In speaking of the burning, by Cortes, of his vessels on the coast of Mexico, Robertson remarks:--“Thus, by an act of magnanimity to which history offers nothing to be compared, did 500 men consent to shut themselves up in a hostile land, covered with nations numerous and unknown, and after destroying their means of retreat, remained with no other resource than their valour and their perseverance.” He forgot horses, gunpowder, and artillery. But the Spaniards in the New World only repeated the lesson they had learnt from the Moors in the Old, and the Moors only repeated what the Sicilian Agathocles had already performed in his wonderful home-thrust against Carthage. The Moorish chief, at the head of 7,000, or--as Gibbon makes them--5000 men, sent, Scipio-like, to invade the powerful and warlike peninsula (that was itself invading Africa), adopted the same expedient, and induced his more numerous followers, in face of a far greater danger, to submit to the same alternative. They burnt their vessels in the port of Gibraltar. They thus cut off their retreat, in case of a repulse, as effectually as if the whole Atlantic spread between them and their native land. The address of Tarik to his followers was,--“The enemy is before you, the sea is behind,--follow me.” After the victory, the Moors, instead of advancing, as in a hostile country, dispersed, as after the defeat of a usurper, to take possession. One body marched upon Ecija, a strongly-fortified place; the whole population perished in the defence, or after the capture: another upon Corduba; it was surrendered by the inhabitants; the governor of the garrison, however, preferred death to submission. Another body took possession of Granada; Tarik himself marched on the capital, Toledo. All these places made separate capitulations, and preserved the exercise of their religion: they were to pay only such taxes as were paid to their kings; they were to preserve their laws, and their magistrates. The churches were generally divided between the Mussulman and the Christian. The same conditions, excepting double tribute, were granted to the cities that made the most desperate resistance. It was on a system that they acted, and not upon emergency--by a rule, and not according to circumstances or expediency.[77] The valour of the Goths was desperate and self-devoted. The division of the churches between the two religions shows the rapidity with which conversion accompanied, or rather had prepared, their triumph. The Goths were originally but an army that entered Spain, to protect its inhabitants. When Spain afterwards recovered herself from the Saracens, she was altogether Gothic, with no trace of the old population, except in the Basque provinces, where neither the Goths had penetrated before, nor did the Saracens after. The remainder of the original--that is, the Iberian--population had, therefore, become Mussulmans.