Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 1.djvu/66

46 peut entrer sans conteste dans la redoutable phalange des fléaux de l'humanite."

His subsequent undertakings called for the exercise of qualities hardly less remarkable, though of a different order, and it was absence of productive success which has caused them to be overlooked in a world where results count for more than effort.

It was never the policy of the Spanish crown to entrust the government of dependencies to their discoverers or conquerors, and when powerful friends at Court sought in 1529 to prevail upon Charles the Fifth to grant Cortes supreme power under the crown in Mexico, His Majesty was not to be persuaded; and in refusing he pointed out that his royal precedessors had never done this, even in the case of Columbus, or of Gonsalvo de Cordoba, the conqueror of Naples. Had it been possible, however, or the Emperor to free himself from the suspicions which the persistent intrigues of Cortes's enemies fomented, especially from the jealous fear of a possible aspiration to independent sovereignty, it cannot be doubted that the wisest thing, both for Mexico and for the royal interests, would have been the installation of Cortes in as independent a vice-royalty as was compatible with the maintenance of the royal supremacy. While Cortes, in common with all his kind, loved gold, he was not a mere vulgar plunderer, seeking to hastily enrich himself, at no matter what cost to the country, in order to retire to a life of luxury in Spain. Moreover even granting that he had started with no larger purpose, it is plain that he was himself at the outset unconscious, both of his own powers and of the strange drama about to unfold, in which destiny reserved him the first part. By the time the conquest was completed, his knowledge of the possibilities of Mexico had expanded, so that his views on all questions connected with the occupation, the government and the future welfare of the country, hap