On the other hand, it must be as readily conceded that there is something painfully oppressive in the records of ancient history, with its never-ending conflict between nations for the aggrandisement of a few ambitious monarchs or republican leaders, in which the destruction of cities, towns, and countries, as well as of the lives of their inhabitants, is the theme perpetually dwelt upon, as if the annihilation of his kind were the only achievement entitling man to the admiration of humanity. War in all its horrors, and the military extirpation of our species, is the delight of the classic chroniclers, whether in poetry or prose; and its accompaniments of battles, sieges, pillage, murder, and atrocities such as nature revolts at, are depicted with a species of barbaric satisfaction, calculated (as it no doubt often did) to evoke the vengeance of the Deity against enormities perpetrated in the mere wantonness of licentious ferocity, and too frequently lacking the miserable palliative of provocation. Infinitely is it to be deplored that this sanguinary animus was carried, in a large degree, by the Spaniards and Portuguese, but probably still more by the Dutch (with whom, however, we are not now concerned), into their conquests in the New World; but it brought with it its own retributive punishment; and finally, under Providence, became the most potent instrument that caused war to be looked upon as an enormous evil, and a curse upon any country unrighteously practising it.
To the discovery of the New World we may fairly trace the benign effects of that wholesome correction of a most pernicious estimate of human merit. This, gradually softening the minds of men, instilled the principle of commercial intercourse amongst nations; demonstrating how much more conducive to true greatness and human happiness is the cultivation of amicable relations than even the most successful aggression and devastation, and the acquisition of wealth by iniquitous appliances.
It was in the year 1492 that Columbus landed on one of the West India islands. (See _ante_, page 8.) Subsequently, what is now termed the Spanish Main was crossed in rapid succession by various Peninsular adventurers, one and all of whom were distinguished by bravery the most exalted and selfishness the most abased, each attribute being inflamed by a fanaticism that sought to honour God and appease His anger towards their iniquities, by incredible offences in the name of religion against the unoffending aborigines. Preëminent, perhaps, among these bold bad captains, on the score of political prescience, military skill, and administrative civil ability, as well as from the magnitude of his acquisitions, was Hernan Cortez, who, in 1521, conquered the table land of Mexico, its coasts being discovered some three years before.[5] The immensity and enormity of his massacres, and the perfidy that distinguished them—the ingenuity of his multitudinous outrages upon the Emperor Montezuma and scores of thousands of his subjects—have rendered his name indelibly detestable, though there were many traits of true heroism about him, beyond what their biographers have been able to preserve of his invading cotemporary destroyers on the same scene. As was the case, too, with so many of them, his fruit in the end proved but bitterness and ashes; for though the vast enrichment of the revenues of Spain, through his means, extorted from an ungrateful sovereign a marquisate, and the grant of a portion of the territories he had conquered, he died at home, the object of courtly suspicion and distrust; stung to death by mortification, that all his achievements had been productive of coldness and neglect; where he had most expected to meet with eulogium and honour, he found, like Columbus, (says the eloquent historian of his conquests) that it was possible to deserve too greatly.[6]