mes, and the men, both
Aztecs and Christians, it was not to be expected.

Personally, I love the memory of Guatemoc for his heroism and his
devotion. I also have a warm feeling {226} for Cortes. It is true, as
has been stated, that he was a child of his age, but he was the best
child of his age, and it was not his fault altogether that in some
respects it was the worst age. The Spanish rule in Mexico was better
than the Spanish rule in Peru, and Cortes and his successors, by the
side of Pizarro and his successors, were almost angels of light.

I close with these noble words of John Fiske in his great and highly
valued _Discovery of North America_:

"A great deal of sentimental ink has been shed over the wickedness of
the Spaniards in crossing the ocean and attacking people who had never
done them any harm, overturning and obliterating a 'splendid
civilization,' and more to the same effect. It is undeniable that
unprovoked aggression is an extremely hateful thing, and many of the
circumstances attendant upon the Spanish conquest in America were not
only heinous in their atrocity, but were emphatically condemned, as we
shall presently see, by the best moral standards of the sixteenth
century. Yet if we are to be guided by strict logic, it would be
difficult to condemn the Spaniards for the mere act of conquering
Mexico without involving in the same condemnation our own forefathers
who crossed the ocean and overran the territory of the United States
with small regard for the proprietary rights of Algonquins, or
Iroquois, or red men of any sort. Our forefathers, if called upon to
justify themselves, would have replied that they were founding
Christian states and diffusing the blessings of a higher civilization;
and such, in spite of much alloy in the motives and imperfection in the
performance, was certainly the case. Now if we would not lose or
distort the historical perspective, we must bear in mind that the
Spanish conquerors would have returned {227} exactly the same answer.
If Cortes were to return to the world and pick up some history book in
which he is described as a mere picturesque adventurer, he would feel
himself very unjustly treated. He would say that he had higher aims
than those of a mere fighter and gold-hunter; and so doubtless he had.
In the complex tangle of motives that actuated the mediaeval
Spaniard--and in his peninsula we may apply the term mediaeval to later
dates than would be proper in