Note XVIII‑7 — Chapter XVIII · PROGRESS OF AFFAIRS IN GUATEMALA. 1541-1550.

The base of the following account of the destruction of Santiago City is taken from Bishop Marroquin's narrative in Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., iii. 386-8, and from another and fuller narration without signature in Id., 378-86. Oviedo, iv. 27-32, gives an almost verbatim copy of it, and states: 'Estas nuevas truxo á la isla ... Cuba, Johan de Alvarado, sobrino del mesmo adelantado don Pedro, que aportó al puerto de la Habana, desde donde el capitan Johan de Lobera, su amigo é uno de los mílites que un tiempo anduvieron con el mesmo adelantado, me escribió todo lo ques dicho por su carta fecha á quatro de enero de mill é quinientos é quarenta y dos años.' It must, however, be remarked that the letter in Pacheco and Cárdenas bears unquestionable evidence of having been written in Guatemala. Juan de Alvarado, who had been recommended by Marroquin to the emperor for the governorship—Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., xiii. 271—was on his way to Spain. I conjecture that he was the bearer of this anonymous account of the calamity and allowed Lobera to transcribe it, who merely changed the first person into the third and forwarded it to Oviedo in Santo Domingo.