treachery: they taught them masterly tactics in that vice, when they procured entrance into the palace and confidence of Montezuma.[1]
No matter who, after Cortés, ruled Mexico for Spain, he carried out the original design of the governor of Cuba who planned the invasion. Barter and the obtaining of gold, with the employment of religion as a means to that end, is written over every chapter of Spanish rule; and the traditions of despotism, the bigotry against commerce, the hostility towards foreigners, the avarice and sloth which politicians infused into the religious orders for their own ends, resulting at last in a great crisis, are all directly traceable to the rapacity, the hypocrisy, and the feudalism of the invaders.
It would have made no difference if the invader had been England, and the new religion Protestantism. The Spanish domination in Mexico lasted for just three hundred years, from 1521 to 1821. "The government, or viceroyalty, estab-
- ↑ Mr. Wells seems a little unfair to the military character of the Mexicans, when he directs attention to the fact that Cortez conquered the empire with so insignificant a force. Treachery on the part of the invaders, and hospitality on that of the natives, had as much as arms to do with his success.
