffaceable strains upon the fair fame and memory of a very great man.
. . . The conquest of Mexico could hardly have been achieved at this
period under any man of less genius than that which belonged to
Hernando Cortes. And even his genius would probably not have attempted
the achievement, or would have failed in it, but for a singular
concurrence of good and evil fortune, which contributed much to the
ultimate success of his enterprise. Great difficulties and fearful
conflicts of fortune not only stimulate to great attempts, but
absolutely create the opportunities for them."

II. The Expedition to Mexico.

Reports br