Page:The gilded man (El Dorado) and other pictures of the Spanish occupancy of America.djvu/97

Rh collected the few soldiers that could be found on the coast, and fearlessly went with them in 1546 to meet Carvajal. He succeeded, notwithstanding the superiority of Carvajal's force, in arresting him without resistance, and in a few days Von Hutten's murderer was publicly beheaded at Tocuyo. Of the further fortunes of Pedro de Limpias we are not able to speak.

Although by this act of justice a kind of atonement was offered to the Germans, their rule in Venezuela wholly ceased from this time. It had lasted eighteen years, and had, it must be admitted, contributed very little to the development of the colonies. Robertson justly remarks that under the direction of such persons as the Welsers it might have been expected that a settlement would be founded on a plan different from that of the Spaniards, and more favorable to the advancement of those useful industries which commercial proprietors recognize as the most direct sources of prosperity and wealth. The failure to fulfil these expectations is ascribed by Robertson to the mistakes and misconduct of individual German leaders in Venezuela. His designation of these men as adventurers, who in their impatience thought of nothing but of snatching wealth, fits Ambrosius Dalfinger very well, and Federmann to a certain extent, although the latter was too prudent fully to come under it. But we cannot affix such a reproach to the grand and richly endowed nature of Georg von Speyer or the noble and knightly personality of Philip von Hutten. The cause of the lamentable failure lies in the nature of the transaction itself, in the way in which the