No warlike trumpet heralds his
approach, nor is his course to be tracked by the groans of the wounded
and the dying. The means he employs are in perfect harmony with his
end. His weapons are argument and mild persuasion. It is the reason he
would conquer, not the body. He wins his way by conviction, not by
violence. It is a moral victory to which he aspires, more potent, and
happily more permanent, than that of the blood-stained conqueror. As he
thus calmly, and imperceptibly, as it were, comes to his great results, he
may remind us of the slow, insensible manner in which Nature works out
her great changes in the material world, that are to endure when the
ravages of the hurricane are passed away and forgotten.
With the mission of Gasca terminates the history of the Conquest of
Peru. The Conquest, indeed, strictly terminates with the suppression of
the Peruvian revolt, when the strength, if not the spirit, of the Inca race
was crushed for ever. The reader, however, might feel a natural curiosity
to follow to its close the fate of the remarkable family who achieved the
Conquest. Nor would the story of the invasion itself be complete without
some account of the civil wars which grew out of it; which serve,
moreover, as a moral commentary on preceding events, by showing that
the indulgence of fierce, unbridled passions is sure to recoil, sooner or
later, even in this life, on the heads of the guilty.
Pages:
897
898
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917