HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



131 



their fubje&s extremely moderate. With the enlarge- 

 ment of their territory they gradually increafed their 

 riches, their magnificence, and pomp, and in propor- 

 tion to their wealth were likewife multiplied, as gene- 

 rally happens, the burthens on their fubjec"ts. Their 

 pride occafioned them to trefpafs upon the limits, which 

 the confent of the nation had allowed to their authority, 

 until they arrived at that pitch of odious defpotifm which 

 appears to have marked the reign of Montezuma II. 

 but notwithstanding their tyranny, the Mexicans always 

 preferved the refpecl: which was due to the royal cha- 

 racter, except that in the laft year but one of the mo- 

 narchy, as will be related hereafter, when they were 

 no longer able to endure the meannefs of their king 

 Montezuma, his exceffive cowardice, and low fubmiflion 

 to his enemies, they treated him with contempt, and 

 wounded him with arrows and ftones. The pageantry 

 and oftentatious grandeur of the laft Mexican kings may 

 be conceived from what we have faid of the reign of 

 Montezuma, and what we fhall farther fay in our ac- 

 count of the conqueft. 



The kings of Mexico were rivalled in magnificence 

 by the kings of Acolhuacan, as the latter were by the 

 former in politics. The government of the Acolhuan 

 nation was almoft the fame with that of the Mexicans; 

 but with refpecl to the right of fucceflion to the crown 

 they were totally different ; for in the kingdom of Acol- 

 huacan, and the fame is to be underftood of Taeuba, 

 the fons fucceeded to their fathers, not according to 

 their birth, but according to their rank ; the fons which 

 were born of the queen, or principal wife, having been 

 always preferred to the reft. This rule was obferved 

 from the time of Xolotl, the firft Chechemecan king, 



until 



