reduced to the Spanish sway, a territory of over four hundred leagues, or twelve hundred miles on the Atlantic coast, and of more than five hundred leagues or fifteen hundred miles on the Pacific.2
This sketch of a brief period after the subjugation of Mexico developes the constructive genius of Cortéz, as the preceding chapters had very fully exhibited his destructive abilities. It shows, however, that he was not liable justly to the censure which has so often been cast upon him,—of being, only, a piratical plunderer who was seduced into the conquest by the spirit of rapine alone.
In a historical narrative which is designed to treat exclusively of Mexico, it might perhaps be considered inappropriate to relate that portion of the biography of Cortéz which is covered by his expedition to Honduras, whither he marched after he learned the defection of his lieutenant Olid whom he had sent to that distant region with a body of Spanish soldiers