75 And, as
migration by many, perhaps by most, would be regarded as a calamity,
the government was careful to show particular marks of favor to the
mitimaes, and, by various privileges and immunities, to ameliorate their
condition, and thus to reconcile them, if possible, to their lot.76
The Peruvian institutions, though they may have been modified and
matured under successive sovereigns, all bear the stamp of the same
original,--were all cast in the same mould. The empire, strengthening
and enlarging at every successive epoch of its history, was, in its latter
days, but the development, on a great scale, of what it was in miniature at
its commencement, as the infant germ is said to contain within itself all
the ramifications of the future monarch of the forest. Each succeeding
Inca seemed desirous only to tread in the path, and carry out the plans, of
his predecessor. Great enterprises, commenced under one, were
continued by another, and completed by a third. Thus, while all acted on
a regular plan, without any of the eccentric or retrograde movements
which betray the agency of different individuals, the state seemed to be
under the direction of a single hand, and steadily pursued, as if through
one long reign, its great career of civilization and of conquest.
The ultimate aim of its institutions was domestic quiet.
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