 Book 6, Chapter 6 of the History of the Conquest of Mexico. History of the Conquest of Mexico by William H. Prescott. Book 6, Chapter 6. General assault on the city, defeat of the Spaniards, their disastrous condition, sacrifice of the captives, defection of the allies, constancy of the troops. Famine was now working its way into the heart of the beleaguered city. It seemed certain that, with this strict blockade, the crowded population must in the end be driven to capitulate, though no arms should be raised against them. But it required time, and the Spaniards, though constant and enduring by nature, began to be impatient of hardships scarcely inferior to those experienced by the besieged. In some respects their condition was even worse, exposed as they were to the cold, drenching rains, which fend with little intermission, rendering their situation dreary and disastrous in the extreme. In this state of things there were many who would willingly have shortened their sufferings and taken the chance of hearing the place by a coup de main. Others thought it would be best to get possession of the great market of Tlatelolco, which from its situation in the southwestern part of the city, might afford the means of communication with the camps of both Alvarado and Sandoval. This place, encompassed by spacious porticos, would furnish the accommodations for a numerous host, and, once established at the capital, the Spaniards would be in a position to follow up the blow with far more effect than at a distance. These arguments were pressed by several of the officers, particularly by Alderete, the royal treasurer, a person of much consideration, not only from his rank, but from the capacity and zeal he had shown in the service. In deference to their wishes Cortes summoned a council of war and laid the matter before it. The treasurer's views were espoused by most of the high meddled cavaliers, who looked with eagerness to any change of their present forlorn and weary some life, and Cortes, thinking it probably more prudent to adopt the less expedient course than to enforce a cold and reluctant obedience to his own opinion, suffered himself to be overruled. The day was fixed for the assault, which was to be made simultaneously by the two divisions under Alvarado and the commander-in-chief. Sandoval was instructed to draw off the greater part of his forces from the northern Cosway, and to unite himself with Alvarado, while seventy-picked soldiers were to be detached to the support of Cortes. On the appointed morning the two armies, after the usual celebration of mass, advanced along their respective Cosways against the city. They were supported, in addition to the brigantines, by a numerous fleet of Indian boats, which were to force a passage up the canals and by a countless multitude of allies whose very numbers served in the end to embarrass their operations. After clearing the suburbs, three avenues presented themselves, which all terminated in the square of Tlatelolco. The principal one, being of much greater width than the other two, might rather be called a Cosway than a street, because it was flanked by deep canals on either side. Cortes divided his force into three bodies. One of them he placed under Alderete, with orders to occupy the principal street. A second he gave in charge to Andres de Tapia and Jorge de Alvarado, the former, a cavalier of courage and capacity, the latter, a younger brother of Don Pedro, and possessed of the intrepid spirit which belonged to that chivalrous family. These were to penetrate by one of the parallel streets, while the general himself, at the head of the third division, was to occupy the other. A small body of cavalry, with two or three field pieces, was stationed as a reserve in front of the great street of Tacuba, which was designated as the rallying point for the different divisions. Cortes gave the most positive instructions to his captains not to advance a step without securing the means of retreat by carefully filling up the ditches and the openings in the Cosway. The neglect of this precaution by Alvarado, in an assault which he had made in the city but a few days before, had been attended with such serious consequences to his army that Cortes wrote over himself to his officers' quarters for the purpose of publicly reprimanding him for his disobedience of orders. On his arrival at the camp, however, he found that his offending captain had conducted the affair with so much gallantry that the intended reprimand, though well deserved, subsided into a mild rebuke. The arrangements being completed, the three divisions marched at once up the several streets. Cortes, dismounting, took the van of his own squadron at the head of his infantry. The Mexicans fell back as he advanced, making less resistance than usual. The Spaniards pushed on, carrying one barricade after another, and carefully filling up the gaps with rubbish so as to secure themselves of footing. The Canoes supported the attack by moving along the canals and grappling with those of the enemy, while numbers of the nimble-footed Tluscalans, scaling the terraces, passed on from one house to another where they were connected, hurtling the defenders into the streets below. The enemy, taken apparently by surprise, seemed incapable of withstanding for a moment the fury of the assault, and the victorious Christians, cheered on by the shouts of triumph which arose from their companions in the adjoining streets, were only the more eager to be the first at the destined goal. Indeed, the facility of his success led the general to suspect that he might be advancing too fast, that it might be a device of the enemy to draw them into the heart of the city, and then surround or attack them in the rear. He had some misgivings moreover, lest his two ardent officers, in the heat of the chase, should not withstanding his commands, have overlooked the necessary precaution of filling up the breaches. He accordingly brought his squadron to a halt, prepared to battle any insidious movement of his adversary. Meanwhile, he received more than one message from Alderete, informing him that he had nearly gained the market. This only increased the general's apprehension, that, in the rapidity of his advance, he might have neglected to secure the ground. He determined to trust no eyes but his own, and, taking a small body of troops, proceeded to reconnoiter the route followed by the treasurer. He had not proceeded far along the great street or causeway, when his progress was arrested by an opening ten or twelve paces wide and filled with water, at least two fathoms deep, by which a communication was formed between the canals on the opposite sides. A feeble attempt had been made to stop the gap with the rubbish of the causeway, but in too careless a manner to be of the least service, and a few straggling stones and pieces of timber only showed that the work had been abandoned almost as soon as begun. To add to his consternation, the general observed that the sides of this causeway in this neighborhood had been pared off, and as was evident very recently. He saw in all this the artifice of the cunning enemy, and had little doubt that his hot-headed officer had rushed into a snare deliberately laid for him. Deeply alarmed, he set about repairing the mischief as fast as possible by ordering his men to fill up the yawning chasm. But they had scarcely begun their labors when the horse echoes of conflict in the distance were succeeded by a hideous sound of mingled yells and war-woops that seemed to rend the very heavens. This was followed by a rushing noise as of the tread of thronging multitudes, showing that the tide of battle was turned back from its former course, and was rolling on towards the spot where Cortes and his little band of cavaliers were planted. His conjecture proved too true. Alderete had followed the retreating Aztecs with an eagerness which increased with every step of his advance. He had carried the barricades which had defended the breach without much difficulty, and, as he swept on, gave orders that the opening should be stopped. But the blood of the high-spirited cavaliers was warmed by the chase, and no one cared to be detained by the ignoble occupation of filling up the ditches while he could gather laurels so easily in the fight. And they all pressed on, exhorting and cheering one another with the assurance of being the first to reach the square of Tlateloco. In this way they suffered themselves to be decoyed into the heart of the city, when suddenly the horn of Guatemala sent forth a long and piercing note from the summit of a neighboring Teocali. In an instant the flying Aztecs, as if maddened by the blast, wheeled about and turned on their pursuers. At the same time countless swarms of warriors from the adjoining streets and lanes poured in upon the flanks of the assailants, filling the air with the fierce unearthly cries which had reached the ears of Cortes, and drowning for a moment the wild dissonance which reigned in the other quarters of the capital. The army taken by surprise and shaken by the fury of the assault were thrown into the utmost disorder. Friends and foes, white men and Indians, were mingled together in one promiscuous mass. Spears, swords, and war-clubs were brandished together in the air. Flows fell at random. In their eagerness to escape they trod down one another. Blinded by the missiles which now rained on them from the Azoteas, they staggered on, barely knowing in what direction, or fell struck down by hands which they could not see. On they came like a rushing torrent, sweeping along some steep declivity, and rolling in one confused tide towards the open breach, on the further side of which stood Cortes and his companions, horror struck at the sight of the approaching ruin. The foremost files soon plunged into the gulf, treading one another under the flood, some striving ineffectually to swim, others with more success, to clamber over the heaps of their suffocated comrades. Many, as they attempted to scale the opposite sides of the slippery dyke, fell into the water or were hurried off by the warriors in the canoes, who added to the horrors of the rout by the fresh storm of darts and javelins which they poured on the fugitives. Cortes, meanwhile, with his brave followers, kept his station undaunted on the other side of the breach. I had made up my mind, he says, to die rather than desert my poor fellows in their extremity. Without stretched hands he endeavored to rescue as many as he could from the watery grave, and from the more appalling fate of captivity. He, as vainly, tried to restore something like presence of mind and order among the distracted fugitives. His person was too well known to the Aztecs, and his position now made him a conspicuous mark for their weapons. Darts, stones and arrows fell around him as thick as hail, but glanced harmless from his steel helmet and armor of proof. At length a cry of Malinche, Malinche, rose among the enemy, and six of their number, strong and athletic warriors, rushing on him at once, made a violent effort to drag him on board their boat. In the struggle he received a severe wound in the leg, which, for the time, disabled it. There seemed to be no hope for him when a faithful follower, Cristaval de Olea, perceiving his general's extremity, threw himself on the Aztecs and with a blow cut off the arm of one savage, and then plunged his sword in the body of another. He was quickly supported by a comrade named Lerma, and by a Tlescalan chief, who, fighting over the prostrate body of Cortes, dispatched three more of the assailants, though the heroic Olea paid dearly for his self-devotion, as he fell mortally wounded by the side of his general. The report soon spread among the soldiers that their commander was taken, and Quinones, the captain of his guard, with several others pouring into the rescue, succeeded in disentangling Cortes from the grasp of his enemies who were struggling with him in the water, and, raising him in their arms, placed him again on the causeway. One of his pages, meanwhile, had advanced some way through the press, leading a horse for his master to mount, but the youth received a wound in the throat from a javelin which prevented him from affecting his object. Another of his attendants was more successful. It was Guzman, his chamberlain, but as he held the bridle while Cortes was assisted into the saddle, he was snatched away by the Aztecs, and with the swiftness of thought hurried off by their canoes. The general still lingered, unwilling to leave the spot, whilst his presence could be of the least service. But the faithful Quinones, taking his horse by the bridle, turned his head from the breach, exclaiming at the same time that his master's life was too important to the army to be thrown away there. Cortes at length succeeded in regaining the firm ground, and reaching the open place before the great street of Tacuba. Here, under a sharp fire of the artillery, he rallied his broken squadrons, and charging at the head of the little body of horse, which, not having been brought into action, were still fresh, he beat off the enemy. He then commanded the retreat of the two other divisions. The scattered forces again united, and the general, sending forward his Indian Confederates, took the rear with a chosen body of cavalry to cover the retreat of the army, which was affected with but little additional loss. Andrés de Tapia was dispatched to the western causeway to acquaint Alvarado and Sandoval with the failure of the enterprise. Meanwhile, the two captains had penetrated far into the city. Cheered by the triumphant shouts of their countrymen in the adjacent streets, they had pushed on with extraordinary vigor that they might not be outstripped in the race of glory. They had almost reached the market place, which lay nearer to their quarters than to the generals, when they heard the blast from the dread horn of Guatemala followed by the overpowering yell of the barbarians, which had so startled the ears of Cortes. To let length, the sounds of the receding conflict died away in the distance. The two captains now understood that the day must have gone hard with their countrymen. They soon had further proof of it when the victorious Aztecs, returning from the pursuit of Cortes, joined their forces with those engaged with Sandoval and Alvarado and fell on them with redoubled fury. At the same time, they rolled on the ground two or three of the bloody heads of the Spaniards, shouting the name of Malinche. The captains, struck with horror at the spectacle, though they gave little credit to the words of the enemy, instantly ordered a retreat. The fierce barbarians followed up the Spaniards to their very entrenchments, but here they were met, first by the crossfire of the brigantines, which, dashing through the palisades planted to obstruct their movements, completely enfilotted the causeway, and next by that of the small battery erected in front of the camp, which under the management of a skillful engineer named Medrano, swept the whole length of the defile. Thus galled in front and on flank, the shattered columns of the Aztecs were compelled to give way and take shelter under the defences of the city. The greatest anxiety now prevailed in the camp regarding the fate of Cortes, for Tapia had been detained on the road by scattered parties of the enemy whom Guatemozin had stationed there to interrupt the communications between the camps. He arrived at length, however, though bleeding with several wounds. His intelligence, while it reassured the Spaniards as to the general's personal safety, was not calculated to allay their uneasiness in other respects. Sandoval, in particular, was desirous to acquaint himself with the actual state of things and the further intentions of Cortes. Suffering as he was from three wounds which he had received in that day's fight, he resolved to visit in person the quarters of the commander-in-chief. It was mid-day, for the busy scenes of the morning had occupied but a few hours, when Sandoval remounted the good steed on whose strength and speed he knew he could rely. On arriving at the camp he found the troops were much worn and dispirited by the disaster of the morning. They had good reason to be so. Besides the killed and a long file of wounded, sixty-two Spaniards, with a multitude of allies, had fallen alive into the hands of the enemy. The loss of two field-pieces and seven horses crowned their own disgrace and the triumphs of the Aztecs. Cortes, it was observed, had borne himself throughout this trying day with his usual intrepidity and coolness. It was with a cheerful countenance that he now received his lieutenant, but a shade of sadness was visible through this outward composure, showing how the catastrophe of the pointe qui dada, the sourful bridge, as he mournfully called it, lay heavy on his heart. To the cavaliers' anxious inquiries as to the cause of the disaster, he replied, It is for my sins that it has befallen me, son Sandoval. For such was the affectionate epithet with which Cortes often addressed his best beloved and trusty officer. He then explained to him the immediate cause in the negligence of the treasurer. Further conversation followed, in which the general declared his purpose to forego active hostilities for a few days. You must take my place, he continued, for I am too much crippled at present to discharge my duties. You must watch over the safety of the camps. Give a special heed to alvarados. He is a gallant soldier, I know it well, but I doubt the Mexican hounds may, some hour, take him at disadvantage. These few words showed the general's own estimate of his two lieutenants, both equally brave and chivalrous, but the one uniting with these qualities, the circumspection so essential to success in perilous enterprises, in which the other was signally deficient. It was under the training of Cortes that he learned to be a soldier. The general, having concluded his instructions, affectionately embraced his lieutenant and dismissed him to his quarters. It was late in the afternoon when he reached them, but the sun was still lingering above the western hills and poured his beams wide over the valley, lighting up the old towers and temples of Tenochtitlan with a mellow radiance that little harmonized with the dark scenes of strife in which the city had so lately been involved. The tranquility of the hour, however, was on a sudden broken by the strange sounds of the great drum in the temple of the war-god, sounds which recalled the noche triste with all its terrible images to the minds of the Spaniards, but that was the only occasion on which they had ever heard them. They intimated some solemn act of religion within the unhallowed precincts of the Teokali, and the soldiers, startled by the mournful vibrations, which might be heard for leagues across the valley, turned their eyes to the quarter once they proceeded. They there beheld a long procession winding up the huge sides of the pyramid, for the camp of Alderado was pitched scarcely a mile from the city, and objects were distinctly visible at a great distance in the transparent atmosphere of the table-land. As the long file of priests and warriors reached the flat summit of the Teokali, the Spaniards saw the figures of several men stripped to their waists, some of whom, by the whiteness of their skins, they recognized as their own countrymen. They were the victims for sacrifice. Their heads were godly decorated with coronals of plumes, and they carried fans in their hands. They were urged along by blows, and compelled to take part in the dances in honor of the Aztec warrior-god. The unfortunate captives, then stripped of their sad finery, were stretched one after another on the great stone of sacrifice. On its convex surface, their breasts were heaved up conveniently for the diabolical purpose of the priestly executioner, who cut asunder their ribs by a strong blow with his sharp razor of itsli, and thrusting his hand into the wound tore away the heart, which, hot and reeking, was deposited on the golden censor before the idol. The body of the slaughtered victim was then hurled down the steep stairs of the pyramid, which, it may be remembered, were placed at the same angle of the pile, one flight below another, and the mutilated remains were gathered up by the savages beneath, who soon prepared with them the cannibal repast which completed the work of abomination. We may imagine with what sensations the stupefied Spaniards must have gazed on this horrid spectacle, so near that they could almost recognize the persons of their unfortunate friends, see the struggles and writhing of their bodies, hear or fancy they heard, their screams of agony, yet so far removed that they could render them no assistance. Their limbs trembled beneath them as they thought what might one day be their own fate, and the bravest among them, who had hitherto gone to battle as careless and light-hearted as to the banquet or the ballroom, were unable from this time forward to encounter their ferocious enemy without a sickening feeling, much akin to fear coming over them. The five following days passed away in a state of inaction, except indeed so far as was necessary to repel the sorties made from time to time by the militia of the capital. The Mexicans elated with their success, meanwhile abandoned themselves to jubilee, singing, dancing and feasting on the mangled relics of their wretched victims. Guatemozin sent several heads of the Spaniards, as well as of the horses, round the country, calling on his old vassals to forsake the banners of the white men, unless they would share the doom of the enemies of Mexico. The priests now cheered the young monarch and the people with the declaration that the dread wheat-sleel poachly, their offended deity, appeased by the sacrifices offered upon his altars, would again take the Aztecs under his protection and deliver their enemies before the expiration of eight days into their hands. This comfortable prediction, confidently believed by the Mexicans, was thundered in the ears of the besieging army in tones of exaltation and defiance. However it may have been condemned by the Spaniards, it had a very different effect on their allies. The latter had begun to be disgusted with a service so full of peril and suffering, and already protracted far beyond the usual term of Indian hostilities. They had less confidence than before in the Spaniards. Experience had shown that they were neither invincible nor immortal, and their recent reverses made them even distrust the ability of the Christians to reduce the Aztec metropolis. They recalled to mind the ominous words of Sikotin Kattel that, so sacrilegious a war could come to no good for the people of Anahuac. They felt that their arm was raised against the gods of their country. The prediction of the oracle fell heavy on their hearts. They had little doubt of its fulfillment and were only eager to turn away the bolt from their own heads by a timely secession from the cause. They took advantage therefore of the friendly cover of night to steal away from their quarters, company after company deserted in this manner taking the direction of their respective homes. Those belonging to the great towns of the valley, whose allegiance was the most recent, were the first to cast it off. Their example was followed by the older Confederates, the militia of Cholula, Tepeaca, Tuscucco, and even the faithful Tuscala. There were, it is true, some exceptions to these, and among them, Itzlil Sochitl, the younger lord of Tuscucco, and Chichamikato, the valiant Tuscalan chieftain, who, with a few of their immediate followers, still remained true to the banner under which they had enlisted. But their number was insignificant. The Spaniards beheld with this May the mighty array on which they relied for support, thus silently melting away before the breath of superstition. Cortes alone maintained a cheerful countenance. He treated the prediction with contempt as an invention of the priests, and sent his messengers after the retreating squadrons, beseeching them to postpone their departure or at least halt on the road till the time which would soon elapse would show the falsehood of the prophecy. The affairs of the Spaniards at this crisis must be confessed to have worn a gloomy aspect. Desserted by their allies, with their ammunition nearly exhausted, cut off from the customary supplies from the neighborhood, harassed by unintermitting vigils and fatigues, smarting under wounds of which every man in the army had his share, with an unfriendly country in their rear and a mortal foe in front, they might well be excused for faltering in their enterprise. Night after night fresh victims were led up to the great altar of sacrifice, and while the city blazed with the illuminations of a thousand bonfires on the terraced roofs of the dwellings, and in the areas of the temples, the dismal pageant was distinctly visible from the camp below. One of the last of the sufferers was Guzman, the unfortunate chamberlain of Cortes, who lingered in captivity eighteen days before he met his doom. Amidst all the distresses and multiplied embarrassments of their situation, the Spaniards still remained true to their purpose. They relaxed in no degree the severity of the blockade. Their camps still occupied the only avenues to the city, and their batteries, sweeping the long defiles at every fresh assault of the Aztecs, mowed down hundreds of the assailants. Their brigantines still rode on the waters, cutting off the communication with the shore. It is true indeed the loss of the auxiliary canoes left a passage open for the occasional introduction of supplies to the capital. But the whole amount of these supplies was small, and its crowded population, while exulting in their temporary advantage and the delusive assurances of their priests, were beginning to sink under the withering grasp of an enemy within, more terrible than the one which lay before their gates. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. History of the Conquest of Mexico by William H. Prescott, Book 6, Chapter 7. Success of the Spaniards, fruitless offers to Guatimozine, buildings raised to the ground, terrible famine, the troops gained the marketplace. Thus passed away the eight days prescribed by the oracle, and the sun, which rose upon the ninth, beheld the fair city still be set on every side by the inexorable foe. It was a great mistake of the Aztec priests, one not uncommon with false prophets, anxious to produce a startling impression on their followers, to assign so short a term for the fulfillment of their prediction. The Tuscucan and Tuscalan chiefs now sent to acquaint their troops with the failure of the prophecy, and to recall them to the Christian camp. The Tuscalans, who had halted on the way, returned, ashamed of their credulity, and with ancient feelings of animosity, heightened by the artifice of which they had been the dupes. Their example was followed by many of the other Confederates. In a short time the Spanish general found himself at the head of an auxiliary force, which, if not so numerous as before, was more than adequate to all his purposes. He received them with politic benignity, and while he reminded them that they had been guilty of a great crime in thus abandoning their commander, he was willing to overlook it in consideration of their past services. They must be aware that these services were not necessary to the Spaniards, who had carried on the siege with the same vigor during their absence as when they were present. But he was unwilling that those who had shared the dangers of the war with him should not also partake of its triumphs and be present at the fall of their enemy, which he promised with a confidence better founded than that of the priests in their prediction, should not be long delayed. Yet the menaces and machinations of Guatemala were still not without effect in the distant provinces. Before the full return of the Confederates, Cortes received an embassy from Cuernavaca, ten or twelve leagues distant, and another from some friendly towns of the Otomies, still further off, imploring his protection against their formidable neighbors, who menaced them with hostilities as allies of the Spaniards. As the latter were then situated, they were in a condition to receive suker much more than to give it. Most of the officers were accordingly opposed to granting a request, the compliance with which must still further impair their diminished strength. But Cortes knew the importance, above all, of not betraying his own inability to grant it. The greater our weakness, he said, the greater need have we to cover it under a show of strength. He immediately detached Tapia with a body of about a hundred men in one direction, and Sandoval with a somewhat larger force in the other, with orders that their absence should not in any event be prolonged beyond ten days. The two captains executed their commission promptly and effectually. They each met and defeated his adversary in a pitched battle, laid waste to the hostile territories, and returned within the time prescribed. They were soon followed by ambassadors from the conquered places soliciting the alliance of the Spaniards, and the affair terminated by an accession of new Confederates, and, what was more important, a conviction in the old that the Spaniards were both willing and competent to protect them. Fortune, who seldom dispenses her frowns or her favors single-handed, further showed her goodwill to the Spaniards at this time by sending a vessel into Vera Cruz, laden with ammunition and military stores. It was part of the fleet destined for the Florida coast by the romantic old knight Hans de Leon. The cargo was immediately taken by the authorities of the port and forwarded without delay to the camp, where it arrived most seasonably as the want of powder in particular had begun to be seriously felt. With strength thus renovated, Cortes determined to resume active operations, but on a plan widely differing from that pursued before. In the former deliberations on the subject, two courses, as we have seen, presented themselves to the general. One was to entrench himself in the heart of the capital, and from this point carry on hostilities. The other was the mode of proceeding hitherto followed. Both were open to serious objections, which he hoped would be obviated by the one now adopted. This was to advance no step without securing the entire safety of the army, not only on its immediate retreat, but in its future inroads. Every breach in the causeway, every canal in the streets, was to be filled up in so solid a manner that the work should not be again disturbed. The materials for this were to be furnished by the buildings, every one of which, as the army advanced, whether public or private, hut, temple or palace, was to be demolished. Not a building in their path was to be spared. They were all indiscriminately to be leveled until, in the conqueror's own language, the water should be converted into dry land, and a smooth and open ground be afforded for the maneuvers of the cavalry and artillery. Cortes came to this terrible determination with great difficulty. He sincerely desired to spare the city the most beautiful thing in the world as he enthusiastically styles it, and which would have formed the most glorious trophy of his conquest. But in a place where every house was a fortress, and every street was cut up by canals so embarrassing to his movements, experience proved it was vain to think of doing so and becoming master of it. There was little hope of a peaceful accommodation with the Aztecs, who, so far from being broken by all that they had hitherto endured, and the long perspective of future woes, showed a spirit as haughty and implacable as ever. The general's intentions were learned by the Indian allies with unbounded satisfaction, and they answered his call for aid by thousands of pioneers armed with their koas or hoes of the country, all testifying the greatest alacrity in helping on the work of destruction. In a short time the breaches in the great causeways were filled up so effectually that they were never again molested. Cortes himself set the example by carrying stones and timber with his own hands. The buildings in the suburbs were then thoroughly leveled, the canals were filled up with the rubbish, and a wide space around the city was thrown open to the maneuvers of the cavalry, who swept over it free and unresisted. The Mexicans did not look with indifference on these preparations to lay waste to their town and leave them bare and unprotected against the enemy. They made incessant efforts to impede the labors of the besiegers, but the ladder under cover of their guns, which kept up an unintermitting fire, still advanced in the work of desolation. The gleam of fortune which had so lately broken out on the Mexicans again disappeared, and the dark mist after having been raised for a moment settled on the doomed capital more heavily than before. Famine, with all her hideous train of woes, was making rapid strides among its accumulated population. The stores provided for the siege were exhausted. The casual supply of human victims, or that obtained by some straggling parogue from the neighboring shores, was too inconsiderable to be widely felt. Some forced a scanty sustenance from a musilaginous substance gathered in small quantities on the surface of the lake and canals. Others appeased the cravings of appetite by devouring rats, lizards, and the like loathsome reptiles, which had not yet deserted the starving city. Its days seemed to be already numbered, but the page of history has many an example to show that there are no limits to the endurance of which humanity is capable when animated by hatred and despair. With the sword thus suspended over it, the Spanish commander, desirous to make one more effort to save the capital, persuaded three Aztec nobles, taken in one of the late actions, to bear a message from him to Guatemala. Although they undertook it with reluctance for fear of the consequences to themselves, Cortes told the emperor that all had now been done that brave men could do in defense of their country. There remained no hope, no chance of escape for the Mexicans. Their provisions were exhausted, their communications were cut off, their vassals had deserted them, even their gods had betrayed them. They stood alone with the nations of Anahuac banded against them. There was no hope but an immediate surrender. He besought the young monarch to take compassion on his brave subjects, who were daily perishing before his eyes, and on the fair city whose stately buildings were fast crumbling into ruins. Return to the allegiance, he concludes, which you once proffered to the sovereign of Castile. The past shall be forgotten. The persons and property, in short, all the rights of the Aztecs shall be respected. You shall be confirmed in your authority, and Spain will once more take your city under her protection. The eye of the young monarch kindled, and his dark cheek flushed with sudden anger as he listened to proposals so humiliating. But though his bosom glowed with a fiery temper of the Indian, he had the qualities of a gentle cavalier, says one of his enemies, who knew him well. He did no harm to the envoys, but after the heat of the moment had passed off, he gave the matter a calm consideration, and called the council of his wise men and warriors to deliberate upon it. Some were for accepting the proposals as offering the only chance of preservation, but the priests took a different view of the matter. They knew that the ruin of their own order must follow the triumph of Christianity. Peace was good, they said, but not with the white men. They reminded Guatemala of the fate of his uncle Montezuma, and the requital he had met with for all his hospitality, of the seizure and imprisonment of Cacama, the casique of Tescuco, of the massacre of the nobles by Alvarado, of the insatiable avarice of the invaders which had stripped the country of its treasures, of their profanation of the temples, of the injuries and insults which they had heaped without measure on the people and their religion. Better, they said, to trust in the promises of their own gods, who had so long watched over the nation. Better, if need be, give up our lives at once for our country, than drag them out in slavery and suffering among the false strangers. The eloquence of the priests, artfully touching the various wrongs of his people, roused the hot blood of Guatemala. Since it is so, he abruptly exclaimed, let us think only of supplying the wants of the people. Let no man henceforth who values his life talk of surrender. We can at least die like warriors. The Spaniards waited two days for the answer to their embassy. At length it came in a general sortee of the Mexicans, who, pouring through every gate of the capital like a river that has burst its banks, swept on, wave upon wave, to the very entrenchments of the besiegers, threatening to overwhelm them by their numbers. Fortunately the position of the latter on the dykes secured their flanks, and the narrowness of the defile gave their small battery of guns all the advantages of a larger one. The fire of artillery and musketry blazed without intermission along the several causeways, belching forth volumes of sulfurous smoke, that, rolling heavily over the waters, settled dark around the Indian city and hid it from the surrounding country. The brigantines thundered at the same time on the flanks of the columns, which, after some ineffectual efforts to maintain themselves, rolled back in wild confusion till their impotent fury died away in sullen murmurs within the capital. Cortes now steadily pursued the plan he had laid down for the devastation of the city. Day after day the several armies entered by their respective quarters, Sandoval probably directing his operations against the northeastern district. The buildings made of the poorest Tetsontli, though generally low, were so massy and extensive and the canals were so numerous that their progress was necessarily slow. They, however, gathered fresh ascensions of strength every day from the numbers who flocked to the camp from the surrounding country, and who joined in the work of destruction with a hearty good will, which showed their eagerness to break the detested yoke of the Aztecs. The latter raged with impotent anger as they beheld their lordly edifices, their temples, all that they had been accustomed to venerate, thus ruthlessly swept away, their canals constructed with so much labor, and what to them seemed science, filled up with rubbish. Their flourishing city in short turned into a desert over which the insulting foe now rode triumphant. They heaped many a taunt on the Indian allies. Go on, they said bitterly, the more you destroy the more you will have to build up again hereafter. If we conquer you shall build for us, and if your white friends conquer they will make you do as much for them. The event justified the prediction. The division of Cortes had now worked its way as far north as the Great Street of Tacuba, which opened a communication with Alvarado's camp, and near which stood the Palace of Guatemala. It was a spacious stone pile that might well be called a fortress. Though deserted by its royal master, it was held by a strong body of Aztecs, who made a temporary defense but of little avail against the battering and genery of the besiegers. It was soon set on fire, and its crumbling walls were leveled in the dust, like those other stately edifices of the capital, the boast and admiration of the Aztecs, and some of the fairest fruits of their civilization. It was a sad thing to witness their destruction, exclaimed Cortes, but it was part of our plan of operations, and we had no alternative. These operations had consumed several weeks, so that it was now drawing towards the latter part of July. During this time the blockade had been maintained with the utmost rigor, and the wretched inhabitants were suffering all the extremities of famine. Some few stragglers were taken from time to time in the neighborhood of the Christian camp, wither they had wandered in search of food. They were kindly treated by command of Cortes, who was in hopes to induce others to follow their example, and thus to afford a means of conciliating the inhabitants, which might open the way to their submission. But few were found willing to leave the shelter of the capital, and they preferred to take their chance with their suffering countrymen, rather than trust themselves to the mercies of the besiegers. From these few stragglers, however, the Spaniards heard a dismal tale of woe, respecting the crowded population in the interior of the city. All the ordinary means of sustenance had long since failed, and they now supported life as they could, by means of such roots as they could dig from the earth, by gnawing the bark of trees, by feeding on the grass, on anything in short, however loathsome, they could allay the craving of appetite. Their only drink was the breakish water of the soil saturated with the Salt Lake. Under this unwholesome diet and the diseases engendered by it, the population was gradually wasting away. Men sickened and died every day, in all the excruciating torments produced by hunger, and the wan and emaciated survivors seemed only to be waiting for their time. The Spaniards had visible confirmation of all this as they penetrated deeper into the city and approached the district of Tlatelolco, now occupied by the besieged. They found the ground turned up in quest of roots and weeds, the trees stripped of their green stems, their foliage and their bark. Troops of famished Indians flitted in the distance, gliding like ghosts among the scenes of their former residence. Dead bodies lay unburied in the streets and courtyards or filled up the canals. It was a sure sign of the extremity of the Aztecs, for they held the burial of the dead as a solemn and imperative duty. In the early part of the siege they had religiously attended to it. In its later stages they were still careful to withdraw the dead from the public eye by bringing their remains within the houses. But the number of these and their own sufferings had now so fearfully increased that they had grown indifferent to this and they suffered their friends and their kinsmen to lie and molder in the spot where they drew their last breath. As the invaders entered the dwellings a more appalling spectacle presented itself. The floors covered with prostrate forms of the miserable inmates, some in the agonies of death, others festering in their corruption, men, women and children inhaling the poisonous atmosphere and mingling promiscuously together, mothers with their infants in their arms perishing of hunger before their eyes while they were unable to afford them the nourishment of nature, men crippled by their wounds with their bodies frightfully mangled, vainly attempting to crawl away as the enemy entered. Yet even in this state they scorned to ask for mercy and glared on the invaders with the sullen ferocity of the wounded tiger that the huntsmen have tracked to his forest cave. The Spanish commander issued strict orders that mercy should be shown to these poor and disabled victims. But the Indian allies made no distinction. An Aztec under whatever circumstances was an enemy and with hideous shouts of triumph they pulled down the burning buildings on their heads consuming the living and the dead in one common funeral pile. Yet the sufferings of the Aztecs, terrible as they were, did not incline them to submission. There were many indeed who from greater strength of constitution or from the more favorable circumstances in which they were placed still showed all their unwanted energy of body and mind and maintained the same undaunted and resolute demeanor as before. They fiercely rejected all the overtures of Cortes declaring they would rather die than surrender and, adding with a bitter tone of exaltation, the invaders would be at least disappointed in their expectations of treasure for it was buried where they could never find it. Cortes had now entered one of the great avenues leading to the marketplace of Tlatelolco the quarter towards which the movements of Alvarado were also directed. A single canal only lay in his way but this was of great width and stoutly defended by the Mexican archery. At this crisis the army one evening while in their entrenchments on the causeway were surprised by an uncommon light that arose from the huge Teocali in that part of the city which being at the north was the most distant from their own position. This temple dedicated to the dread war god was inferior only to the pyramid in the great square and on it the Spaniards had more than once seen their unhappy countrymen led to slaughter. They now supposed that the enemy were employed in some of their diabolical ceremonies when the flame mounting higher and higher showed the sanctuaries themselves were on fire. A shout of exaltation at the site broke forth from the assembled soldiers as they assured one another that their countrymen under Alvarado had got possession of the building. It was indeed true that Galante officer whose position on the western causeway placed him near the district of Tlatelolco had obeyed his commanders instructions to the letter raising every building to the ground in his progress in filling up the ditches with their ruins. He at length found himself before the great Teocali in the neighborhood of the market. He ordered a company under a cavalier named Gutierre de Barajos to storm the place which was defended by a body of warriors mingled with priests still more wild and ferocious than the soldiery. The garrison rushing down the winding terraces fell on the assailants with such fury as compelled them to retreat in confusion and with some loss. Alvarado ordered another detachment to their support. This last was engaged at the moment with a body of Aztecs who hung on its rear as it wound up the galleries of the Teocali. Thus hemmed in between two enemies above and below the position of the Spaniards was critical. With sword and buckler they plunged desperately on the ascending Mexicans and drove them into the courtyard below where Alvarado plied them with such lively volleys of muscatry as soon threw them into disorder and compelled them to abandon the ground. Being thus rid of annoyance in the rear the Spaniards returned to the charge. They drove the enemy up the heights of the pyramid and reaching the broad summit a fierce encounter followed in mid-air, such an encounter as takes place where death is the certain consequence of defeat. It ended as usual in the discomforture of the Aztecs who were either slaughtered on the spot still wet with the blood of their own victims or pitched headlong down the sides of the pyramid. The Spaniards completed their work by firing the sanctuaries that the place might be no more polluted by these abominable rites. The flame crept slowly up the lofty pinnacles in which stone was mingled with wood till at length bursting into one bright blaze it shot up its spiral volume to such a height that it was seen from the most distant quarters of the valley. It was this which had been hailed by the soldiers of Cortes. The commander-in-chief and his division animated by the spectacle made, in their entrance on the following day, more determined efforts to place themselves alongside of their companions under Alvarado. The broad canal above noticed as the only impediment now lying in his way was to be traversed and on the further side the emaciated figures of the Aztec warriors were gathered in numbers to dispute the passage. They poured down a storm of missiles on the heads of the Indian laborers while occupied with filling up the wide gap with the ruins of the surrounding buildings. Still they toiled on in defiance of the Aeroi shower, fresh numbers taking the place of those who fell, and when at length the work was completed the cavalry rode over the rough plain at full charge against the enemy followed by the deep array of spearmen who bore down all opposition with their invincible phalanx. The Spaniards now found themselves on the same ground with Alvarado's division soon afterwards that chief attended by several of his staff rode into their lines and cordially embraced his countrymen and companions in arms for the first time since the beginning of the siege. They were now in the neighborhood of the market. Cortes, taking with him a few of his cavaliers, galloped into it. It was a vast enclosure as the reader has already seen covering many an acre. The flat roofs of the piazzas were now covered with crowds of men and women who gazed in silent dismay on the steel-clad horsemen that profaned these precincts with their presence for the first time since their expulsion from the capital. The multitude composed for the most part probably of unarmed citizens seemed taken by surprise. At least they made no show of resistance and the general, after leisurely viewing the ground was permitted to ride back unmolested to the army. On arriving there he ascended the Teokali from which the standard of castile, supplanting the memorials of Aztec superstition, was now triumphantly floating. The conqueror, as he strode among the smoking embers on the summit, calmly surveyed the scene of desolation below. The palaces, the temples, the busy marts of industry and trade, the glittering canals covered with their rich frates from the surrounding country, the royal pomp of groves and gardens, all the splendors of the imperial city, the capital of the western world, forever gone, and in their place a barren wilderness. How different the spectacle which the year before had met his eye as it wandered over the scenes from the heights of the neighboring Teokali with Montezuma at his side. Seven-eighths of the city were laid in ruins with the occasional exception, perhaps, of some colossal temple. The remaining eighth, comprehending the district of Tlateloco, was all that now remained to the Aztecs, whose population, still large after all its losses, was crowded into a compass that would hardly have afforded accommodation for a third of their numbers. End of Book Six, Chapter Seven Book Six, Chapter Eight of the History of the Conquest of Mexico This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. History of the Conquest of Mexico by William H. Prescott, Book Six, Chapter Eight Dreadful sufferings of the besieged, spirit of Guatemala, murderous assault, capture of Guatemala, termination of the siege, reflections. There was no occasion to resort to artificial means to precipitate the ruin of the Aztecs. It was accelerated every hour by causes more potent than those arising from mere human agency. There they were, pent up in their close and suffocating quarters, nobles, commoners and slaves, men, women and children, some in houses, more frequently in hovels. For this part of the city was not the best, others in the open air in canoes or in the streets, shivering in the cold rains of the night and scorched by the burning heat of day. The ordinary means of sustaining life were long since gone. They wandered about in search of anything, however unwholesome or revolting, that might mitigate the fierce knifes of hunger. Some hunted for insects and worms on the borders of the lake or gathered the saltweeds and moss from its bottom, while at times they might be seen casting a wistful look at the hills beyond which many of them had left to share the fate of their brethren in the capital. To their credit it is said by the Spanish riders that they were not driven in their extremity to violate the laws of nature by feeding on one another, but unhappily this is contradicted by the Indian authorities, who state that many a mother in her agony devoured the offspring which she had no longer the means of supporting. This is recorded of more than one siege in history and it is the more probable here where the sensibilities must have been blunted by familiarity with the brutal practices of the national superstition. But all was not sufficient and hundreds of famished wretches died every day from extremity of suffering. Some dragged themselves into the houses and drew their last breath alone and in silence. Others sank down in the public streets. Wherever they died there they were left. There was no one to bury or remove them. Familiarity with the spectacle made men indifferent to it. They looked on in dumb despair waiting for their own turn. There was no complaint, no lamentation, but deep unutterable woe. If in other quarters of the town houses might have been scattered over the streets here they were gathered in heaps. They lay so thick, says Bernal Diaz, that one could not tread except among the bodies. A man could not set his foot down, says Cortes, yet more strongly, unless on the corpse of an Indian. They were piled one upon another, the living mingled with the dead. They stretched themselves on the bodies of their friends and lay down to sleep there. Death was everywhere. The city was a vast charnel house in which all was hastening to decay and decomposition. A poisonous steam arose from the mass of putrification under the action of alternate rain and heat which so tainted the whole atmosphere that the Spaniards, including the general himself, in their brief visits to the quarter were made ill by it and it bred a pestilence that swept off even greater numbers than the famine. In the midst of these awful scenes the young emperor of the Aztecs remained, according to all accounts, calm and courageous. With his fair capital laid in ruins before his eyes, his nobles and faithful subjects dying around him, his territory rent away foot by foot till scarce enough remained for him to stand on, he rejected every invitation to capitulate and showed the same indomitable spirit as at the commencement of the siege. When Cortes, in the hope that the extremities of the besieged would incline them to listen to an accommodation, a noble prisoner to bear to Guatemala's his proposals to that effect, the fierce young monarch, according to the general, ordered him at once to be sacrificed. It was a Spaniard we must remember who tells the story. Cortes, who had suspended hostilities for several days in the vain hope that the distresses of the Mexicans would bend them to submission, now determined to drive them to it by a general assault. Couped up as they were within a narrow quarter of the city, their position favored such an attempt. He commanded Alvarado to hold himself in readiness and directed Sandoval, who besides the causeway had charge of the fleet which lay off the Tlatelokan district, to support the attack by a cannonade on the houses near the water. He then led his forces into the city or rather across the horrid waste that now encircled it. On entering the Indian precincts he was met by several of the chiefs who, stretching forth their emaciated arms, exclaimed, You are the children of the sun, but the sun is swift in his course. Why are you then so tardy? Why do you delay so long to put an end to our miseries? Rather kill us at once that we may go to our God, wheat-sleel Pochdli, who waits for us in heaven to give us rest from our sufferings. Cortes was moved by their piteous appeal and answered that he desired not their death but their submission. Why does your master refuse to treat with me, he said, when a single hour will suffice for me to crush him and all his people? He then urged them to request Guatemala to confer with him with the assurance that he might do it in safety as his person should not be molested. The nobles, after some persuasion, undertook the mission and it was received by the young monarch in a manner which showed, if the anecdote before related of him be true, that misfortune had at length inherited some power over his haughty spirit. He consented to the interview, though not to have it take place on that day but the following in the great square of Tlateloco. Cortes, well satisfied, immediately withdrew from the city and resumed his position on the causeway. The next morning he presented himself at the place appointed, having previously stationed Alvarado there with a strong core of infantry to guard against treachery. The stone platform in the center of the square was covered with carpets and a banquet was prepared to refresh the famished monarch and his nobles. Having made these arrangements he awaited the hour of the interview. But Guate Mosin, instead of appearing himself, sent his nobles, the same who had brought to him the general's invitation and who now excused their master's absence on the plea of illness. Cortes, though disappointed, gave a courteous reception to the envoys considering that it might still afford to be an emperor. He persuaded them without much entreaty to partake of the good cheer spread before them, which they did with a veracity that told how severe had been their abstinence. He then dismissed them with a seasonal supply of provisions for their master, pressing him to consent to an interview without which it was impossible their differences could be adjusted. The Indian envoys returned in a short time, bearing with them a present of fine cotton fabrics of no great value from Guate Mosin, who still declined to meet with the Spanish general. Cortes, though deeply chagrined, was unwilling to give up the point. He will surely come, he said to the envoys, when he sees that I suffer you to go and come unharmed, you who have been my steady enemies no less than himself throughout the war. He has nothing to fear from me. He again parted with them, promising to receive their answer the following day. On the next morning the Aztec chiefs, entering the Christian quarters, announced to Cortes that Guate Mosin would confer with him at noon in the marketplace. The general was punctual at the hour, but without success. Neither monarch nor ministers appeared there. It was plain that the Indian prince did not care to trust the promises of his enemy. A thought of Montezuma may have passed across his mind. After he had waited three hours, the general's patience was exhausted and, as he learned that the Mexicans were busy in preparations for defense, he made immediate dispositions for the assault. The Confederates had been left without the walls, for he did not care to bring them in sight of the quarry before he was ready to slip the leash. He now ordered them to join him and, supported by Alvarado's division, marched at once into the enemy's quarters. He found them prepared to receive him. Their most able-bodied warriors were thrown into the van covering their feeble and crippled comrades. Women were seen occasionally mingling in the ranks and, as well as children, thronged the Asoteas, where, with famine-stricken visages and haggard eyes, they scowled defiance and hatred on their invaders. As the Spaniards advanced, the Mexicans set up a fierce war cry and sent off clouds of arrows with their accustomed spirit, while the women and boys rained down darts and stones from their elevated position on the terraces. But the missiles were sent by hands too feeble to catch damage, and when the squadrons closed, the loss of strength became still more sensible in the Aztecs. Their blows fell feebly and without full aim, though some it is true of stronger constitution or gathering strength from despair maintained to the last a desperate fight. The Archebusiers now poured in a deadly fire. The Brigantines replied by successive volleys in the opposite quarter. The besieged, hemmed in, were brought down on every side. The carnage was horrible. The ground was heaped up with slain until the maddened combatants were obliged to climb over the human mounts to get at one another. The Mairi soil was saturated with blood, which ran off like water and died the canals themselves with crimson. All was uproar and terrible confusion. The hideous yells of the barbarians, the oaths and excretions of the Spaniards, the cries of the wounded, the shrieks of women and children, the heavy blows of the conquerors, the death struggle of their victims, the rapid, reverberating echoes of the musketry, the hissing of innumerable missiles, the crash and crackling of blazing buildings crushing hundreds in their ruins, the blinding volumes of dust and sulfurous smoke shrouding all in their gloomy canopy, made a scene appalling even to the soldiers of Cortes, steeled as they were by many a rough passage of war and by a long familiarity with blood and violence. The piteous cries of the women and children in particular, says the general, were enough to break one's heart. He commanded that they should be spared and that all who asked it should receive quarter. He particularly urged this on the Confederates and placed men among them to restrain their violence. But he had set an engine in motion too terrible to be controlled. It was easy to curb the hurricane in its fury as the passions faded horde of savages. Never did I see so pitiless a race, he exclaims, or anything wearing the form of man so destitute of humanity. They made no distinction of sex or age and in this hour of vengeance seemed to be requiting the hoarded rungs of a century. At length, sated with slaughter, the Spanish commander sounded a retreat. It was full time, if, according to his own statement, we may hope it was an exaggeration, that they had perished. Yet their fate was to be envied in comparison with that of those who survived. Through the long night which followed no movement was perceptible in the Aztec quarter. No light was seen there, no sound was heard, save the low moaning of some wounded or dying wretch writhing in his agony. All was dark and silent, the darkness of the grave. The last blow seemed to have completely disappeared, like men waiting in silence the stroke of the executioner. Yet, for all this, they showed no disposition to submit. Every new injury had sunk deeper into their souls and filled them with a deeper hatred of their enemy. Fortune, friends, kindred, home all were gone. They were content to throw away life itself now that they had nothing more to live for. Far different was the scene in the Christian camp where, elated with fear, all was alive with bustle in preparation for the morrow. Bonfires were seen blazing along the causeways, lights gleamed from tents and barracks, and the sounds of music and merriment born over the waters proclaimed the joy of the soldiers at the prospect of so soon terminating their wearysome campaign. On the following morning the Spanish commander again mustered his forces, having decided to follow up the blow of the preceding day before the war, and at once to put an end to the war. He had arranged with Alvarado on the evening previous to occupy the marketplace of Cloteloco, and the discharge of an archibus was to be the signal for a simultaneous assault. Sandoval was to hold the northern causeway and, with the fleet, to watch the movements of the Indian emperor and to intercept the flight to the mainland which Cortes knew he meditated. To allow him to affect this would be to leave the enemy in his own neighborhood who might at any time kindle the flame of insurrection throughout the country. He ordered Sandoval, however, to do no harm to the royal person and not to fire on the enemy at all except in self-defense. It was on the memorable 13th of August, 1521, that Cortes led his war-like array for the last time across the black and blasted environs which lay around the Indian capital. On entering the Aztec precincts he paused, willing to afford its wretched inmates one more chance of escape before striking the fatal blow. He obtained an interview with some of the principal chiefs and expostulated with them on the conduct of their prince. He surely will not, said the general, see you all perish when he can so easily save you. He then urged them to prevail on Guatimozin to hold a conference with him repeating the assurances of his personal safety. The messengers went on their mission and soon returned with the Siwakotl at their head, a magistrate of high authority among the Mexicans. He said, with a melancholy air in which his own disappointment was visible, that Guatimozin was ready to die where he was but would hold no interview with the Spanish commander, adding in a tone of resignation, it is for you to work your pleasure. Go then, replied the stern conqueror, and prepare your countrymen for death. Their hour had come. He still postponed the assault for several hours, but the impatience of his troops at this delay was heightened by the rumor that Guatimozin and his nobles were preparing to escape with their effects in the Paraguas and Canoes which were moored on the margin of the lake. Convinced of the fruitlessness and impolicy of further procrastination, Cortes made his final dispositions for the attack and took his own station on an esotea which commanded the theater of operations. When the assailants came into the presence of the enemy, they found them huddled together in the utmost confusion, all ages and sexes, in masses so dense that they nearly forced one another over the brink of the causeways into the water below. Some had climbed on the terraces, others feebly supported themselves against the walls of the buildings. Their squalid and tattered garments gave a wildness to their appearance which still further heightened the ferocity of their expressions as they glared on the skies in which hate was mingled with despair. When the Spaniards had approached within Boshat, the Aztecs led off a flight of impotent missiles showing to the last the resolute spirit though they had lost the strength of their better days. The fatal signal was then given by the discharge of an archibus speedily followed by peals of heavy ordinance, the rattle of firearms and the hellish shouts of the Confederates as they sprang upon their victims. It is unnecessary to stain the page with the repetition of the horrors of the preceding day. Some of the wretched Aztecs threw themselves into the water and were picked up by the canoes. Others sunk and were suffocated in the canals. The number of these became so great that a bridge was made of their dead bodies over which the assailants could climb to the opposite banks. Others again, especially the women, begged for mercy, which as the chroniclers assure us, was everywhere granted by the Spaniards and contrary to the instructions and entreaties of Cortes everywhere refused by the Confederates. While this work of butchery was going on, numbers were observed pushing off in the barks that lined the shore and making the best of their way across the lake. They were constantly intercepted by the brigantines which broke through the flimsy array of boats, sending off their volleys to the right and left as the crews of the latter hotly assailed them. The battle raged as fiercely on the lake as on the land. The Indian vessels were shattered and overturned. Some few, however, under cover of the smoke, which rolled darkly over the waters, succeeded in clearing themselves of the turmoil and were fast nearing the opposite shore. Sandoval had particularly charged his captains to keep an eye on the movements of any vessel in which it was all probable that Guatamozin might be concealed. At this crisis, three or four of the largest paraguas were seen skimming over the water and making their way to the lake. A captain named Garcy Olguin, who had command of one of the best sailors in their fleet, instantly gave them chase. The wind was favorable and every moment he gained on the fugitives who pulled their oars with a vigor that despair alone could have given. But it was in vain, and after a short race, Olguin, coming alongside of one of the paraguas, which, whether from its appearance or from information he had received, he conjectured might bear the Indian emperor, ordered his men to level their crossbows at the boat. But before they could discharge them, a cry arose from those in it that their lord was on board. At the same moment, a young warrior armed with a buckler and maquauito rose up as if to beat off these salons. But, as the Spanish captain ordered his men not to shoot, he dropped his weapons and exclaimed, I am Guatamozin, lead me to Malinche, I am his prisoner, but let no harm come to my wife and my followers. Olguin assured him that his wishes would be respected and assisted him to get on board the brigantine, followed by his wife and attendants. These were twenty in number, consisting of Juanaco, the deposed lord of Tescucco, the lord of Tlacopan, and several other casiques and dignitaries whose rank probably had secured them some exemption from the general calamities of the siege. When the captives were seated on the deck of his vessel, he requested the Aztec Prince to put an end to the combat by commanding his people in the other canoes to surrender. But, with a dejected air, he replied, it is not necessary, they will fight no longer when they see that their prince is taken. He spoke truth. The news of Guatamozin's capture spread rapidly through the fleet and on shore, where the Mexicans were still engaged in conflict with their enemies. It ceased, however, at once. They made no further distance, and those on the water quickly followed the brigantines, which conveyed their captive monarch to land. Meanwhile, Sandoval, on receiving tidings of the capture, brought his own brigantine alongside all Guines and demanded the royal prisoner be surrendered to him. But his captain claimed him as his prize. A dispute rose between the parties, each anxious to have the glory of the deed, and perhaps the privilege of commemorating it on his escuchan. The controversy continued so long that it reached the ears of Cortez, who, in his station on the Esotea, had learned with no little satisfaction the capture of his enemy. He instantly sent orders to his wrangling officers to bring Guatamozin before him that he might adjust the difference between them. He charged them at the same time to treat their prisoner with respect. He then made preparations for the interview, caused the terrorists to be carpeted with crimson cloth and matting, and a table to be spread with provisions, of which the unhappy Aztec stood so much in need. His lovely Indian mistress, Donya Marina, was present to act as interpreter. She had stood by his side through all the troubled scenes of the conquest, and she was there now to witness its triumphant termination. Guatamozin, on landing, was escorted by a company of infantry to the presence of the Spanish commander. He mounted the Esotea with a calm and steady step, and was easily to be distinguished from his attendant nobles, though his full dark eye was no longer lighted up with its accustomed fire, and his features wore an expression of passive resignation that told little of the fierce and fiery spirit that burned within. His head was large, his limbs well-proportioned, his complexion fairer than those of his bronze-colored nation, and his whole department singularly mild and engaging. Cortes came forward with a dignified and studied courtesy to receive him. The Aztec monarch probably knew the person of his conqueror, for he first broke silence by saying, I have done all that I could do to defend myself and my people. I am now reduced to this state. You will deal with me, Malinche, as you list. Then, laying his hand on the hilt of a poignard, stuck in the general's belt, he added with vehemence, better dispatch me with this and rid me of life at once. Cortes was filled with admiration for the proud bearing of the young barbarian showing in his reverses a spirit worthy of an ancient Roman. Fear not, he replied, you shall be treated with all honor. You have defended your capital like a brave warrior. A Spaniard knows how to respect Valor even in an enemy. He then inquired of him where he had left the princess, his wife, and being informed that she still remained under protection of a Spanish guard on board the brigantine, the general sent to have her escorted to her presence. She was the youngest daughter of Montezuma and was hardly yet on the verge of womanhood. On the accession of her cousin, Guatemala, to the throne, she had been wedded to him as his lawful wife. She was kindly received by Cortes who showed her the respectful attentions suited to her rank. Her birth, no doubt, gave her an additional interest in his eyes and he may have felt some touch with her. He invited his royal captives to partake of the refreshments which their exhausted condition rendered so necessary. Meanwhile, the Spanish commander made his dispositions for the night ordering Sandoval to escort the prisoners to Coahuacan whether he proposed himself immediately to follow. The other captains and Alvarado were to draw off their forces to their respective quarters. It was impossible for them to continue the unburied carcasses loaded the air with infection. A small guard only was stationed to keep order in the wasted suburbs. It was the hour of vespers when Guatemala surrendered and the siege might be considered as then concluded. Thus, after a siege of nearly three months' duration, unmatched in history for the constancy and courage of the besieged, seldom surpassed for the severity of its sufferings, fell the renowned capital of the Aztecs. It may be truly said, for constancy and courage, when we recollect that the door of capitulation on the most honorable terms was left open to them throughout the whole blockade and that, sternly rejecting every proposal of their enemy, they to a man preferred to die rather than surrender. More than three centuries had elapsed since the Aztecs, a poor and wandering tribe from the far northwest had come on the plateau. There they built their miserable huts on the spot, as tradition tells us, prescribed by the oracle. Their conquests, at first confined to their immediate neighborhood, gradually covered the valley, then crossing the mountains, swept over the broad extent of the table-land, descended its precipitous sides and rolled onwards to the Mexican Gulf and the distant confines of Central America. Their wretched capital, meanwhile, keeping pace with the enlargement of territory, had grown into a flourishing city filled with buildings, monuments of art and a numerous population that gave it the first rank among the capitals of the western world. At this crisis came over another race from the remote east, strangers like themselves, whose coming had also been predicted by the oracle and, appearing on the plateau, assailed them in the very zenith of their prosperity and blotted them out from the map of nations forever. The whole story has the air of fable rather than of history, a legend of romance, a tale of the genii. Yet we cannot regret the fall of an empire which did so little to promote the happiness of its subjects or the real interests of humanity. Notwithstanding the luster thrown over its latter days by the glorious defense of its capital, by the mild munificence of Montezuma, by the dauntless heroism of Guatamozine, the Aztecs were emphatically a fierce and brutal race little calculated in their best aspects to excite our sympathy and regard. Their civilization such as it was was not their own, but reflected perhaps imperfectly from a race whom they had succeeded in the land. It was, in respect to the Aztecs, a generous graft on a vicious stock and could have brought no fruit to perfection. They ruled over their wide domains with a sword instead of a scepter. They did nothing to ameliorate the condition or in any way promote the progress of their vassals. Their vassals were serfs used only to minister to their pleasure held in awe by armed garrisons round to the dust by imposts in peace by military conscriptions in war. They did not, like the Romans whom they resembled in the nature of their conquests, extend the rights of citizenship to the conquered. They did not amalgamate them into one great nation with common rights and interests. They held them as aliens, around the very walls of the capital. The Aztec metropolis, the heart of the monarchy, had not a sympathy, not a pulsation in common with the rest of the body politic. It was a stranger in its own land. The Aztecs not only did not advance the condition of their vassals, but morally speaking they did much to degrade it. How can a nation where human sacrifices prevail and especially when combined with cannibalism further the march of civilization? How can the interests of humanity be consulted where man is leveled to the rank of the brutes that perish? The influence of the Aztecs introduced their gloomy superstition into lands before unacquainted with it or where at least it was not established in any great strength. The example of the capital was contagious. As the latter increased in opulence the religious celebrations were conducted with still more terrible magnificence. In the same manner as the gladiatorial shows of the Romans increased in pomp with the increasing splendor of the capital men became familiar with scenes of horror and the most flowed some abominations. Women and children the whole nation became familiar with and assisted at them. The heart was hardened, the manors were made ferocious, the feeble light of civilization transmitted from a milder race was growing fainter and fainter as thousands and thousands of miserable victims throughout the empire were yearly outrages sacrificed on its altars dressed and served at its banquets. The whole land was converted into a vast human shambles the empire of the Aztecs did not fall before its time. Whether these unparalleled outrages furnish a sufficient plea to the Spaniards for their invasion whether with the Protestant are we content to find a warrant for it in the natural rights and demands of civilization or with the Roman Catholic on the one or other of which grounds the conquests by most Christian nations in the east and the west have been defended it is unnecessary to discuss as it has already been considered in a former chapter it is more material to inquire whether assuming the right the conquest of Mexico was conducted with a proper regard to the claims of humanity and here we must admit that with all allowance for the ferocity of the age and the laxity of its principles there are passages which every Spaniard who cherishes the fame of his countrymen would be glad to see expunged from their history passages not to be vindicated on the score of self-defense or of necessity of any kind in which must forever leave a dark spot on the anals of the conquest and yet taken as a whole the invasion up to the capture of the capital was conducted on principles less revolting to humanity than most perhaps than any of the other conquests of the Castilian crown in the new world it may seem slight praise to say that the followers of Cortes used no bloodhounds to hunt down their wretched victims as in some other parts of the continent nor exterminated a peaceful and submissive population in mere wantonness of cruelty as in the islands yet it is something that they were not so far infected by the spirit of the age and that their swords were rarely stained with blood unless it was indispensable to the success of their enterprise even in the last siege of the capital the sufferings of the Aztecs terrible as they were do not imply any unusual cruelty in the victors they were not greater than those inflicted on their own countrymen at home in many a memorable instance by the most polished nations not merely of ancient times but of our own they were the inevitable consequences which follow from war when instead of being confined to its legitimate field it is brought home to the hearthstone to the peaceful community of the city its burgers untrained to arms its women and children yet more defenseless in the present instance indeed the sufferings of the besieged were in a great degree to be charged on themselves on their patriotic but desperate self-divotion it was not the desire as certainly it was not the interest of the Spaniards to destroy the capital or its inhabitants when any of these fell into their hands they were kindly entertained their wands supplied and every means taken to infuse into them a spirit of conciliation and this too it should be remembered in despite of the dreadful doom to which they consigned their Christian captives the gates of a fair capitulation were kept open though unavailingly to the last hour the right of conquest necessarily implies that of using whatever force may be necessary for overcoming resistance to the assertion of that right the Spaniards to have done otherwise than they did would have been to abandon the siege and with it the conquest of the country to have suffered the inhabitants with their high spirited monarch to escape would but have prolonged the miseries of war by transferring it to another and more inaccessible quarter they literally as far as the success of the expedition was concerned had no choice if our imagination is struck with the amount of suffering in this it should be born in mind that it is a natural result of the great masses of men engaged in the conflict the amount of suffering does not in itself show the amount of cruelty which caused it and it is but justice to the conquerors of Mexico to say that the very brilliancy and importance of their exploits have given a melancholy celebrity to their misdeeds and thrown them into somewhat bolder relief than strictly belongs to them it is proper that thus much should be stated not to excuse their excesses but that we may be enabled to take a more impartial estimate of their conduct as compared with that of other nations under similar circumstances and that we may not visit them with peculiar oblique for evils which necessarily flow from the condition of war by none has this oblique been poured with such unsparing hand on the heads of the old conquerors as by their own descendants the modern Mexicans Itzlil Sochito's editor Gustamante concludes an animated invective against the invaders with recommending that a monument should be raised on the spot now dry land where Guatemala was taken which as the proposed inscription itself intimates should quote devote to eternal excretion the detested memory of those banditi and quote venido de los espanias page 52 nota one would suppose that the pure Aztec blood uncontaminated by a drop of Castilian flowed in the veins of this indignant editor and his compatriots or at least that their sympathies for the conquered race would make them anxious to reinstate them in their ancient rights notwithstanding these bursts of generous indignation however which plentifully season the writings of the Mexicans of our day we do not find that the revolution or any of its numerous brood of pronuncia mientos has resulted in restoring them to an acre of their ancient territory whatever may be thought of the conquest in a moral view regarded as a military achievement it must fill us with astonishment that a handful of adventurers indifferently armed and equipped should have landed on the shores of a powerful empire inhabited by a fierce and warlike race and in defiance of the reiterated prohibitions of its sovereign have forced their way into the interior that they should have done this without knowledge of the language or the land without chart compass to guide them without any idea of the difficulties they were to encounter totally uncertain whether the next step might bring them on a hostile nation or on a desert feeling their way along the dark as it were that though nearly overwhelmed by their first encounter with the inhabitants they should have still pressed on to the capital of the empire and having reached it thrown themselves unhesitatingly into the midst of their enemies that so far from being daunted by the extraordinary spectacle their exhibited of power and civilization they should have been but the more confirmed in their original design that they should have ceased the monarch have executed his ministers before the eyes of his subjects and when driven forth with ruin from the gates have gathered their scattered wreck together and after a system of operations pursued with consummate policy and daring have succeeded in overturning the capital and establishing their sway over the country that all this should have been so affected by a mere handful of indigent adventurers is in fact little short of the miraculous too startling for the probabilities demanded by fiction and without a parallel in the pages of history yet this must not be understood too literally for it would be unjust to the Aztecs themselves at least to their military prowess to regard the conquest as directly achieved by the Spaniards alone the Indian empire was in a manner conquered by Indians the Aztec monarchy fell by the hands of its own subjects under the direction of European sagacity and science had it been united it might have been in defiance to the invaders as it was the capital was discovered from the rest of the country and the bolt which might have passed off comparatively harmless had the empire been cemented by a common principle of loyalty and patriotism now found its way into every crack and crevice of the ill compacted fabric and buried it in its own ruins its fate may serve as a striking proof that a government which does not rest on the sympathies of its subjects cannot long abide that human institutions when not connected with human prosperity and progress must fall if not before the increasing light of civilization by the hand of violence by violence from within if not from without and who shall lament their fall End of Book 6, Chapter 8 Book 7, Chapter 1 of The History of the Conquest of Mexico This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Calenda History of the Conquest of Mexico by William H. Prescott Book 7, Chapter 1 Torture of Guatemala Submission of the country Rebuilding of the capital Mission to Castile Complaints against Cortez He is confirmed in his authority The history of the conquest of Mexico terminates with the surrender of the capital But the history of the conquest is so intimately blended with that of the extraordinary man who achieved it that there would seem to be an incompleteness in the narrative if it were not continued to the close of his personal career The first ebullition of triumph was succeeded in the army by very different feelings as they beheld the scanty spoil gleaned from the conquered city and as they brooded over the inadequate compensation they were to receive for all their toils and sufferings Some of the soldiers of Narvaz with feelings of bitter disappointment absolutely declined to accept their shares Some murmured audibly against the general and others against Guatemala who, they said, could reveal if he chose the place where the treasures were secreted The white walls of the barracks were covered with epigrams and pascanads leveled at Cortez whom they accused of taking one-fifth of the booty as commander-in-chief and another fifth as king As Guatemoes refused to make any revelation in respect to the treasure or rather declared there was none to take the soldiers loudly insisted on his being put to the torture But for this act of violence so contrary to the promise of protection recently made to the Indian prince Cortez was not prepared and he resisted the demand until the men instigated as said by the royal treasurer Alderete accused the general of a secret understanding with Guatemoes and of a design to defraud the Spanish sovereigns and themselves These unmerited taunts stung Cortez to the quick and in an evil hour he delivered the Aztec prince into the hands of these enemies to work their pleasure on him The hero who had brave death in its most awful forms was not to be intimidated by bodily suffering When his companion, the Cacique of Tacuba who was put to the torture with him testified his anguish by his groans Guatemoes and Coley rebuked him by exclaiming and do you think I then am taking my pleasure in my bath? At length Cortez ashamed of the base part he was led to play rescued the Aztec prince from his tormentors before it was too late for his own honour which has suffered an indelible stain from this treatment of his royal prisoner All that could be wrung from Guatemoes and by the extremity of his sufferings was the confession that much gold had been thrown into the water But although the best divers were employed under the eye of Cortez himself to search the oozy bed of the lake only a few articles of inconsiderable value were drawn from it They had better fortune in searching a pond in Guatemoes' garden where a sun as it is called probably one of the Aztec calendar wheels made of pure gold of great size and thickness was discovered The tidings of the fall of Mexico were born on the wings of the wind over the plateau and down the broad sides of the Cordieras Many an envoy made his appearance from the remote Indian tribes anxious to learn the truth of the astounding intelligence and de gaze with their own eyes on the ruins of the detested city Among these were ambassadors from the Kingdom of Mechhuacan a powerful and independent state inhabited by one of the kindred Nahuatlac races and lying between the Mexican valley and the Pacific His example was followed by ambassadors from the remote regions which had never yet had intercourse with the Spaniards Cortez, who saw the boundaries of his empire thus rapidly enlarging availed himself of the favorable dispositions of the natives to ascertain the products and resources of their several countries Two small detachments were sent into the friendly state of Mechhuacan through which country they penetrated to the borders of the great southern ocean No European had as yet descended on its shores so far north of the equator The Spaniards eagerly advanced into its waters erected a cross on the sandy margin and took possession of it with all the usual formalities in the name of their most Catholic majesties On their return they visited some of the rich districts toward the north since celebrated for their mineral treasures and brought back samples of gold and Californian pearls with an account of their discovery of the ocean The imagination of Cortez was kindled and his soul swelled with exultation at the splendid prospects which their discoveries unfolded Most of all, he writes to the emperor Do I exalt in the tidings brought me of the great ocean? For in it, as cosmographers and those learned men who know most about the Indies inform us are scattered the rich isles teeming with gold and spices and precious stones He at once sought a favorable spot for a colony on the shores of the Pacific and made arrangements for the construction of four vessels to explore the mysteries of these unknown seas This was the beginning of his noble enterprises for discovery in the Gulf of California Although the greater part of Anahuac, over-odd by the successes of the Spaniards had tendered their allegiance, there were some especially on the southern slopes of the Cordieras who showed a less submissive disposition Cortez instantly sent out strong detachments under Sandoval and Alvarado to reduce the enemy and establish colonies in the conquered provinces The highly colored reports which Alvarado who had a quick scent for gold gave of the mineral wealth of Waxaca No doubt operated with Cortez in determining him to select this region for his own particular domain Cortez did not immediately decide in what quarter of the valley to establish the new capital of the ancient Tenoctaclan The situation of the latter, surrounded by water and exposed to occasional inundations had some obvious disadvantages but there was no doubt that in some part of the elevated and central plateau of the valley the new metropolis should be built to which both European and Indian might look up as to the head of the colonial empire of Spain At length he decided on retaining the site of the ancient city moved to it, as he says, by its past renown and the memory, not an enviable one surely, in which it was held among the nations and he made preparations for the reconstruction of the capital, which should in his own language raise her to the rank of queen of the surrounding provinces in the same manner as she had been of Yor The labor was to be performed by the Indian population drawn from all quarters of the valley and including the Mexicans themselves great numbers of whom still lingered in the neighborhood of their ancient residents At first they showed reluctance and even symptoms of hostility but they were called to this work of humiliation by their conquerors but Cortes had the address to secure some of the principal chiefs in his interest and under their authority and direction the labor of their countrymen was conducted The deep groves of the valley and the forests of the neighboring hills supplied cedar, cypress and other durable woods for the interior of the buildings and the quarries of Tetsonte and the ruins of the ancient edifices furnished abundance of stone and the draught employed with the Aztecs an immense number of hands was necessarily required for the work All within the immediate control of Cortes were pressed into the service The spot so recently deserted now swarmed with multitudes of Indians of various tribes and with Europeans the latter directing while the others labored The prophecy of the Aztecs was accomplished the work of reconstruction went forward rapidly Yet the condition of Cortes notwithstanding the success of his arms suggested many causes of anxiety He had not received a word of encouragement from home, not a word indeed of encouragement or censure In what light his irregular course was regarded by the government or the nation was still a matter of painful uncertainty He now prepared another letter to the emperor the third in the published series written in the same simple and energetic style which has entitled his commentaries as they may be called to a comparison with those of Caesar It was dated at Cahuacan 15 May 1522 and in it he recapitulated the events of the final siege of the capital and his subsequent operations accompanied by many sagacious reflections as usual on the character and resources of the country With this letter he purposed to send the royal fifth of the spoils of Mexico and a rich collection of fabrics especially of gold and jewelry wrought into many rare and fanciful forms One of the jewels was an emerald cut in a pyramidal shape of so extraordinary a size that the base was as broad as the palm of the hand The collection was still further augmented by specimens of many of the natural products as well as of animals peculiar to the country The army wrote a letter to a company that of Cortez in which they expatiated on his manifold services and besought the emperor to ratify his proceedings and confirm him in his present authority The important mission was entrusted to two of the general's confidential officers Avila. It proved to be unfortunate The agents touched at the Azores where Quinones lost his life in a brawl Avila, resuming his voyage was captured by a French privateer and the rich spoils of the Aztecs went into the treasury of his most Christian majesty Francis I gazed with pardonable envy on the treasures which his imperial rival drew from his colonial domains and he intimated his discontent by peevishly expressing a desire to take his claws in Adam's testament which entitled his brothers of Castile and Portugal to divide the new world between them Avila found means through a private hand of transmitting his letters the most important part of his charge to Spain where they reached the court in safety While these events were passing affairs in Spain had taken an unfavorable turn for Cortez It may seem strange that the brilliant exploits of the conqueror of Mexico should have attracted so little notice from the governments at home but the country was at that time distracted by the dismal feuds of the Comunidades The sovereign was in Germany too much engrossed by the cares of the empire to allow leisure for those of his own kingdom The reigns of government were in the hands of Adrian, Charles's preceptor a man whose ascetic and studious habits better qualified him to preside over a college of monks than to fill as he successively did the most important posts in Christendom first as regent of Castile afterwards as head of the church Yet the slow and hesitating Adrian could not have so long passed over in silence the important services of Cortez but for the hostile interference of Velazquez the governor of Cuba sustained by Fonseca, Bishop of Burgos the chief person in the Spanish colonial department This prelate from his elevated station possessed paramount authority in all matters relating to the Indies and he had exerted it from the first as we have already seen in a manner most prejudicial to the interests of Cortez He had now the address to obtain a warrant from the regent which was designed to ruin the conqueror at the very moment when his great enterprise had been crowned with success The instrument, after recapitulating the offenses of Cortez in regard to Velazquez appoints a commissioner with full powers to visit the country to institute an inquiry into the general's conduct to suspend him from his functions to present his person and sequestrate his property until the pleasure of the Castilian court could be known The warrant was signed by Adrian at Burgos on the 11th of April, 1521 and counter signed by Fonseca The individual selected for the delicate task of apprehending Cortez and bringing him to trial on the theater of his own discoveries and in the heart of his own camp was named Cristóbal de Tapia Vidor or inspector of the gold foundries in San Domingo He was a feeble, vacillating man as little competent to cope with Cortez in civil matters as Narvaz had shown himself to be in military The commissioner clothed in his brief authority landed in December at Villarica but he was coldly received by the magistrates of the city His credentials were disputed on the ground of some technical informality It was objected moreover that his commission was founded on obvious representations to the government and notwithstanding a most courteous and complimentary epistle which he received from Cortez congratulating him as an old friend on his arrival The Vidor soon found that he was neither to be permitted to penetrate far into the country nor to exercise any control there He loved money and as Cortez knew the weak side of his old friend he proposed to purchase his horses, slaves and ecupage at a tempting price The dreams of disappointed ambition were gradually succeeded by those of avarice and the discomfited commissioner consented to re-embark for Cuba well freighted with gold if not with glory Thus left in undisputed possession of authority the Spanish commander went forward with vigor in his plans for the settlement of his conquests The Panuqueze, a fierce people on the borders of the Panuco on the Atlantic coast had taken up arms against the Spaniards Cortez marched at the head of the Panuqueze into their country defeated them in two pitched battles and after a severe campaign reduced the war-like tribe to sub-jection During this interval the great question in respect to Cortez in the colony had been brought to a decisive issue The general must have succumbed under the insidious and implacable attacks of his enemies but for the sturdy opposition of a few powerful friends zealously devoted to his interests Among them maybe mentioned his own father Don Martin Cortez a discreet and efficient person and the Duke de Bejar a powerful nobleman who from an early period had warmly espoused the cause of Cortez By their representations the timid regent was at length convinced that the measures of Fonseca were prejudicial to the interests of the crown and an order was issued interdicting him from further interference in any matters in which Cortez was concerned While the exasperated prelate was chafing under this affront the commissioners Tapia and Narvaz arrived in Castile The latter had been ordered to Cahuacan after the surrender of the capital where his cringing demeanor formed a striking contrast to the swaggering port which he had assumed on first entering the country When brought into the presence of Cortez he knelt down and would have kissed his hand but the latter raised him from the ground and during his residence in his quarters treated him with every mark of respect The general soon afterwards permitted his unfortunate rival to return to Spain where he proved, as might have been anticipated a most bitter and implacable enemy These two personages reinforced by the discontented prelate brought forward their several charges against Cortez with all the acrimony which mortified vanity and the thirst of vengeance could inspire Adrian was no longer in Spain having been called to the chair of St. Peter but Charles V after his long absence had returned to his dominions in July 1522 The royal ear was instantly assailed with accusations of Cortez on the one hand and his vindication on the other till the young monarch, perplexed and unable to decide on the merits of the question referred the whole subject to the decision of a board selected for the purpose It was drawn partly from the members of his privy council and partly from the Indian department with the grand chancellor of Naples as its president and constituted altogether a tribunal of the highest respectability for integrity and wisdom By this learned body a patient and temperate hearing was given to the parties The enemies of Cortez accused him of having seized and finally destroyed the fleet entrusted to him by Velazquez and fitted out at the governor's expense of having afterwards usurped powers and contempt of the royal prerogative of the unjustifiable treatment of Narvaz and Tapia when they had been lawfully commissioned to supersede him of cruelty to the natives and especially to Guatemala of embezzling the royal treasures and remitting but a small part of its dues to the crown of squandering the revenues of the conquered countries in useless and wasteful schemes and particularly in rebuilding the capital on a plan of unprecedented extravagance of pursuing, in short a system of violence and extortion without respect to the public interest or any other end than his own selfish aggrandizement In answer to these grave charges the friends of Cortez adduced evidence to show that he had defrayed with his own funds two-thirds of the cost of the expedition The powers of Velazquez extended only to traffic not to establish a colony yet the interests of the crown required the latter The army had therefore necessarily assumed this power to themselves but having done so they had sent intelligence of their proceedings to the emperor and solicited his confirmation of them The rupture with Narvaz was that commander's own fault since Cortez would have met him amicably had not the violent measures of his rival threatening the ruin of the expedition compelled him to an opposite course The treatment of Tapia was vindicated on the grounds alleged to that officer by the municipality of Sampoala The violence to Guatemala was laid at the door of Alderete the royal treasurer who had instigated the soldiers to demand it The remittances to the crown it was clearly proved so far from falling short of the legitimate fifth had considerably exceeded it If the general had expended the revenues of the country on costly enterprises and public works it was for the interests of the country that he did so and he had incurred a heavy debt by straining his own credit to the utmost for the same great objects Neither did they deny that in the same spirit he was now rebuilding Mexico on a scale which should be suited to the metropolis of a vast and opulent empire They enlarged on the opposition he had experienced throughout his whole career from the governor of Cuba and still more from the bishop of Burgos which latter functionary instead of affording him the aid to have been expected had discouraged recruits stopped his supplies sequestered such property as from time to time he had sent to Spain and falsely represented his remittances to the crown as coming from the governor of Cuba In short such and so numerous were the obstacles thrown in his path that Cortez had been heard to say he had found it more difficult to contend against his own countrymen than against the Aztecs They concluded with expatiating on the brilliant results of his expedition and asked if the council were prepared to dishonor the man who in the face of such obstacles and with scarcely other resources than what he found in himself had won an empire for Castile such as was possessed by no European potentate This last appeal was irresistible However irregular had been the manner of proceeding No one could deny the grandeur of the results There was not a Spaniard that could be insensible to such services or that would not have cried out shame at an ungenerous requital of them There were three Flemmings in the council but there seems to have been no difference of opinion in the body It was decided that neither Velazquez nor Fonseca should interfere further in the concerns of New Spain The difficulties of the former with Cortez were regarded in the nature of a private suit and as such redress must be sought by the regular course of law The acts of Cortez were confirmed in their full extent He was constituted governor, captain general and chief justice of New Spain with power to appoint to all offices civil and military and to order any person to leave the country whose residence there he might deem prejudicial to the interests of the crown This judgment of the council was ratified by Charles V and the commission investing Cortez with these ample powers was signed by the emperor at Baladolid, 15th of October, 1522 A liberal salary was provided to enable the governor of New Spain to maintain his office with suitable dignity The principal officers were recompensed with honors and substantial emoluments and the troops, together with some privileges grateful to the vanity of the soldier received the promise of liberal grants of land The emperor still further complimented them by a letter written to the army with his own hand in which he acknowledged its services in the fullest manner End of Book 7, Chapter 1 Recording by Colinda in Raymond, New Hampshire on February 4th, 2008