named him after her, she brought evil on her native land; for without
her aid Tenoctitlan, or Mexico, as they call it now, had never bowed
beneath the yoke of Spain--yes, she forgot her honour in her passion.
And what was her reward, what right came to her of her wrongdoing? This
was her reward at last: to be given away in marriage to another and
a lesser man when her beauty waned, as a worn-out beast is sold to a
poorer master.

Consider also the fate of those great peoples of the land of Anahuac.
They did evil that good might come. They sacrificed the lives of
thousands to their false gods, that their wealth might increase, and
peace and prosperity be theirs throughout the generations. And now the
true God has answered them. For wealth He has given them desolation, for
peace the sword of the Spaniard, for prosperity the rack and the
torment and the day of slavery. For this it was that they did sacrifice,
offering their own children on the altars of Huitzel and of Tezcat.

And the Spaniards themselves, who in the name of mercy have wrought
cruelties greater than any that were done by the benighted Aztecs, who
in the name of Christ daily violate His law to the uttermost extreme,
say shall they prosper, shall their evil-doing bring them welfare? I am
old and cannot live to see the question answered, though even now it
is in the way of answering. Yet I know that their wickedness shall
fall upon their own heads, and I seem to see them, the proudest of the
peoples of the earth, bereft of fame and wealth and honour, a starveling
remnant happy in nothing save their past. What Drake began at Gravelines
God will finish in many another place and time, till at last Spain is of
no more account and lies as low as the empire of Montezuma lies to-day.

Thus it is in these great instances of which all the world may know, and
thus it is even in the life of so humble a man as I, Thomas Wingfield.
Heaven indeed has been merciful to me, giving me time to repent my sins;
yet my sins have been visited on my head, on me who took His prerogative
of vengeance from the hand of the Most High. It is just, and because it
is so I wish to set out the matter of my life's history that others may
learn from it. For many years this has been in my mind, as I have said,
though to speak truth it was her Majesty the Queen who first set the
seed. But only on this day, when I have heard for certain of the fate of
the Armada, does it begin to grow, and who c