Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 1.djvu/59

Rh indeed he ever ventured to return to civilisation. If such work is to be done at all, there are richly endowed missionary societies to attend to it. But even the equipment of the missionaries who undertake to carry evangelical doctrine amongst savage peoples presents some striking contrasts to the barefooted Spanish friars who first preached Christianity to the Mexicans. If the heathen are no longer brought by compulsion into the light, we make them pay a heavy indemnity for their privilege of sitting in darkness, and, whenever their opposition to the dissemination of Christian teaching amongst them emerges from quiesence into activity, a warship is ready to bombard their coasts while troops are at hand to annex a province.

In the eighth of Lord Lyttleton's Dialogues of the Dead the shades of Fernando Cortes and William Penn are made to discourse with one another upon the merits of their respective undertakings in North America, each ghost defending its own system. Friend Penn in one passage says to Cortes:

I know very well that thou wast as fierce as a lion and as subtle as a serpent. The Devil, perhaps, may place thee as high in his black list of heroes as Alexander or Caesar. It is not my business to interfere with him in settling thy rank. But hark thee, Friend Cortes, — What right hadst thou or had the King of Spain himself to the Mexican Empire? Answer me that, if thou canst.

. The Pope gave it to my Master.

. The Devil offered to give our Lord all the kingdoms of the earth, and I suppose the Pope as His Vicar gave thy Master this; in return for which he fell down and worshipped him like an idolater as he was, etc.

The ghost of Penn defends his possession of Pennsylvania, alleging the honest right of fair purchase; to which Cortes replies: