42 



ARRIVAL OF NARVA EZ CORTEz's DIPLOMACY. 



was visible, that the conqueror received the startling news of the 

 arrival on the coast of Don Pamphilo de Narvaez, with eighteen 

 vessels and nine hundred men, who had been sent, by the revenge- 

 ful Velasquez, to arrest the hero and send him in chains to St. 

 Jago. 



A more unfortunate train of circumstances can scarcely be con- 

 ceived. In the midst of an enemy's capital, with a handful of 

 men, — menaced by a numerous and outraged nation, on the 

 one hand, and, with a Spanish force sent, in the name of law 

 by authorities to whom he owed loyal respect, to arrest him, 

 on the other, — it is indeed difficult to imagine a situation better 

 calculated to try the soul and task the genius of a general. But it 

 was one of those perilous emergencies which, throughout his whole 

 career, seem to have imparted additional energy, rather than 

 dismay, to the heart of Cortez, and w T hieh prove him to have been, 

 like Nelson, a man who never knew the sensation of fear. Nor 

 must it be imagined that difficulty made him rash. Seldom has a 

 hero appeared in history more perfectly free from precipitancy after 

 he undertook his great enterprise ; — and, in the period under con- 

 sideration, this is fully exhibited in the diplomacy with which he 

 approached the hostile Spaniards on the coast who had been 

 despatched to dislodge and disgrace him. He resolved, at once, 

 not to abandon what he had already gained in the capital ; but, at 

 the same time, he endeavored to tranquilize or foil Narvaez if he 

 could not win him over to his enterprise ; for it was evidently the 

 policy of the newly arrived general to unite in a spoil which was 

 almost ready for division rather than to incur the perils and uncer- 

 tainty of another conquest. 



Accordingly Cortez addressed a letter to Narvaez requesting him 

 not to kindle a spirit of insubordination among the natives by pro- 

 claiming his enmity. Yet this failed to affect his jealous country- 

 man. He then desired Narvaez to receive his band as brothers in 

 arms, and to share the treasure and fame of the conquest. But 

 this, also, was rejected ; while the loyal tool of Velasquez diligently 

 applied himself to fomenting the Aztec discontent against his coun- 

 trymen, and proclaimed his design of marching to Mexico to 

 release the Emperor from the grasp of his Spanish oppressor. 



There was now no other opening for diplomacy, nor was delay 

 to be longer suffered. Cortez, therefore, leaving the mutinous 

 capital in the hands of Pedro de Alvarado, with a band of but one 

 hundred and fifty men to protect the treasure he had amassed, — 

 departed for the shores of the Gulf with only seventy soldiers, but 



