Francis Augustus MacNutt

“ Judged by his letters alone, Cortes must be ranked high amongst the Spanish-American discoverers and conquerors. His rudely honest contemporary and faithful follower Bernal Diaz del Castillo resented — and perhaps not unnaturally — the scanty mention of the other officers and men of the expedition, and, occasionally, in the course of his gossipy chronicle, he breaks into acrimony over what seems to him a cheating of others of their dues. ”

“ And this would have been all there was to say about Bernal Diaz, had Francisco Lopez de Gomara not published his history of the conquest in 1552. His exaltation of Cortes, to the exclusion of other members of the expedition, enraged the old soldier, living in peaceful retirement on his estate at Chamula, and he resolved that he and his fellows, who had borne the burden of the conquest, should likewise make good their just claims to a share of the credit. It was a case of "mine enemy writing a book," and the old veteran slashes his cultivated rival's polished prose in the language of the camp. ”

“ CONCERNING the importance of the Five Letters of Relation of Hernando Cortes, which are now published altogether in an English translation for the first time, it may be permitted to quote a passage from the historian Dr. Robertson, whose part in the discovery of the first and fifth letters, here presented, was such as to give singular interest and value to his opinion.
"Our knowledge of the events which happened in the conquest of New Spain is derived from sources of information more original and more authentic than that of any transaction in the history of America. ”

“ It should always, however, be borne in mind that the letters of Cortes have the unique and superlative merit of having been composed on the spot from day to day, in the midst of the events in which their writer was playing the chief part, and that they were destined for the Emperor alone, hence misstatements of fact could only result from an x to deceive the Sovereign. ”

“ An edition of his works was published in five volumes at Madrid in 1876. His Brevisima Relacion, widely read and translated into foreign languages, was a terrible indictment of his countrymen and their dealings with the natives. The integrity of his character, the purity of his motives, and his apostolic virtues command admiration, and, though his intemperate zeal in the cause he championed troubled the serenity of his appreciations as an historian, his statement of facts may be invariably trusted, and his record of contemporary events is of unquestionable value. ”

“ But, all reservations admitted, the work of Gomara illustrates a most important and interesting period of history, and, if he was constrained to treat his hero leniently, he nevertheless had access to a mass of original information, by which he profited with excellent results. His style is agreeable and scholarly, revealing a writer of wide culture, gifted with unusual knowledge of astronomy, geography, and history. ”

“ Dazzled by the wonderful events of the times and the equally marvellous achievements of his countrymen, he was blind to their faults and excesses, so that, while not exactly a panegyric, his work is coloured by a strong patriotism, which shows in his optimistic appreciation of the character and deeds of the conquerors. His work is, however, a compendium of authentic information which cannot be too highly esteemed. ”

“ Three editions of the complete series of five Relaciones have been published in Spanish: one is found in the first volume of Historiadores Primitivos de Indias of Don Enrique de Vedia, which is contained in Rivadeneyra's Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, Madrid, 1877; another appears in the first volume of the Biblioteca Historica de la Iberia, and the third is the admirable collection of the learned Don Pascual Gayangos of the Spanish Academy, Cartas y Relaciones de Hernan Cortés al Emperador Carlos V., published in Paris in 1866. ”

“ Oviedo kept in touch with the Spanish Court and returned several times to Spain, on one of which occasions, in 1526, he published his Sumario, which was dedicated to the Emperor, and dealt with the geography, climate, vegetation, animals, and tribes of the American Colonies, and which met with a popular reception from the public. The first volume of his great work, however, Historia General de las Indias, in nineteen books, to which he had given years of careful labour, appeared in 1535. ”

“ Juan de Torquemada, Provincial of the Franciscans in Mexico from 1614-1617, spent more than fifty years of his life in the country, during which time he amassed an immense collection of ancient pictures, writings, and original manuscripts, besides the information, often legendary and contradictory, which he obtained from the Indians. Of his Monarchia Indiana Clavigero says that one must seek jewels among the rubbish. It was first published in Madrid in 1614, and again in 1724. ”

“ Perhaps nowhere does the real superiority and inherent strength of his character more plainly appear than in those passages where he writes of the intrigues and detractions of his enemies, men whose ambitions were selfish and whose characters were vulgar and unscrupulous. ”

“ The letter of Cortes and that of the magistrates confirmed one another, as they were intended to do, and, according to Bernal Diaz, that of the magistrates was the more detailed of the two; hence it is, historically, the more valuable. The only important events which had happened up to that date were the change in the character and objects of the expedition, and the founding of Vera Cruz, and on these points Cortes and the magistrates were in perfect accord. ”