sound at home? and Cortez therefore took the only means that could secure him in that quarter. He collected all the gold that could be procured by any means, and sent it by the hand of two of the mock magistrates of Vera Cruz to the King of Spain, giving a plausible colouring to their assumption of power independent of Cuba, and soliciting a confirmation of it.
These were the measures of an adventurer not more daring than artful; yet a single circumstance shewed him still his insecurity. At the moment that his magistrates were about to sail for Spain, he discovered that a conspiracy was in existence to seize one of the vessels in the harbour, and to sail to Cuba, and give the alarm to Velasquez. This startling fact determined him to put the coup de grace to his measures,—to destroy his fleet, and let his followers see that there was no longer any resource but to follow him boldly in his attack upon Mexico, or perish. He had the address to bring his men to commit this act themselves: they dragged the vessels ashore—stripped them of sails, rigging, iron-work—whatever might be useful, and then broke them up. A more daring and politic action is not upon record. Cortez, in fact, had nothing to hope from his fleet, and had cast his life and fortune on the conquest of this great and wealthy realm.
When we contemplate him at this juncture, we are however not more struck with his daring and determined policy, than as Christians we are indignant at the real nature of the act that he meditated. This was no other than to ravage this young and growing empire, to plunder it of its gold, and consume its millions of inhabitants in mines and plantations, by the sword and by the lash, as his countrymen had con-
