From this enumeration of facts, it seems, upon the whole, to be evident, that the state of fociety in Mexico was confiderably advanced beyond that of the savage tribes which we have delineated. But it is no less manifeft, that with respect to many particulars, the Spanish accounts of their progress appear to be highly embellished. There is not a more frequent or a more fertile fource of deception in defcribing the manners and arts of favage nations, or of fuch as are imperfectly civilized, than that of applying to them the names and phrafes appropriated to the inftitutions and refinements of polifhed life. When the leader of a fmall tribe, or the head of a rude community, is dignified with the name of king or emperor, the place of his refidence can receive no other name but that of his palace; and whatever his attendants may be, they muft be called his court. Under fuch appellations they acquire an importance and dignity which does not belong to them. The illufion spreads, and giving a falfe colour to every part of the narrative, the imagination is fo much carried away with the refemblance, that it becomes difficult to difcern objects as they really are. The Spaniards, when they firft touched on the Mexican coaft, were fo much ftruck with the appearance of attainments in policy and in the arts of life, far fuperior to thofe of the rude tribes with which they were hitherto acquaint

ed, that they fancied they had at length difcovered a civilized people in the New World. This comparison between the people of Mexico, and their uncultivated neighbours, they appear to have kept conftantly in view, and obferving with admiration many things which marked the preeminence of the former, they employ in defcribing their imperfect policy and infant arts, fuch terms as are applicable to the inftitutions of men far beyond them in improvement. Both these circumftances concur in detracting from the credit due to the defcriptions of Mexican manners by the early Spanish writers. By drawing a parallel between them and those of people fo much lefs civilized, they raifed their own ideas too high. By their mode of defcribing them, they conveyed ideas to others no lefs exalted above truth. Later writers have adopted the ftyle of the original hiftorians, and improved upon it. The colours with which De Solis delineates the character of Montezuma, the splendour of his court, the laws and policy of his empire, are the fame that he must have employed, in exhibiting to view the monarch and inftitutions of an highly polifhed people.

But though we may admit, that the warm imagination of the Spanish writers has added fome embellishment to their defcriptions, this will not justify the decifive and peremptory tone, with which feveral authors pronounce all their accounts of the Mexican power, policy

and laws, to be the fictions of men who wished to deceive, or who delighted in the marvellous. There are few hiftorical facts that can be ascertained by evidence more unexceptionable, than may be produced in fupport of the material articles, in the defcription to the Mexican conftitution and manners. Eye-witneffes relate what they had beheld, men who had refided among the Mexicans, both before and after the conqueft, defcribe inftitutions and cuftoms which were familiar to them, perfons of fuch different profeffions that objects must have prefented themselves to their view under every various afpe&t; foldiers, priefts, and lawyers, all concur in their teftimony. Had Cortes ventured to impofe upon his fovereign, by exhibiting to him a picture of imaginary manners, there wanted not enemies and rivals who were qualified to detect his deceit, and who would have rejoiced in expofing it. But according to the just remark of an author, whofe ingenuity has illuftrated, and whofe eloquence has adorned, the hiftory of America, u) this fuppofition is in itself as improbable, as the attempt would have been audacious. Who among the deftroyers of this great empire was fo enlightened by fcience, or fo attentive to the progrefs and operations of men in focial life, as to frame a fictitious

u) M. l'Abbé Raynal Hift. philof, & polit. iii. 127.

fyftem of policy fo well combined and fo confiftent, as that which they delineate, in their accounts of the Mexican government? Where could they have borrowed the idea of many infiitutions in legiflation and police, to which, at that period, there was nothing parallel in the nations with which they were acquainted? There was not, at the beginning of the fixteenth century, a regular eftablishment of pofts for conveying intelligence to the fovereign of any kingdom in Europe. The fame obfervation will apply to what the Spaniards 'relate, with respect to the structure of the city of Mexico, the regulations concerning its police, and various laws eftablifhed for the administration of juftice, or fecuring the happiness of the community. Whoever is accuftomed to contemplate the progress of nations, will often, at very early stages of it, difcover a premature and unexpected dawn of thofe ideas, which give rife to institutions that are the pride and ornament of its moft advanced period. Even in a fate as imperfectly polifhed as the Mexican empire, the happy genius of fome fagacious obferver, excited or aided by circumftances unknown to us, may have introduced inftitutions which are feldom found but in focieties highly refined. But it is almost impoffible that the illiterate conquerors of the New World fhould have formed in any one inftance a conception of cuftoms and laws, beyond the

ftandard of improvement in their own age and country. Or if Cortes and his followers had been capable of this, what inducement had those by whom they were fuperfeded to continue the deception? Why fhould Corita, or Motolinea, or Acofta, have amufed their fovereign or their fellow-citizens with a tale purely fabulous?

Religion of the Mexicans,

In one particular, however, the guides whom we muft follow have represented the Mexicans to be more barbarous, perhaps, than they really were. the rites of their worship, are defcribed by them as wild and cruel in an extreme degree. Religion, which occupies no confiderable place in the thoughts of a favage, whofe conceptions of any fuperior power are obfcure, and his facred rites few as well as fimple, was formed, among the Mexicans, into a regular fyftem, with its complete train of priests, temples, victims, and feftivals. This, of itfelf, is a clear proof that the ftate of the Mexicans was very different from that of the ruder American tribes. But from the extravagance of their religious notions, or the barbarity of their rites, no conclufion can be drawn with certainty concerning the degree of their civilization. For nations, long after their ideas begin to enlarge, and their manners

Their religious tenets, and