Bartholomew. In short, the Spanish policy was
in the ascendant, and no thought of the national interest or honor could
restrain that basest of courts from abandoning by hundreds to the
national enemy those whom it was itself meditating to immolate by
thousands. It might protest for form's sake, or to quiet public clamor;
but Philip of Spain well knew that it would end in patient submission.
Menendez was summoned back in haste to the Spanish court. His force must
be strengthened. Three hundred and ninety-four men were added at the
royal charge, and a corresponding number of transport and supply ships.
It was a holy war, a crusade, and as such was preached by priest and
monk along the western coasts of Spain. All the Biscayan ports flamed
with zeal, and adventurers crowded to enroll themselves; since to
plunder heretics is good for the soul as well as the purse, and broil
and massacre have double attraction when promoted into a means of
salvation. It was a fervor, deep and hot, but not of celestial kindling;
nor yet that buoyant and inspiring zeal which, when the Middle Age was
in its youth and prime, glowed in the souls of Tancred, Godfrey, and St.
Louis, and which, when its day was long since past, could still find its
home in the great heart of Columbus. A darker spirit urged the new
crusade,--born not of hope, but of fear, slavish in its nature, the
creature and the tool of despotism; for the typical Spaniard of the
sixteenth century was not in strictness a fanatic, he was bigotry
incarnate.
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