Page:Vol 1 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/813

Rh Ambitious to rule, they sent their armies to bring province after province under the yoke. Rapacious collectors followed to press the substance out of the people, for the appetite of themselves and their masters. Confiscation, enslavement, and desolation marched in the train, and the fairest hopes of the land were dragged away in bondage, and to bleed on the stone of sacrifice.

To all these appalling evils the Totonacs, among others, were exposed, when soldiers appeared on their shores bearing aloft the symbol of charity, of deliverance. The crushed family appealed to them, also the writhing slaves, for from the altars of hideous idols rose the dying shrieks of youths and maidens. But a short time before knights of different orders swarmed over Europe, the professed champions of the oppressed; and the spirit of the crusaders still lingered in Spain, in form if nothing more; and what Christian soldier could unheedingly view such outrages!

Montezuma and his people were inhuman monsters, and Grotius, Montesquieu, and others who should know, say that war in behalf of humanity is a duty; and this notwithstanding the remedy be tenfold more inhuman than the disease.

Not that the Spaniards were insincere in their proffers of such excuses; duty comes to us in the color of our desires. Moreover, they were fresh from the Moorish wars; they were imbued with a religious exaltation and chivalric sentiment that placed before them in varied light duty to their God, their king, and themselves. For centuries they had been trained to devote life and possessions to advance the interests of sovereign and church. Many of the noblest characteristics were interwoven in the nature of Cortés, and also with admirable distinctness in such men as Juan Velazquez, Sandoval, and Puertocarrero. In others we find the dignity of the hidalgo upheld without