ROBERTSON. 309 



This may in part be palliated by the feeling so diffi- 

 cult for any historian to avoid, and which leads him 

 to paint in interesting, if not in attractive colours, 

 the deeds and the heroes of his story. But the atro- 

 cious crimes of those Spanish invaders, who, with a 

 combination of fanatical violence and sordid avarice, 

 subjugated or extirpated unoffending millions because 

 of their pagan ignorance and their precious mines, 

 those bigoted furies who poured out the blood of men 

 like water, in order to establish the Gospel of peace 

 and good will towards man, those monsters of cruelty, 

 who, after wearying themselves with massacre, racked 

 their invention for tortures, which might either glut 

 their savage propensities or slake their execrable thirst 

 of gold, all ought to have called for reprobation, far 

 more severe than any which the historian of their 

 guilt has denounced against them. This is a great 

 stain upon the work, and it can only be palliated by 

 the excuse already offered, an excuse by which the 

 stain never can be wiped out. 



After the Principal's publication of ' Charles V.,' and 

 while he was writing the 'America,' no event of im- 

 portance occurred in his life, which was tranquil and 

 dignified, occupied only with his duties as head of the 

 University, where the habitual deference of his col- 

 leagues rendered the administration of its concerns 

 easy and prosperous, diversified also with his conduct 

 of the Scottish church, now under his guidance, un- 

 opposed by any rival. He occasionally visited London, 

 where he was received by all the more distinguished 



