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Penn. Thou wast the captain of that band of robbers, who did this horrid deed. The advantage they had drawn from thy counsels and conduct enabled them to commit it; and thy skill saved them afterwards from the vengeance which was due to so enormous a crime. The enraged Mexicans would have properly punished them for it, if they had not had thee for their general, thou hard-hearted, bloodthirsty wretch!

Cortez. The righteous, I find, can rail, William Penn. But how do you hope to preserve this admirable colony you have settled? Your people, you tell me, live like innocent lambs. Are there no wolves in America to devour those lambs? Do you expect the natives will always continue in peace with your successors? Or, if they should make war, do you expect to oppose them by prayers and presents? If this be your policy, your devoted colony will soon become an easy prey to the savages of the wilderness.

Penn. We leave that to the wise Disposer of events, who governs all nations at his will. If we conduct with strict justice towards the Indians, He will doubtless defend us against all their invasions.

Cortez. Is this the wisdom of a great legislator? I have heard some of your countrymen compare you to Solon. Did Solon, think you, give laws to a people, and leave those laws and that people to the mercy of every invader? The first business of a legislator is to provide a military strength which may defend the whole system. The world, William Penn, is a land of robbers. Any state or commonwealth erected therein must be well fenced and secured by good military institutions. The happier it is in all other respects, the greater will be its danger, the more speedy its destruction. Your plan of government must be changed; these Indian nations must be extirpated, or your colony will be lost. Penn. These are suggestions of human wisdom; the doctrines I held were inspired-they came from above.

Cortez. It is blasphemy to say that any folly could come

from the fountain of wisdom. Whatever is inconsistent with the great laws of nature, cannot be the effect of inspiration. Self-defence is as necessary to nations as to men. And shall individuals have a right which nations have not? True religion, William Penn, is never inconsistent with reason and the great laws of nature.

Penn. Though what thou sayest should be true, it does not come well from thy mouth. A tyrant talk of reason! Go to the inquisition, and tell them of reason, and the great laws of nature!—they will broil thee, as thy soldiers broiled the unhappy Guatemozin. Why dost thou turn pale? Is it the name of the inquisition, or the name of Guatemozin, which troubles and affrights thee? O, wretched man! I wonder not that thou dost tremble and shake, when thou thinkest of the many murders thou hast committed, the many thousands of those innocent Indians thou hast butchered, without an accusation of a crime! Remember, there is a day coming when thou must answer for all thy barbarities. What wouldst thou give to part with the renown of thy conquest, and to have a conscience as pure and undisturbed as mine?

Cortez. I feel the force of thy words. They pierce me like daggers. I can never, never be happy, while I retain any memory of the ills I have caused!

CHAPTER LXXXIX.

THE DEAD MOTHER.

Father-Child.

Father. TOUCH not thy mother, boy.-Thou canst not wake her. Child. Why, father? She still wakens at this hour.

Father. Your mother's dead, my child.

Child. And what is dead?

If she be dead, why then 't is only sleeping,

For I am sure she sleeps. Come, mother, -rise. -
Her hand is very cold!

Father. Her heart is cold.

Her limbs are bloodless; would that mine were so!

Child. If she would waken, she would soon be warm.
Why is she wrapt in this thin sheet? If I,

This winter morning, were not covered better,
I should be cold, like her.

Father. No-not like her.

The fire might warm you, or thick clothes-but her
Nothing can warm again!

Child. If I could wake her,

She would smile on me, as she always does,

And kiss me. Mother! you have slept too long-
Her face is pale—and it would frighten me,
But that I know she loves me.

Father. Come, my child.

Child. Once, when I sat upon her lap, I felt
A beating at her side, and then she said
It was her heart that beat, and bade me feel
For my own heart, and they both beat alike,
Only mine was the quickest. - And I feel
My own heart yet-but hers-I cannot feel-
Father. Child! child! you drive me mad
Child. Nay, father, be not angry! let me stay here

Till my mother wakens.

Father. I have told you,

Your mother cannot wake-not in this world

But in another, she will wake for us.

come hence, I say.

When we have slept like her, then we shall see her.

Child. Would it were night, then!

Father. No, unhappy child!

Full many a night shall pass, ere thou canst sleep

That last, long sleep. — Thy father soon shall sleep it;

Then wilt thou be deserted upon earth:

None will regard thee; thou wilt soon forget

That thou hadst natural ties.

Child. Father! Father!

Why do you look so terribly upon me?

You will not hurt me?

Father. Hurt thee, darling? no!

Has sorrow's violence so much of anger,

That it should fright my boy? Come, dearest, come.
Child. You are not angry, then?

Father.

Too well I love you.

- you terrified me so.

Child. All you have said, I cannot now remember,
Nor what is meant
But this I know, you told me I must sleep
Before my mother wakens-so, to-morrow
Oh, father! that to-morrow were but come!

CHAPTER LXXXV.

BURIAL OF THE DEAD AT SEA.

AT Halifax a sick man was brought on board the ship on a litter. It was said that he was an English officer, who had been in the West Indies, and that he was gradually sinking under a state of disease left by the yellow fever, under which he had suffered there. He was endeavoring to get home to his friends in England. He came on board through the midst of a scene of noise, confusion, and din, on the wharf, and on the decks of the steamer, at Halifax, which no pen can describe. The ship put to sea. The poor officer lingered a few hours, and died at sunset. The next morning an announcement was placarded at the entrance of the saloon that funeral services would be attended at half past nine o'clock.

It was a bright and pleasant Sabbath morning. A port was opened through the bulwarks on one side of the ship, at the place where the plank is usually passed on board for the landing of passengers. There was a pair of steps placed here, the upper steps being on a level with the lower edge of the port-hole. It was understood that the funeral ceremony was to take place here, and the passengers accord

ingly assembled on the saloon deck above, whence they could look down upon the scene.

The coffin containing the body had been placed on the other side of the ship, at the stern, at the extreme end of one of the promenades, by the side of the saloon, which has been already described. When the appointed time arrived, the ship's bell began to toll mournfully. A procession of the seamen, neatly dressed, and with very thoughtful looks, headed by some of their officers, advanced from forward. They removed the sheet of canvass with which the coffin had been covered, and placed over it a British flag. They then lifted the coffin. It appeared very heavy. It had been, in fact, loaded within, to insure its sinking rapidly. The sailors advanced with it along the promenade, thence across the ship at the capstan, and then, turning again, they brought it to the port-hole, and placed it upon the step, in such a manner that the foot of the coffin extended out over the water. They kept it carefully covered with the flag, which the wind endeavored constantly to remove.

In the mean time, the captain had taken his place, with some of the superior officers of the ship, near the open port, and he now began to read the burial service. The company of passengers looked on, in solemn silence, and with heads uncovered, from the saloon deck above. At length the seamen drew back the flag, and, at the words, "We commit this body to the deep," read by the captain, they pushed it forward through the opening. It seemed almost to struggle in their hands against their efforts, as if the disappointed tenant within, whose heart had been set upon regaining his home and his friends, could not endure to be thus thrust forth into the cold and merciless surges of the ocean. It was all in vain, however. The coffin was forced through the opening, and, plunging into the water, it went down, like lead, into the foaming torrents which were poured along the ship's sides by the enormous paddle wheels of the

steamer.

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