ziques or chiefs, and four hundred nobles, were burned at one time. Nor was this shocking barbarity committed in any sudden effect of rage, or by a commander of inferior note; it was the act of Sandoval, who was entitled to the second rank in the annals of New Spain, executed after a solemn consultation with Cortes: and to complete the horror of the scene, the children and relations of the victims were compelled to be spectators of their dying agonies. 557. This dreadful example of severity, was followed by another which affected the Mexicans still more sensibly. On a slight suspicion, confirmed by very imperfect evidence, Guatimozin was charged with attempting to throw off the yoke, and to excite his former subjects to take up arms. Cortes, without the formality of a trial, ordered the unhappy monarch, together with the caziques of Tezcuco and Tacuba, two persons of great eminence in the empire, to be hanged; and the Mexicans beheld, with astonishment, this ignominious punishment inflicted upon persons, whom they had been accustomed to look upon with a reverence, little inferior to that which they paid the gods themselves. 558. When Charles V. advanced Cortes to the government of New Spain, he at the same time appointed commissioners to receive and administer the royal revenue there. These men were astonished, when arriving in Mexico, at the high authority which Cortes exercised. In their letters they represented Cortes as an ambitious tyrant, who, having usurped a jurisdiction superior to law, aimed at independence. These insinuations made such deep impression on the mind of the Spanish ministers, that unmindful of the past services of Cortes, they infused the same supicions into the mind of Charles, and prevailed on' him to order a solemn inquest to be made into his conduct, with powers to the licentiate, Ponce de Leon, intrusted with that commission, to seize his person, if expedient, and send him prisoner to Spain. 559. The sudden death of Ponce de Leon, which happened soon after his arrival in New Spain, prevented the execution of this commission. Cortes beheld the approaching crisis of his fortune, with all the violent emotions natural to a haughty mind, conscious of high desert, and receiving unworthy treatment. His old faithful followers, stung with resentment, advised him to seize that power, which the courtiers were so mean as to accuse him of coveting. 560. Actuated by sentiments of loyalty, he rejected the dangerous advice, and repaired directly to Spain; choosing rather to commit himself and his cause to the justice of his sovereign, than submit to be tried in a country, where he had the chief command, and by a set of interested and partial judges. 561. In the year 1528, Cortes appeared in his native country, with the splendor that suited the conqueror of a mighty kingdom. He brought with him a great part of his wealth, many jewels and ornaments of great value, and was attended by some Mexicans of the first rank, as well as by the most considerable of his own officers. His arrival in Spain removed, at once, every suspicion. The emperor received him as a person entitled to high respect, for the eminence of his services. The order of St. Jago, the title of Marquis del Valle de Guaxaca, the grant of a vast territory in New Spain, were successively bestowed upon him; and he was admitted to the same familiar intercourse with the emperor, as noblemen of the first rank. But amidst these external proofs of regard, some symptoms of remaining distrust appeared. 562. Although he earnestly solicited to be reinstated in the government of New Spain, Charles peremptorily refused to grant his request. The military department, with power to attempt new discoveries, was left in his hands: with this diminished authority he returned to New Spain, and Antonio de Mendoza was sent thither with the title of viceroy. Cortes fitted out several small squadrons, and sent them into the South Sea to make discoveries, which either perished in the attempt, or returned unsuccessful. Being weary of intrusting his operations to others, in the year 1536, he took the command of a new armament, and after enduring incredible hardships discovered the large peninsula of California, and surveyed the greater part of the gulf which separates it from New Spain. 563. The discovery of a country of such extent, would have reflected credit on a common adventurer, but could add little honor to the name of Cortes. Disgusted with ill success, and weary of contending with adversaries, to whom he considered it a disgrace to be opposed, he once more sought for redress in his native country. His fate there was the same with that of all the persons who had distinguished themselves in the discovery of the New World; envied by his contemporaries, and ill requited by the court which he served, he ended his days on the second of December, 1547, in the sixty-second year of his age. 564. The first viceroy of New Spain arrived in 1535. From this period to the year 1808, Mexico was governed by a succession of fifty viceroys, of whom only one was an American by birth, the marquis de Casa Fuerte, a native of Peru. The annals of Mexico, from the conquest to the beginning of the present century, are remarkably devoid of interest. The revolutionary spirit which manifested itself in the other Spanish provinces, spread into Mexico in 1811, and produced an insurrection which was quelled after much bloodshed. 565. In February, 1821, a glorious and effectual revolution took place, which ended in the acknowledgment of the independence of Mexico, by don John O'Donoju, who had been recently appointed captain-general of New Spain by the Spanish government. By the intrigues of the court of Old Spain, Iturbide attempted to establish himself as emperor of Mexico, in 1822; but he was taken prisoner by the republican troops soon after he had effected a landing, put to death, and his family banished. The emissaries of the Spanish monarch still continuing to foment dissensions among the people, a decree was passed by the Mexican Congress, in the beginning of 1828, that all Spaniards should leave the country within three months from the date of it: and though the minds of the inhabitants continued for a time in a high degree of political excitement, there is no doubt that the friends of order and pacific govern ment will maintain the ascendency. CHAPTER IX. ACCOUNT OF PIZARRO.-CONQUEST OF PERU. 566. Having related the daring achievements of Cortes and his followers, and the subjugation of the Mexican empire, it now remains to close the history of South America with the conquest of Peru. The chief actors in this undertaking were Francis Pizarro, Diego Almagro, and Hernando Luquez. 567. Pizarro was the illegitimate son of a gentleman, by a woman of very low birth; and as it frequently happens to the offspring of unlawful love, he was neglected by the author of his birth, who was so unnatural as to set him, when arriving at the years of manhood, to feed his hogs. Young Pizarro could not long brook such an ignoble occupation. His aspiring mind thirsted after military glory, and he enlisted as a soldier; and after serving some years in Italy, embarked for America, where he soon distinguished himself. 568. With a courage no less daring, than the constitution of his body was robust, he was foremost in every danger, and endured the greatest hardships. Though he was so illiterate that he could not read, he was considered as a man formed to command. Every expedition committed to his conduct, proved successful; he was as cautious in executing, as bold in forming, his plans. Engaging early in active life, without any resource but his own talents and industry, and depending upon himself to emerge from obscurity, he acquired such a perfect knowledge of affairs, and of men, that he was qualified to conduct the one, and govern the other. 569. Almagro had as little to boast of his descent. The one was born out of wedlock, the other a foundling. Educated like his companion, in the camp, he was equally intrepid, of insurmountable constancy, in enduring those hardships which were inseparable from military service in the New World. But in Almagro these splendid accomplishments were joined to an openness, generosity, and candor natural to men who profess the military art. In Pizarro, they were united with the address, the craft, and the dissimulation of a politician; he had the art to conceal his own purposes, and sagacity to penetrate those of other men. 570. Hernando de Luquez was an ecclesiastic, who acted both as priest and school-master at Panama, and who had amassed riches that inspired him with thoughts of rising to greater eminence. Such were the men who eventually overturned one of the most extensive empires recorded in history. 571. Their confederacy was authorized by Pedrarias, the governor of Panama, and was confirmed by the most solemn act of religion. Luquez celebrated mass, divided a consecrated host into three parts, of which each had his portion; and thus in the name of the Prince of Peace, ratified a contract, of which plunder and bloodshed were the objects. 572. Pizarro set sail from Panama on the fourteenth of November, 1524, with one single vessel, and an hundred and eighty-two men. Almagro was to conduct the supplies of provisions and reinforcements of troops, and Luquez was to remain at Panama to negotiate with the governor and promote the general interest. Pizarro had chosen the most improper time of the whole year; the periodical winds at that time set in, and were directly adverse to the course he proposed to steer. After beating about for seventy days, his progress towards the south-east was no more than what a skilful navigator will make in as many hours. 573. Notwithstanding Pizarro suffered incredible hardships from famine, fatigue, the hostility of the natives where he landed, the distempers incident to a moist sultry climate, which proved fatal to several of his men; yet his resolution remained undaunted, and he endeavored, by every persuasive art, to reanimate their desponding hopes. At length he was obliged to abandon the inhospitable coast of Terra Firma, and retire to Chucama, opposite to the Pearl Islands, where he hoped to receive a supply of provisions and troops from Panama. 574. Almagro soon after followed him with seventy men, and landing them on the continent, where he had hoped to meet with his associate, was repulsed by the Indians, in which conflict he lost one eye by the wound of an arrow: they likewise were compelled to reimbark, and chance directed them to the place of Pizarro's retreat, where they found some consolation in recounting to each other their sufferings. Notwithstanding all they had suffered, they were inflexibly bent to pursue their original intention. Almagro repaired to Panama, in hopes of recruiting their shattered troops; but his countrymen, discouraged at the recital of the sufferings he and Pizarro had sustained, were not to be persuaded to engage in such hard service: the most he could muster was about fourscore men. 575. Feeble as this reinforcement was, they did not hesitate about resuming their operations, and after a long series of disasters, part of the armament reached the bay of St. Matthew, on the coast of Quito, landed at Tacamez, to the south of the river of Emeralds, and beheld a country more fertile than any they had yet discovered on the Southern Ocean; the natives were clad in garments of woollen, or cotton stuff, and adorned with trinkets of gold and silver. 576. Pizarro and Almagro, however, were unwilling to invade a country so populous, with a handful of men enfeebled by diseases and fatigue. Almagro met with an unfavorable reception from Pedro de los Rios, who had succeeded Pedrarias in the government of Panama. After weighing the matter with that cold economical prudence, esteemed the first of all virtues, by persons of limited faculties, incapable of conceiving or executing great designs, he concluded the expedition detrimental to an infant colony; prohibited the raising new levies, and dispatched a vessel to bring home Pizarro and his companions from the island of Gallo. 577. Almagro and Luquez, deeply affected with these measures, communicated their sentiments privately to Pizarro, requesting him not to relinquish an enterprise on which all their hopes depended, as the means of re-establishing their reputation and fortune. Pizarro's mind, inflexibly bent on all its pursuits, required no incentive to persist in the scheme. He pe. remptorily refused to obey the governor of Panama's orders, |