Part 61

Wearied out by his incessant efforts, and perceiving the hopelessness of continuing a contest against so many myriads of enemies――for recruits were flocking in from the neighboring country to assist the Mexicans against the common foe――Cortez resolved to try the effects of negotiation, and to employ Montezuma as his intercessor. At his request, therefore, Montezuma, dressed in his imperial robes, appeared on a terraced roof, where he was visible to the multitude gathered in the great square. A silence ensued, and Montezuma was parleying with four nobles who approached him, when suddenly a shower of stones and arrows fell on the spot where he was standing. The Spanish soldiers tried to interpose their bucklers; but it was too late; Montezuma fell to the ground, his head bleeding from the effects of a blow with a stone. He was immediately removed, and every means used for his recovery: nor was the wound of itself dangerous. But his kingly spirit had received a wound which no words could heal; he had been reviled and struck by his own subjects, among whom hitherto he had walked as a sacred being: he refused to live any longer. He tore the bandages from his head, and rejected all nourishment; and in a short time the Spaniards were informed that their unhappy prisoner was dead. Cortez and many of the men could not refrain from weeping; and the body was surrendered to the Mexicans with every testimony of respect.

The fighting was now commenced with greater fury, and prodigies of valor were performed by the Spaniards; but all to no purpose. Another attempt was made to induce the enemy to come to terms. The only answer was the threat that they would all be sacrificed to the gods, and the appalling information, ‘You cannot escape; the bridges are broken down.’ At last, as death was before their eyes, it was determined by Cortez, and all the officers and soldiers, to quit the city during the night as they hoped at that time to find the enemy less alert.

Towards midnight, on the 1st of July 1520, they left their quarters secretly, most of the soldiers loading themselves with the gold which remained over and above the royal share, and proceeded as silently as possible towards the western causeway leading to Tlacopan, by which, as being the shortest of the three (two miles long), they thought it would be the easiest to effect a passage. In this causeway there were three drawbridges, separated by intervals nearly equal; and aware that these had been destroyed by the Mexicans, Cortez had provided a portable bridge, made of timber, the carriage of which he intrusted to forty picked soldiers. The van of the army was led by Sandoval, with two hundred foot and a body of horse under his command; the baggage, large guns and prisoners came next, guarded by Cortez and a band of veterans; and the rear was brought up by Pedro de Alvarado and Valasquez de Leon, commanding the strength of the infantry.

The night was dark and rainy. The Spaniards reached the causeway without being interrupted. The portable bridge was laid across the first moat or gap, and a great part of the army had gone over it in safety, and were already approaching the second gap, when, through the stillness of the night, there was heard the boom of the great drum from the top of the Mexican war temple, the rushing of myriads of pursuers along the causeway from behind, and the splashing of the oars of thousands of canoes full of warriors, which were advancing through the lake on both sides of the causeway. Showers of arrows fell on the rearguard as they were passing over the portable bridge; and the Aztecs, clambering up the sides of the causeway, grappled with the soldiers, and tried to drag them into the water. Throwing off these assailants by main strength, Alvarado and his men steadily and expeditiously moved on. Meanwhile the vanguard under Sandoval having reached the second gap, were waiting until the portable bridge should be brought up to enable them to cross it. Goaded with the arrows which were discharged upon them in clouds from the Aztec canoes, they grew impatient of the delay, and began to cast anxious glances backward along the causeway for the appearance of the bridge. Suddenly the appalling news was passed along that the bridge had stuck so fast at the first opening that it could not be pulled up. The weight of the men and heavy baggage crossing it had fastened it into the earth so firmly as to defy extrication. When this awful intelligence reached the vanguard, order and command were at an end; uproar and confusion ensued; and, seized with the instinct of self-preservation, each man tried to shift for himself. Flinging themselves headlong into the gap, they struggled with the Mexican warriors in the water, upsetting their canoes in their drowning agonies. Rank after rank followed, each trampling upon the bodies of its predecessors, and floundering among the canoes which lay between them and the opposite side. Sandoval and a few of the cavalry swam their horses across; some of the foot also were able to reach the side of the causeway and climb up; but of the vanguard, the great majority were drowned, or slain, or carried off wounded in the Mexican canoes. Meanwhile on came the rest of the army; men, carriages, guns, baggage, all were swept into the trench, which was soon choked up by the wreck. Over this bridge of broken wagons, bales of cotton, and the dead bodies of their companions and enemies, Cortez and his veterans were able to reach the other side of the trench with less difficulty. Here, joining Sandoval and the few survivors of his band, they dashed along the causeway towards the third and last opening, regardless of the darts and arrows which the Mexicans discharged among them from their canoes. Reaching the third trench, they crossed it in the same manner as the last, but without so much loss, and were rapidly approaching the mainland, when looking back through the dim morning light, they saw Alvarado and his rearguard pent up on the causeway between the second and third bridges, and almost overborne by the Mexicans who surounded them. Cortez, Sandoval, and a few of the horse instantly wheeled round to the rescue; and recrossing the third gap, shouted their battle-cry, and interposed between the Spaniards and their pursuers. This timely succor enabled most of the infantry to escape; and at length all had crossed the opening except Cortez, Sandoval, Alvarado, and a few others. Cortez, Sandoval, and the rest soon followed, carried through by their horses; and only one man remained upon the Mexican extremity of the causeway. It was Pedro de Alvarado; his horse was slain; and he was standing on the brink, surrounded by enemies ready drag him off, should he plunge into the trench. Five or six warriors were already advancing from behind to seize him, when, casting one glance at the opposite edge where his countrymen were waiting him, he planted one end of his long lance among the rubbish which choked up the gap, and, rising in the air, cleared it at a bound. The spot where this tremendous feat was executed still bears the name of _Alvarado’s Leap_.

The Mexicans now desisted from the pursuit; and the relics of the Spanish army, advancing along the remainder of the causeway, entered Tlacopan. Here they did not remain long, being anxious to place themselves beyond the reach of the Mexicans, and to arrive at Tlascala, the city of their faithful allies. They were now able to count the losses which they had sustained during the night. About four hundred and fifty Spaniards, and nearly four thousand Tlascalans, had been drowned, slain, or made prisoners during the passage along the causeway; a loss which, added to the numbers killed in the battles within the city, reduced the army to little more than a fourth of what it had been when it entered Mexico ten days before. But the most deplorable part was the loss of all the artillery, firearms, and ammunition, not so much as a musket remaining among the five hundred who survived. Still, under this accumulation of misfortunes, his heart did not sink; and his resolution was taken not to leave the country till he had regained his former footing in it, and annexed it as a province to the dominions of his sovereign.

His first object was to reach Tlascala, where he might recruit the strength of his men――almost all of whom were stiff with wounds――and arrange his future proceedings. After many difficulties, and another great battle, in which he defeated the Mexicans, he reached it on the 9th of July, 1520. They were kindly received by the generous mountaineers, who withstood all the solicitations of the Mexican sovereign, Cuitlahua, Montezuma’s brother and successor, that they would assist him in driving the Spaniards out of the country.

It was early in autumn before Cortez left Tlascala. His intention was first to punish several states of Anahuac which had revolted during his absence in Mexico, especially the districts of Tepeaca and Cachula; and then, after having reduced the whole country east of the Mexican valley, to return to the capital itself, and take it by storm. With a force so reduced as his, without cannons or other firearms, this was an apparently hopeless enterprise; but _hopeless_ was a word of which Cortez did not know the meaning. Fortunately, while engaged in subduing the eastern districts of Anahuac, he received reinforcements which he never anticipated. Velasquez, ignorant of the fate of the expedition which he had sent under Narvaez, and supposing that Cortez was by this time a prisoner in the hands of his rival, had despatched a ship with stores, arms, and ammunition to the colony of Villa Rica. The vessel touched at the port; the captain and his men disembarked, suspecting nothing, and were instantly seized by the officer of Cortez; nor did it require much persuasion to induce the whole crew to enlist under the standard of a man of whom they had heard so many eulogies. A second vessel sent by Velasquez soon afterwards shared the same fate; three ships sent by the governor of Jamaica to prosecute discoveries, and plant colonies in central America, chancing also to land at Villa Rica, their crews joined the army of Cortez; and lastly, a merchant vessel, loaded with provisions and all the necessaries of war, arrived at the Mexican coast, and was purchased by Cortez――sailors, cargo, and all.

Having completely subjugated all Anahuac to the east of the Mexican valley, Cortez resolved to found a second Spanish colony in the interior of the country, which should form a half-way station between Villa Rica and the city of Mexico. The site chosen was Tepeaca, and the name given to the settlement was Segura de la Frontera. From this spot Cortez wrote a second letter to Charles V, giving an account of the expedition from the date of the last letter down to the foundation of Segura, and announcing his intention of marching immediately to reconquer Mexico.

It was five months after the date of their expulsion from Mexico before the Spaniards were in a condition once more to march against it. Part of the necessary preparations consisted, as we have seen, in the subjugation of those parts of Anahuac which adjoined the Mexican valley on the east; but another cause of delay was the construction of thirteen brigantines at Tlascala, under the direction of Martin Lopez, a skillful shipwright, who had accompanied Cortez. These vessels were to be taken to pieces, and transported, together with the iron-work and cordage belonging to the ships which Cortez had destroyed off Villa Rica, across the mountains to the great Mexican lake. At length all was ready, and on the 28th of December 1520 the whole army left Tlascala on its march towards Mexico. It consisted of about six hundred Spaniards, with nine cannons, and forty horses, accompanied by an immense multitude of native warriors, Tlascalans, Tepeacans, and Cholulans, amounting probably to sixteen thousand men, besides the _tamanes_, who were employed in transporting the brigantines. Garrisons had of course been left at Villa Rica and Segura.

No opposition was offered to the invaders on their march, the Mexicans fleeing at their approach; and on the 1st of January, 1521, they took possession of the city of Tezcuco. Cuitlahua, Montezuma’s successor on the throne, was now dead, and his place was occupied by his nephew, Guatemozin, yet a young man, but the most heroic and patriotic of all the Mexicans. The policy of Cortez was first to subdue all the states and cities on the margin of the five lakes, so as to leave Mexico without protection or assistance, and then to direct his whole force to the final reduction of the capital. For four months, therefore, Cortez, Sandoval, Alvarado, and his other officers were employed, sometimes separately, sometimes in concert, in reconnoitering expeditions into various parts of the Mexican valley――from Chalco, on the banks of the southernmost, to Xaltocan, an island in the northernmost lake. Scarcely a day of these four months was passed in idleness; and it would require far more space than we can afford to do justice to all the engagements in which the Spaniards were victorious, or to all the feats of personal valor performed by Cortez, Alvarado, Olid, Sandoval, and other brave cavaliers. Passing over these, as well as the account of a conspiracy among his men, which the prudence and presence of mind of Cortez enabled him to quash, and of the execution of the Tlascalan chief, Xicotencatl, for deserting the Spaniards, we hasten to the concluding scene.

On the 10th of May, 1521, the siege commenced. Alvarado, with a hundred and fifty Spanish infantry, thirty cavalry, and eight thousand Tlascalans, took up his station at Tlacopan, so as to command the western causeway; Christoval de Olid, with the same number of cavalry and Indians, and a hundred and seventy-five infantry, commanded one of the branches of the southern causeway at Cojohuacan; and Sandoval, with a force nearly equal, the other branch of the same causeway at Iztapalapan. Cortez himself took the command of the flotilla of brigantines. For several days the three captains conducted operations more or less successfully at their respective stations, one of Alvarado’s services having consisted in destroying the pipes which supplied the Mexicans with fresh water, so that, during the rest of the siege, they had no other way of procuring a supply than by means of canoes. The brigantines, when they were launched, did immense service in overturning and dispersing the Mexican canoes, and also in protecting the flanks of the causeways on which the other detachments were pursuing their operations. At length, after much resistance on the part of the Mexicans, the two causeways, the western and the southern, were completely occupied by the Spaniards; and Sandoval having, by Cortez’s orders, made a circuit of the lake, and seized the remaining causeway of Tepejeca, the city was in a state of blockade. But so impatient were the Spaniards of delay, that Cortez resolved on a general assault on the city by all the three causeways at once. Cortez was to advance into the city from Xoloc, Alvarado from his camp on the western causeway, and Sandoval from his camp on the northern, and the three detachments, uniting in the great square in the centre of the city, were to put the inhabitants to the sword. The plan had nearly succeeded. The vanguard of Cortez’s party had chased the retreating Mexicans into the city, and were pushing their way to the great square, when the horn of Guatemozin was heard to sound, and the Aztecs rallying, commenced a furious onset. The neglect of Cortez to fill up a trench in one of the causeways impeded the retreat of the Spaniards in such a way as to cause a dreadful confusion, and it was only by efforts almost superhuman that they were able to regain their quarters. Their loss amounted to upwards of a hundred men, of whom about sixty had been taken alive.

This triumph elated the Mexicans as much as it depressed the Spaniards and their allies. It was prophesied by the Mexican priests that in eight days all the Spaniards should be slain; the gods, they said, had decreed it. This prediction, reported in the quarters of the besiegers, produced an extraordinary effect on the allies. They regarded the Spaniards as doomed men, refused to fight with them, and withdrew to a little distance from the lake. In this dilemma Cortez showed his wonderful presence of mind, by ordering a total cessation of hostilities for the period specified by the Mexican gods. When the eight days were passed, the allies, ashamed of their weakness, returned to the Spanish quarters, and the siege recommenced. These eight days, however, had not been without their horrors. From their quarters the Spaniards could perceive their fellow-countrymen who had been taken prisoners by the Mexicans dragged to the top of the great war temple, compelled to dance round the sanctuary of the gods, then laid on the stone of sacrifice, their hearts torn out, and their bleeding bodies flung down into the square beneath.

Famine now assisted the arms of the Spaniards; still, with that bravery of endurance for which their race is remarkable, the Mexicans continued the defense of the city, and it was not till it had been eaten into, as it were, on all sides, by the Spaniards, that they ceased to fight. On the 14th of August a murderous assault was commenced by the besiegers. It lasted two days; and on the evening of the second some canoes were seen to leave the city, and endeavor to reach the mainland. They were chased, and captured; and on board of one of them was found Guatemozin, with his family and his principal nobles. Guatemozin’s capture was the signal of complete defeat; and on the 16th of August, 1521, the city was surrendered to the Spaniards. The population was reduced to about forty thousand, and in a few days all these had disappeared, no one knew whither. The city was in ruins, like some huge churchyard with the corpses disinterred and the tombstones scattered about.

Thus was the ancient and beautiful city of Mexico destroyed, and its inhabitants slain or dispersed. A monstrous act of unjustifiable aggression had been completed. Following up this great blow, Cortez pursued the conquest of the country generally; and in this, as well as in organizing it into a colony of Spain, he did not experience any serious difficulty. On proceeding to Spain, he was received with honor by Charles V. He returned to Mexico in 1530; and again revisiting Spain in 1540, for the purpose of procuring the redress of real or alleged grievances, he died in 1547, in the sixty-third year of his age. It is very much to be lamented that, in the execution of his purposes of colonization, the monuments of Mexican civilization were everywhere destroyed, leaving nothing to future generations but the broken relics of palaces, temples, and other objects of art, scattered amidst the wilderness. Some of these ruined monuments, recently explored by Stephens and other travelers, show that the ancient Mexicans had made remarkable advances in social life as well as in the arts, more particularly architecture; and what renders all such relics the more interesting to the archæologist, is the growing conviction, that the old Mexican civilization was of an original type――a thing noway derived from, or connected with, the civilization of Egypt, or any other nation in the eastern hemisphere.

It is consolatory to know that the Spaniards have not succeeded in making Mexico a perpetual tributary of their rapacious monarchy. The cruelties they committed seem to have contained in themselves the elements of retribution. After a career of indolence, oppression, and bigotry, extending to comparatively recent times, their yoke has been thrown off; and their feeble and ignorant successors may be said to be in the course of coming under the thraldom of their Anglo-Saxon neighbors. It is difficult to compassionate the fate which appears to await the slothful and proud race whose ancestors laid the ancient empire of Mexico in ruins.

WILLIAM PENN.

William Penn, the celebrated founder of Pennsylvania, was born in London on the 14th of October, 1644. He was the only son of Sir William Penn, a naval commander of distinction, first during the Protectorate of Cromwell, and afterwards in the service of Charles the II, from whom he received the honor of knighthood. His health having suffered from his active duties, Admiral Penn retired from service in 1666, although then only in the forty-fifth year of his age. His wife, the mother of William Penn, was the daughter of a merchant in Rotterdam.

Penn received his preliminary education at Chigwell, in Essex, near his father’s country residence. From Chigwell school he was removed, at twelve years of age, to a private academy in London; and having made great progress in all the usual branches of education, he was entered, at the age of fifteen years, as a gentleman commoner at Christ-church, Oxford. At college he is said to have been remarkable not more for his sedateness and attention to study, than for his extreme fondness for all athletic sports. His first bias, too, towards the opinions of that religious sect of which he became afterwards so distinguished an ornament, the Society of Friends, was produced at this period of his life. It was the effect of the preaching of one Thomas Loe, once a member of the university of Oxford, but who had embraced the doctrines of the Quakers, and was now a zealous propagator of the same.

Serious and thoughtful from his childhood, young Penn was strongly impressed by the views of religious truth which Loe inculcated; and the consequence was, that he and a few of his fellow-students who had been similarly affected, began to absent themselves from the established worship of the university, and to hold private meetings among themselves for devotional purposes. For this breach of the college rules a fine was imposed upon them by the authorities of the university. Neither Penn nor his associates were cured of their disposition to nonconformity by this act of severity; they still continued to hold their private meetings, and naturally became more zealous in their views as they saw those views prohibited and discountenanced. Their zeal soon manifested itself in an act of riot. An order having been sent down to Oxford by Charles II that the surplice should be worn by the students, as was customary in ancient times, Penn and his companions were so roused by what they conceived a return to popish observances, that, not content with disobeying the order themselves, they attacked those students who appeared in the obnoxious surplices, and tore them off their backs. So flagrant an outrage on college discipline could not be allowed to pass without severe punishment, and accordingly Penn and several of his companions were expelled. As may be conceived, Admiral Penn was by no means pleased when his son returned home with the stigma attached to him of having been expelled from college; nor was he more satisfied when he learned the cause. Himself untroubled with any such religious scruples as those which his son professed, he could not make any allowance for them, but, on the contrary, insisted that he should give them up, and live as any young gentleman of good family and loyal principles might be expected to do. The young man meeting his father’s remonstrances with arguments in self-defense, the hasty old admiral turned him out of doors.