n by the lash
to unpaid toil. It was an outrage defended only by the despotic
assumptions of avarice. The Tlascalans, however, in acknowledgment
of their services as allies of the Spaniards, were exempt from this
degradation. In all other parts the wretched natives toiled under
their task-masters, in the fields and in the mines, urged by the
sole stimulus of the lash. The country thus became impoverished
and beggared, and masters and slaves sank together.

Cortez had now reduced, in subjection to the crown of Spain, an extent
of country reaching along the Atlantic coast twelve hundred miles,
and extending fifteen hundred miles on the Pacific shore. With
energetic genius which has rarely been surpassed, the conqueror
established laws and institutions, many of them eminently wise, for
this vast realm.

Cortez had sent one of his captains, Christoval de Olid, to Honduras,
to found a Spanish colony there. This intrepid man, giddy with the
possession of vast power, and encouraged by the success with which
Cortez had thrown off his dependence upon Velasquez, determined to
imitate his example, and assert independence of all authority save
that of the Spanish crown. But Cortez was the last man to allow _his_
authority to be thus trifled with. He immediately sent an expedition
under Francisco Las Casas, with five ships and a hundred veteran
Spanish soldiers, to arrest the disobedient officer. With pennants
flying, Las Casas sailed from Vera Cruz, and was rapidly borne by
prosperous gales around the immense promontory of Yucatan, a voyage of
nearly two thousand miles, to the bay in Honduras named the Triumph
of the Cross, where Olid had established his post. Olid opposed his
landing, but, as many of his soldiers chanced to be absent in the
interior he could present no effectual resistance.

After a short battle, Olid, hoping for the speedy return of his absent
forces, applied for a truce. Las Casas weakly consented; but that same
night a tempest arose which wrecked all his ships, and thirty of the
crew perished in the waves. Las Casas and all of the remainder of his
party, drenched and exhausted, were taken prisoners. Olid exulted
greatly in this unanticipated good fortune; and, considering his foe
utterly powerless, released the men upon their taking the oath of
allegiance to him, and retained Las Casas surrounded with the
courtesies of friendly and hospitable captivity. After a time,
however, Las Casas succeeded in forming