Ch. V.]
HIS CHARACTER.
361
acter of this remarkable man ; that is, his bigot-ry, the failing of the age, — for, surely, it shouldbe termed only a failing . 35 When we see the hand,red with the blood of the wretched native, raised toinvoke the blessing of Heaven on the cause whichit maintains, we experience something like a sen-sation of disgust at the act, and a doubt of its sin-cerity. But this is unjust. We should throw our-selves back (it cannot be too often repeated) intothe age ; the age of the Crusades. For every Span ish cavalier, however sordid and selfish might be hisprivate motives, felt himself to be the soldier of theCross. Many of them would have died in defenceof it. Whoever has read the correspondence ofCortés, or, still more, has attended to the circum-stances of his career, will hardly doubt that hewould have been among the first to lay down hislife for the Faith. He more than once perilled life,and fortune, and the success of his whole enterprise,by the premature and most impolitic manner inwhich he would have forced conversion on the na-tives . 36 To the more rational spirit of the present
35 An extraord ary anecdote isrelated by Cavo, of this bigotry(shall we call it policy?) of Cortés.“In Mexico, ” says the historian,“it is commonly reported, that,after the Conquest, he commanded,that on Sundays and holidays allshould attend, under pain of a ce,-tain number of stripes, to the ex-pounding of the Scriptures. Thegeneral was himself guilty of an
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omission, on one occasion, and,after having listened to the admo-nition of the priest, submitted, withedifying humility, to be chastisedby him, to the unspeakable amaze-ment of the Indians! ” Hist, delos Tres Siglos, tom. I. p. 151.
36 “Al Rey infinitas tierras,
Y á Dios infinitas almas,**