The means he employs are in perfect harmony with his
end. His weapons are argument and mild persuasion. It is the
reason ne would conquer, not the body. He wins his way by
conviction, not by violence. It is a moral victory to which he
aspires, more potent, and happily more permanent, than that of
the blood-stained conqueror. As he thus calmly, and
imperceptibly, as it were, comes to his great results, he may
remind us of the slow, insensible manner in which Nature works
out her great changes in the material world, that are to endure
when the ravages of the hurricane are passed away and forgotten.
With the mission of Gasca terminates the history of the Conquest
of Peru. The Conquest, indeed, strictly terminates with the
suppression of the Peruvian revolt, when the strength, if not the
spirit, of the Inca race was crushed for ever. The reader,
however, might feel a natural curiosity to follow to its close
the fate of the remarkable family who achieved the Conquest. Nor
would the story of the invasion itself be complete without some
account of the civil wars which grew out of it; which serve,
moreover, as a moral commentary on preceding events, by showing
that the indulgence of fierce, unbridled passions is sure to
recoil, sooner or later, even in this life, on the heads of the
guilty.
It is true, indeed, that the troubles of the country were renewed
on the departure of Gasca. The waters had been too fearfully
agitated to be stilled, at once, into a calm; but they gradually
subsided, under the temperate rule of his successors, who wisely
profited by his policy and example.
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