wretched inhabitants suffered all that the destructive rage of the Spaniards, or the implacable revenge of their Indian allies, could inflict. At length the carnage ceased, after the slaughter of six thousand Cholulans, without the loss of a single Spaniard! Cortez then released the magistrates, and reproaching them bitterly for their intended treachery, declared that as justice was now appeased he forgave the offence, but required them to recall the citizens who had fled, and reestablish order in the town. Such was the ascendant which the Spaniards had acquired over this superstitious race of men, and so deeply were they impressed with an opinion of their superior discernment, as well as power, that in obedience to this command, the city was in a few days again filled with people, who amidst the ruins of their sacred buildings, yielded respectful service to men whose hands were stained with the blood of their relatives and fellow-citizens. “From Cholula,” adds Robertson, “Cortez marched directly towards Mexico, which was only twenty leagues distant:”—and that is all the remark that he makes on this brutal butchery of an innocent people, by a man on his march to plant the cross! A Christian historian sees only in this most savage and infernal action, a piece of necessary policy—so obtuse become the perceptions of men through the ordinary principles of historic judgment. But the Christian mind asks what business Cortez had there at all? The people were meditating his destruction? True;—and it was natural and national that they should get rid of so audacious and lawless an enemy, who entered their country with the intentions of a robber, set at defiance the commands of their king, and stirred up rebellion at every step he took. The Mexicans would have been less than men if they had not resolved to cut him off. What right had he there? What right to disturb the tranquillity of their country, and shed the blood of its people? These are questions that cannot be answered on any Christian principles, or on any principles but those of the bandit and the murderer. _Six thousand people butchered in cold blood—two days employed in hewing down trembling wretches, too fearful to even raise a single weapon against the murderers!_ Heavens! are these the deeds that we admire as heroic and as breathing of romance? Yet, says Clavigero, “He ordered the great temple to be cleaned from the gore of his murdered victims; and raised there the standard of the cross; _after giving the Cholulans, as he did all the other people among whom he stopped_,” SOME IDEA OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION!!! What _idea_ had the Abbé Don Francesco Saverio Clavigero of Christianity himself?