o avoid the conclusion that
they were raised up and endowed with great talents and opportunities
in order that by their agency the ends of Providence might be shaped.

Hernando Cortes was born of a good family, at the town of Medellin in
Spain, in 1485, and educated at the college of Salamanca. At the age
of nineteen having proved himself unfit to follow the profession of
the law to which his parents had destined him, he emigrated to the
Indian Island of Hispaniola where he was appointed notary of the town
of Acua, and in 1511 assisted in the conquest of Cuba under the
command of Velasquez. Here after many curious adventures and
vacillations he married a lady named Catalina Xuarez, and being
created _alcade_ of the settlement of St. Jago realized a moderate
fortune by the practice of agriculture and mining. In 1518 there came
to Cuba news of the discoveries made by Grijalva in Yucatan on the
coast of the country now known as Mexico, and the Governor, Velasquez,
determined to despatch a force to explore this new land. After much
intriguing and in consideration of the payment of a considerable sum
of money toward the expenses, Cortes whose ambitious spirit had
already wearied of a life of peace and indolence, contrived to
persuade Velasquez to appoint him Captain General of the expedition.
Before the ships sailed, however, Velasquez repented him of the
appointment, for in Cortes he recognized a servant who might well
become his master, and made arrangements to invest some other hidalgo
with the leadership of the expedition. Now it was that Cortes showed
what manner of man he was. Many in his position on learning the wishes
of their superior would have tamely yielded up their posts. Not so
Cortes, who on the first hint that he was to be deprived of his
authority, collected his men, and all unprepared as was his squadron,
weighed anchor while the governor slept. At the town of Trinidad he
landed to collect stores and volunteers, treating with contempt the
orders that reached the commander of the town from Velasquez to depose
him from his command and detain his person. Here it was that Cortes
made his famous address to the volunteers, wherein he shows that
although his instructions were to undertake a trading voyage and
acquire information of the country, his real aim was far different,
since he promises unimagined wealth to those who are true to him, and
by a curious flash of prescience prophesies immortal renown to their