South American Fights and Fighters, Cyrus Townsend Brady [historical books to read TXT] 📗

metaphor from the archery-ground, and gracefully, as it seems, alluding to a former misappreciation of the services of Cortes, the Emperor said that he wished to deal with him as those who contend with the crossbow, whose first shots go wide of the mark, and then {219} they improve and improve, until they hit the centre of the white. So, continued His Majesty, he wished to go on until he had shot into the white of what should be done to reward the Marquis' deserts; and meanwhile nothing was to be taken from him which he then held.

"It was very pleasing to find that Cortes did not forget his old friends the Tlascalans, but dwelt on their services, and procured from the Emperor an order that they should not be given _encomienda_ to His Majesty, or to any other person."

The only reward the Tlascalans got from the Emperor was that, when the other Mexicans were made slaves, they were left at least nominally free, but their republic soon fell into decay and the city in which they had so proudly maintained themselves in their independence, became a desolate ruin. A dirty and squalid village to-day marks the place.

Marina, who had served the Spaniards for the love of the great captain with such fidelity and such success, was cast off by Cortes and compelled to marry one of his officers, whom she scarcely knew. This crushed her spirit. She abandoned her husband and sank into wretched and miserable obscurity, and died at an early age of a broken heart.

Cortes conducted other expeditions, most of them without any great success, as that to Honduras, where he hanged the last of the Aztec Kings. Jealousy arose in the great state which he had founded, and he fell out of favor with the Emperor, who refused to see him, and he was received with cold and bitter reproaches by his wife, whom he married after the death of his former wife, and who had never proved a comfort to him. An admirable marriage which {220} he had arranged for his daughter with one of the highest nobility of Spain failed, his last days were sad and miserable, and he died old, lonely and broken-hearted. I again quote Helps concerning these closing scenes:

"The poets say, 'Care sits behind a man and follows him wherever he goes.' So does ill-success; and henceforward the life of Cortes was almost invariably unsuccessful. There is an anecdote told of him (resting upon no higher authority than that of Voltaire) which, although evidently untrue, tells in a mythical way the reception which Cortes met at the Spanish Court; and his feelings as regards that reception.

"One day he broke through the crowd which surrounded the carriage of the Emperor and jumped on the step.

"'Who are you?' asked the Emperor in astonishment.

"'I am the man,' replied Cortes fiercely, 'who has given you more provinces than your ancestors have left you cities.'

"Quitting fiction, however, and returning to fact, there is a letter extant addressed by Cortes to the Emperor, Charles V., which conveys more forcibly than even a large extent of narrative could do, the troubles, vexations, and disappointments which Cortes had to endure at this latter period of his life, and his feelings with regard to them. It is one of the most touching letters ever written by a subject to a sovereign. I will here translate some of it, greatly condensing those parts of the letter which relate to the business in hand, and which would be as wearisome to the reader to read, as they were to the writer to write; for doubtless, it was not the first time, by many times, {221} that Cortes had set down the same grievance in writing. The letter bears date, Valladolid, the 3rd. of February, 1544. It begins thus:--

"'Sacred Cesarian Catholic Majesty:--I thought that having labored in my youth, it would so profit me that in my old age I might have ease and rest; and now it is forty years that I have been occupied in not sleeping, in eating ill, and sometimes eating neither well nor ill, in bearing armor, in placing my person in danger, in spending my estates and my life, all in the service of God, bringing sheep into his sheep-fold--which were very remote from our hemisphere, unknown, and whose names are not written in our writings--also increasing and making broad the name and patrimony of my King--gaining for him, and bringing under his yoke and Royal sceptre, many and very great kingdoms and many barbarous nations, all won by my own person, and at my own expense; without being assisted in anything, on the contrary, being much hindered by many jealous and evil and envious persons who, like leeches, have been filled to bursting with my blood.'

"He then proceeds to say that for the part which God has had in his labors and watchings he is sufficiently paid, because it was His work; and it was not without a reason that Providence was pleased that so great a work should be accomplished by so weak a medium, in order that it might be seen that to God alone the good work must be attributed.

"Cortes then says that for what he has done for the King, he has always been satisfied with the remuneration he has received. The King has been grateful to him, has honored him, and has rewarded him, and he adds that His Majesty knows that the rewards {222} and honors which the Emperor offered were, in the opinion of Cortes, so far greater than his merits, that he refused to receive them.

"What, however, His Majesty did mean him to receive, he has not received. That which His Majesty has given has been so completely without fruit, that it would have been better for Cortes not to have had it, but that he should have taken care of his own estate, and not spent the fruit of that in defending himself against 'the Fiscal of Your Majesty, which defence has been, and is, a more difficult undertaking than to win the land of the enemy.'

"He then implores His Majesty that he will be pleased to render clear the good will which he had shown to reward him. 'I see myself,' he exclaims, 'old, poor and indebted. Not only have I no repose in my old age, but I can foresee labor and trouble until my death.' And he adds, 'Please God that the mischief may not go beyond death; but may finish with the body, and not exist forever, since whosoever has such toil in defending his bodily estate, cannot avoid injuring his soul.'

"All that he asks is that his appeal may be heard; that members of the King's Council be added to the Council of the Indies; and that the cause may be determined, and judgment given, without further delay. 'For, otherwise, I must leave it and loose it, and must return to my home, as I am no longer of the age to go about to hostelries; and should withdraw myself to make my account clear with God, since it is a large one that I have, and little life is left to me to discharge my conscience; and it will be better for me to lose my estate than my soul.' He concludes by saying that 'he is of Your Catholic Majesty the {223} very humble servant and vassal, who kisses your very royal feet and hands--the Marquis del Valle.'

"In addition to these vexations he had a domestic trouble which doubtless caused him much mortification. His daughter, Donna Maria, was engaged to one of the greatest nobles in Spain; but ultimately the young man refused to fulfil the engagement. Some say that this caused the death of Cortes. But this is not so. He was broken, alike in health and in spirits, by reason of the many reverses he had met with in these his latter days.

"We live, to a great measure, upon success; and there is no knowing the agony that an unvarying course of ill-success causes to a sanguine and powerful mind which feels that, if only such and such small obstacles were removed out of its way, it could again shine forth with all its pristine force and brightness.

"To meet this rejected daughter, who was coming from New Spain, Cortes went to Seville. There he was taken ill, and, being molested by the importunity of many persons who came to see him on business, he retired to a small village, about half a league from Seville, called Castillaje de la Cuesta. He also sought retirement for the purpose, as Bernal Diaz says, of making his will and preparing his soul for death. 'And when he had settled his worldly affairs, our Lord Jesus Christ was pleased to take him from his troublesome world.' He died on the 2nd of December, 1547, being then sixty-two years of age."

His bones were interred in Mexico. During the civil wars of the last century, his bones were taken away and hidden. It is reported that only the other day the place of his sepulchre had been discovered. Some monument to his memory should be erected to {224} match the statue of Guatemoc, which is one of the principal adornments of Mexico.

As is well said by William H. Johnson: "To the honor of Spain be it said, her rule in Mexico was firm and kind. The Indians became thoroughly incorporated into the national life, enjoying the opportunities of advancement as Spaniards. In the present Republic of Mexico the greatest name has been that of Benito Juarez, the president who upheld the national cause during the French-Austrian usurpation. He was of pure Aztec blood. Porfirio Diaz, the gallant soldier who led the army of the Republic during the same trying period, and who, as its president, is a model of a strong and wise ruler, is also, in part, a descendant of the ancient race."

With the following tributes to the great captain the story of his amazing adventures is ended. Says Helps:

"He was the mighty conqueror of one of the most compact and well-ordered barbaric nations of the world--a conqueror who, with a few hundreds of his fellow-countrymen, not all of them his partisans, overcame hundreds of thousands of fanatic and resolute men fighting against him with immense resources, and with a resolution nearly equal to his own. Let us give him the benefit of his sincere belief in Christianity, and his determination to substitute that beneficent religion for the hideous and cruel superstition of the people he was resolved to conquer. And let us echo the wish of that good common soldier, Bernal Diaz, who, though having his grievances against Cortes, as all of the other _Conquistadores_ thought they had, could yet, after watching every turn in the fortunes of the great Marquis, and knowing almost every sin {225} that he had committed, write most tenderly of the great captain whose plume he had so often followed to victory.

"After saying that, subsequently to the conquest of Mexico, Cortes had not had good fortune either in his Californian or his Honduras expedition, or indeed in anything else he had undertaken, Bernal Diaz adds, 'Perhaps it was that he might have felicity in heaven. And I believe it was so, for he was an honorable cavalier, and a devoted worshipper of the Virgin, the Apostle St. Peter and other Saints. May God pardon his sins, and mine too, and give me a righteous ending,