LETTER XXXII.
POLITICAL HISTORY.
Darkness hangs upon both extremes of Mexican History. The ancient story of that beautiful country is lost in the gloom of tradition;—the detail of her colonial history is buried in Spanish archives;—her revolutionary history is blotted with blood;—her present is uncertain, and her future is impenetrable even to the eye of hope.
I will take the liberty to recall to you, however, some of the prominent events that have recently occurred, and the character and purposes of those to whom the nation owes its origin.
Cortéz was the personification of a period in the development of this Continent. Warrior, orator, statesman, poet, historian;—he blended in himself every requisite for a daring adventurer, and his success may well be esteemed the result of a single resolute mind over a whole Empire of mere physical force. He had the power to conceive and fashion his projects; to lead and control men; to fight; to diplomatize with cunning foes; to speak with fluency and eloquence to multitudes; to sing in sweet verse the lay of knight or lover, and, with becoming modesty and grace, to tell the tale of his own achievements in phrase befitting the ear of an enlightened monarch.[1] In fact, he was, in every quality, the proper person to lead so bold a band of Spaniards as that which gathered around his standard, when he unfurled it for the conquest of Mexico.
While the love of glory, and the enthusiasm of a bigot in religion, united with the most eminent loyalty to form the chief characteristics of Cortéz, the purposes and temper of those who joined his enterprise are much more questionable.
Spain required a vent for her population, and the new-found world afforded it. People of staid habits and regular morals were not tempted to the perils of an adventurous life; but there were thousands who had neither means nor objects sufficient to retain them on their native soil. Men of mark, but broken fortunes; rakes of old distinction, such as decay in the corrupting atmosphere of courts; noisy and riotous young men: soldiers, half bandit, half warrior; and all the offal of a society diss--
- ↑ See the recent translation of his Dispatches to the Emperor, by Mr. Folsorn, of New-York.
