Conquest of Mexico
in its Castilian version, bears testimony to the singular union of the three powers. "The people will remember only the good deeds of the three-headed government that ennobled the Empire.”—Cantares del Emperador. Nezahualcoyotl, MS.
Page 18 (1).—See the plans of the ancient and modern capital, in Bullock's Mexico, first edition. The original of the ancient map was obtained by that traveller from the collection of the unfortunate Boturini: if, as seems probable, it is the one indicated on page 13 of his Catalogue, I find no warrant for Mr. Bullock's statement, that it wat the one prepared for Cortés by the order of Montezuma.
Page 18 (1).—Clavigero, Stor. Del Messico, tom. i. lib. 2.—Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., tom. i. lib. 2.—Boturini, Idea, p. 146.—Col. of Mendoza, part i. and Codex Telleriano-Remensis, apud Antiq. of Mexico, vol. i., vi. Machiavelli has noticed it as one great cause of the military successes of the Romans, “that they associated themselves, in their wars, with other states, as the principal;” and expresses his astonishment that a similar policy should not have been adopted by ambitious republics in later times. (See his Discorsi sopra T. Livio, lib. 2, cap. 4, apud Opere.) [Geneva, 1798.] This, as we have seen above, was the very course pursued by the Mexicans.
Page 20 (1).—Page 20 (>).—Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 36.
Page 20 (2).—This was an exception.—In Egypt, also, the king was frequently taken from the warrior caste, though obliged afterwards to be instructed in the mysteries of the priesthood: "Though accounted as belonging to the military class, he became henceforth a member of the priestly confraternity."—Plutarch, de Isid. et Osir., sec. 9.
Page 20 (3).—Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 18; lib. 11, cap. 27.—Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. p. 112.—Acosta, Naturall and Morall Historie of the East and West Indies, Eng. trans. (London, 1604.) According to Zurita, an election by the nobles took place only in default of heirs of the deceased monarch. (Rapport, p. 15.) The minute historical investigation of Clavigero may be permitted to outweigh this general assertion.
Page 21 (1).—Sahagun, Hist, de Nueva España, lib. 6, cap. 9, 10, 14; lib. 8, cap. 31, 34.—See also Zurita, Rapport, pp. 20-23. Ixtlilxochitl stoutly claims this supremacy for his own nation. (Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 34.)—His assertions are at variance with facts stated by himself elsewhere, and are not countenanced by any other writer whom I have consulted.
Page 21 (2).—Sahagun, who places the elective power in a much larger body, speaks of four senators, who formed a state council. (Hist, de Nueva España, lib. 8, cap. 30.) Acosta enlarges the council beyond the number of the electors. (Lib. 6, ch. 26.) No two writers agree.
Page 21 (3).—Zurita enumerates four orders of chiefs, all of whom were exempted from imposts, and enjoyed very considerable privileges. He does not discriminate the several ranks with much precision.—Rapport, pp. 47 et seq.
Page 22 (1).—See, in particular, Herrera, Historia General de los Hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas y Tierra Firme del Mar Océano (Madrid, 1730), dec. 2, lib. 7, cap. 12.
Page 22 (2).—Carta de Cortés, ap. Lorenzana, Hist, de Nueva España, p. 110.—Torquemad Monarch, Ind., lib. 2, cap. 89; lib. 14, cap. 6.—Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. p. 121.Zurita, Rapport, pp. 48, 65. Ixtlilxochitl (Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 34) speaks of thirty great feudal chiefs, some of them Tezcucan and Tlacopan, whom he styles "grandees of the empire!" He says nothing of the great tail of 100,000 vassals to each mentioned by Torquemada and Herrera.
Page 22 (3).—Macehual,—a word equivalent to the French word roturier. Nor could fiefs originally be held by plebeians in France.—See Hallam's Middle Ages (London, 1819), vol. ii. p. 207.422
