|
|
Galleporto Bavicarius Directory 20
Page 05
The campaign in Bucharest was at first attended by a certain measure of success, owing to the attitude of M. Bratiano, the Premier; of M. Carp, a former Prime Minister, and of M. Marghiloman, the present leader of the Conservative Opposition. But many influential Liberals have already associated themselves with the programme of the action advocated by M. Take Jonesco, the chief of the Conservative-Democratic Party, and of M. Filipescu, a former Conservative Minister, whose advocacy of a forward policy threatens to cause a split in the Conservative camp. The great bulk of the political world desires to profit by the European crisis to secure Transylvania, the only difference of opinion being with regard to the advisability of immediate action. The consultative committee of the Conservative Party has passed a resolution demanding the abandonment of neutrality.
The disastrous failure of the expedition of Vasquez de Ayllon to Florida did not discourage attempts on the part of others in the same direction. Velaspuez, governor of Cuba, jealous of the success of Cortez in Mexico, had sent Pamphilo de Narvaez to arrest him. In this attempt Narvaez had been defeated and taken prisoner. Undeterred by this failure he had solicited and received of Charles V. the position of governor over Florida, a territory at that time embracing the whole southern part of what is now the United States, and reaching from Cape Sable to the Panuco, or River of Palms, in Mexico. With three hundred men he, in 1528, landed near Appalachee Bay, and marched inland with the hope of opening a country rich and populous. Bitterly was he disappointed. Swamps and forests, wretched wigwams with their squalid inmates everywhere met his view, but no gold was to be found. Discouraged, he and his followers returned to the coast, where almost superhuman toil and skill enabled them to build five boats, in which they hoped to work westward to the Spanish settlements. Embarking, they stole cautiously along the coast for some distance, but were at last driven by a storm upon an island, perhaps Galveston, perhaps Santa Rosa, where Narvaez and most of his men perished. Four of his followers survived to cross Texas to the Gulf of California and reach the town of San Miguel on the west coast of Mexico. Here they found their countrymen, searching as usual for pearls, gold, and slaves, and by their help they made a speedy return to Spain, heroes of as remarkable an adventure as history records. These unfortunates were the first Europeans to visit New Mexico. Their narrative led to the exploration of that country by Coronado and others, and to the discoveries of Cortez in Lower California.
Thus Rome was a city supported, in a great measure, by the fruits of its conquests, that is, in a certain sense, by plunder. It was a vast community most efficiently and admirably organized for this purpose; and yet it would not be perfectly just to designate the people simply as a band of robbers. They rendered, in some sense, an equivalent for what they took, in establishing and enforcing a certain organization of society throughout the world, and in preserving a sort of public order and peace. They built cities, they constructed aqueducts and roads; they formed harbors, and protected them by piers and by castles; they protected commerce, and cultivated the arts, and encouraged literature, and enforced a general quiet and peace among mankind, allowing of no violence or war except what they themselves created. Thus they _governed_ the world, and they felt, as all governors of mankind always do, fully entitled to supply themselves with the comforts and conveniences of life, in consideration of the service which they thus rendered.
|
