Note XIV-9 — Chapter XIV · GIL GONZALEZ IN COSTA RICA AND NICARAGUA. 1519-1523.

I follow the commander's own statement, made to the royal authorities from Santo Domingo, March 6, 1524. Of this, which I quote as Carta de Gil Gonzalez Dávila al Rey, I have several copies in manuscript, the best being a part of the first volume of the Squier Collection. This collection, consisting of twenty-three volumes of manuscripts, beside separate pieces on various early affairs in Central America and Mexico, fell into my hands at the sale of the library of the late E. G. Squier, so widely known as an antiquarian and historical writer, a review of whose works will appear in a subsequent volume. The opportunities afforded Mr Squier by his official position as chargé d'affaires to Central America, in 1849, and by his researches, combined with a natural bent as student and author, prompted the collection of books and manuscripts relative to Central America, a large proportion of which I found useful in filling gaps in my own sixteenth-century material. It seems that Mr Squier intended the publication of a series of documents for history, of which the Carta de Palacio was printed at Albany, 1859, and numbered I. The first volume of the Squier Collection of Manuscripts contains, beside the Carta de Gil Gonzalez, several documents on Nicaraguan discovery certified by Navarrete, Buckingham Smith, and Squier, as true copies of the originals in the archives at Seville and in the Hydrographic Collection, notable among which are Real Cedula de S. M. expedida en 18 de Junio de 1519, á, Pedrarias Dávila, para que entregase los Navios de Basco Nuñez a Gil Gonzales de Avila y los requerimtos que pasaron sobre ello; and Relacion Del Asiento y Capitulacion que se tomó con Andres Niño, Piloto de su Magestad para el descubrimiento que prometió hazer en el Mar del Sur con 3 Navios, y por Capitan de ellos á Gil Gonzales Dávila.