The History of America, Volume 2

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Sharpe & Son, 1820

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Page 413 - ... bears all the marks of authenticity, and is accompanied with such a pleasant naivete, with such interesting details, with such amusing vanity, and yet so pardonable in an old soldier who had been, as he boasts, in a hundred and nineteen battles, as renders his book one of the most singular that is to be found in any language.
Page 34 - ... lost. None of the vicissitudes in human affairs affect these, and they continue to be practised as long as the race of men exists. If ever the use of iron had been known to the savages of America, or to their progenitors ; if ever they had employed a plough, a loom, or a forge, the utility of these inventions would have preserved them, and it is impossible that they should have been abandoned or forgotten.
Page 128 - Nations which depend upon hunting are, in a great measure, strangers to the idea of property. As the animals on which the hunter feeds are not bred under his inspection, nor nourished by his care, he can claim no right to them, while they run wild in the forest. Where game is so plentiful that it may be catched" — ^caught] " with little trouble, men never dream of appropriating what is of small value, or of easy acquisition.
Page 120 - In other parts of the globe, man, in his rudest state, appears as lord of the creation, giving law to various tribes of animals, which he has tamed and reduced to subjection. The Tartar follows his prey on the horse which he has. reared ; or tends his numerous herds, which...
Page 315 - Cortes to the quarters which he had 1519, prepared for his reception, and immediately took leave of him, with a politeness not unworthy of a court more refined. " You are now," says he, " with your brothers in your own house ; refresh yourselves after your fatigue, and be happy until I return."* The place allotted to the Spaniards for their lodging was a house built by the father of Montezuma.
Page 319 - But how much soever the novelty of those objects might amuse or astonish the Spaniards, they felt the utmost solicitude with respect to their own situation. From a concurrence of circumstances, no less unexpected than favourable to their progress, they had been allowed to penetrate into the heart of a powerful kingdom, and were now lodged in its capital without having once met with open opposition from its monarch. The Tlascalans, however, had earnestly dissuaded them from placing such...
Page 317 - ... with the idea which Montezuma had formed concerning the origin of the Spaniards. Next morning, Cortes and some of his principal attendants were admitted to a public audience of the emperor. The three subsequent days were employed in viewing the city ; the appearance of which, so far superior in the order of its buildings and the number of its inhabitants to any place the Spaniards had beheld in America, "and yet so little resembling the structure of a European city, filled them with surprise...
Page 50 - World enin any pan larged the sphere of contemplation, and preoftlieeartli. 6 . . r . . ' „ \ . sented nations to our view, in stages of their progress much less advanced than those wherein they have been observed in our continent. In America, man appears under the rudest form in which we can conceive him to subsist.
Page 273 - ... assuring Cortes that he spoke the sentiments of the whole army. He listened to this remonstrance without any appearance of • , emotion, and as he well knew the temper and wishes of his soldiers, and foresaw how they would receive a proposition fatal at once to all...
Page 312 - ... and discovered the capital city rising upon an island in the middle, adorned with its temples and turrets ; the scene so far exceeded their imagination, that some believed the fanciful descriptions of romance were realized, and that its enchanted palaces and gilded domes were presented to their sight ; others could hardly persuade themselves that this wonderful spectacle was anything more than a dream.

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