Note 984 — Chapter XXIX · KING-MAKING AND CONVERTING. October-December, 1520.

The reports and other papers by Cortés, written during a period of nearly three decades in connection with New Spain, are both numerous and lengthy, but only the five letters relating to the actual conquest of Mexico and Central America have achieved bibliographic celebrity, under the title of

Cortés’ Letters or Relations

. Although the first letter has been lost, and the companion letter long missing, yet an allusion to the expedition against Mexico appeared as early as 1520 in

Ein auszug ettlicher sendbrieff dem aller durchleüchtigisten grossmechtigistẽ Fürsten ... von wegen einer new gefundẽ Inseln. Nürmberg durch Fryderichen Peypus am. 17. tag Marcij MDXX.

, wherein the voyages of Córdoba and Grijalva are also described. Harrisse,

Bib. Am. Vet.

, 179, assumes that the information is taken from Peter Martyr’s

Decades

. A later brief reference to the city of Mexico itself is given in

Translationuss hispanischer sprach zü Frantzösisch gemacht so durch dẽ Vice Rey in Neapole fraw Margareten Hertzogiñ iñ Burgundi zü geschrieben

, published in 1522. On folio A. iii. is written: Not far from the same island they have conquered a city called Tenustitan, wherein 60,000 hearths have been counted, within a good wall. The letter of the

ayuntamiento

was first published in

Col. Doc. Inéd.

, i., 1842.

By the time of the receipt in Spain of Cortés’ second letter, of October 30, 1520, the general and his conquest had become so famous that his communications were not likely to be lost sight of. The incidents treated of were besides highly enticing, particularly the victories in Tlascala, the entry into Montezuma’s wonderful island city, the disastrous expulsion, and the renewal of the campaign, and Cromberger had it printed in 1522 under the title of Carta de relaciõ ẽbiada a su. S. majestad del ẽpador nt̃o señor por el capitã general dela nueua spaña: llamado fernãdo cortes, etc. Seuilla: por Jacobo crõberger aleman. A viii. dias de Nouiẽbre. Año de M. d. y xxij. ‘Fué las Primicias de el Arte de la Imprenta en Sevilla, y acaso de toda España,’ observes Lorenzana, in Cortes, Hist. N. España, 171, but this is a great mistake, for printing had been done already for several decades in Spain. An Italian abstract of the letter appeared immediately after, as Noue de le Isole & Terra ferma Nouamente trouate In India per el Capitaneo de larmata de la Cesarea Maiestate. Mediolani decimosexto calẽ. Decembris M.D.XXII. A reprint of the Seville text was issued at Saragossa in January, 1523. A later abridged account of the conquest is given in Ein schöne Newe zeytung so Kayserlich Mayestet auss India yetz newlich zükommen seind, ascribed to Sigmund Grimm of Augsburg, about 1522. Bibliotheca Grenvilliana and Harrisse. Ternaux-Compans wrongly supposes the narrative to extend only to 1519, instead of 1522, and assumes the imprint to be Augsburg, 1520. Bibl. Amér., 5. Perhaps 1523 is the more correct date, which may also be ascribed to Tres sacree Imperiale et catholique mageste ... eust nouuelles des marches ysles et terre ferme occeanes. Colophon, fol. 16. Depuis sont venues a sa mageste nouuelles de certaīes ysles trouuez par les espagnolz plaines despecerie et beaucoup de mines dor, lesquelles nouuelles il receupt en ceste ville de vailladolid le primier doctobre xv. cent. xxij. This is a book noticed by no bibliographer except Sabin, who believes that it contains only the second letter, although the holder supposes the third letter to be also used. In 1524 appeared the first Latin version of the second letter, by Savorgnanus, Praeclara Ferdinãdi Cortesii de Noua maris Oceani Hyspania Narratio, Norimberga. M.D.XXIIII., which contains a copy of the now lost map of the Gulf of Mexico, and also a plan of Mexico City. In the same year two Italian translations of this version, by Liburnius, La Preclara Narratione, were printed at Venice, one by Lexona, the other by Sabio, yet both at the instance of Pederzani. The plan and map are often missing. Antonio, Bib. Hisp. Nova, iii. 375, mentions only Lexona’s issue. A translation from Flavigny appeared in the Portfolio, Philadelphia, 1817. The originals of the second and other letters were, in the early part of the eighteenth century, ‘en la Libreria de Don Miguel Nuñez de Rojas, del Consejo Real de las Ordenes,’ says Pinelo, Epitome, ii. 597. Much of the vagueness which involves the narrative of events previous to the flight from Mexico may be due to the loss of diary and documents during that episode. The loss was convenient to Cortés, since it afforded an excuse for glossing over many irregularities and misfortunes.

The third letter, dated Coyuhuacan, May 15, 1522, and relating the siege and fall of Mexico, was first published at Seville, on Cromberger’s press, March 30, 1523, as Carta tercera de relaciõ: embiada por Fernãdo cortes capitan y justicia mayor del yucatan llamado la nueua espana del mar oceano. It received a reproduction in Latin by the same hand and at the same time as the second letter. Both were reprinted, together with some missionary letters and Peter Martyr’s De Insulis, in De Insvlis nuper Inventis Ferdinandi Cortesii. Coloniæ, M.D.XXXII. The title-page displays a portrait of Charles V., and is bordered with his arms. Martyr’s part, which tells rather briefly of Cortés, found frequent reprint, while the second and third letters were republished, with other matter, in the Spanish Thesoro de virtudes, 1543; in the German Ferdinandi Cortesii. Von dem Newen Hispanien. Augspurg, 1550, wherein they are called first and second narratives, and divided into chapters, with considerable liberty; in the Latin Novus Orbis of 1555 and 1616; and in the Flemish Nieuwe Weerelt of 1563; while a French abridgment appeared at Paris in 1532. The secret epistle accompanying the third letter was first printed in Col. Doc. Inéd., i., and afterward by Kingsborough and Gayangos.

The fourth letter, on the progress of conquest after the fall of Mexico, dated at Temixtitan (Mexico), October 15, 1524, was issued at Toledo, 1525, as La quarta relacion, together with Alvarado’s and Godoy’s reports to Cortés. A second edition followed at Valencia the year after. The secret letter accompanying it was not published till 1865, when Icazbalceta, the well known Mexican collector, reproduced it in separate black-letter form, and in his Col. Doc., i. 470-83.

The substance of the above three relations has been given in a vast number of collections and histories, while in only a limited number have they been reproduced in a full or abridged form, the first reproduction being in the third volume of Ramusio Viaggi, of 1556, 1565, and 1606, which contains several other pieces on the conquest, all supplied with appropriate headings and marginals. Barcia next published them direct from the manuscript, in the Historiadores Primitivos, i. This collection bears the imprint Madrid, 1749, but the letters had already been printed in 1731, as Pinelo affirms, Epitome, ii. 597. Barcia died a few years before his set was issued. From this source Archbishop Lorenzana took the version published by him under the title of Historia de Nueva-España, Mexico, 1770, which is not free from omissions and faults, though provided with valuable notes on localities and customs, and supplemented with illustrated pieces on routes and native institutions, a map of New Spain by Alzate, an article on the Gobierno Politico by Vetancurt, a copy of a native tribute-roll from picture records, not very accurately explained, and the first map of Lower California and adjoining coast, by Castillo, in 1541. This version of the letters was reproduced in New York, 1828, with a not wholly successful attempt by Del Mar to introduce modern spelling. The work is also marked by a number of omissions and blunders, and the introductory biographic sketch by Robert Sands adds little to its value. An abridgment from Lorenzana appeared as Correspondance de Fernand Cortés, par le Vicomte de Flavigny, Paris, 1778, which obtained three reprints during the following year at different places. A great many liberties are taken with facts, as may be imagined; and the letters are, beside, misnamed first, second, and third. From the same source, or perhaps from Flavigny, of whom they savor, are Briefe des Ferdinand Cortes, Heidelberg, 1779, with several reproductions, and with notes; and the corrected Brieven van Ferdinand Cortes, Amsterdam, 1780-1. The first edition in English, from Lorenzana, was issued by Folsom, as Despatches of Hernando Cortes, New York, 1843, also with notes.

The fifth letter of the conqueror, on the famous expedition to Honduras, dated at Temixtitan, September 3, 1526, lay hidden in the Vienna Imperial Library till Robertson’s search for the first letter brought it to light. Hist. Am., i. xi. He made use of it, but the first complete copy was not published till of late, in Col. Doc. Inéd., iv. 8-167, reprinted at New York, 1848, and, in translation, in the Hakluyt Society collection, London, 1868. It bore no date, but the copy found at Madrid has that of September 3, 1526, and the companion letter printed in Col. Doc. Inéd., i. 14-23, that of September 11th. This, as well as the preceding letters, was issued by Vedia, in Ribadeneyra’s Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, xxii.; the first three letters being taken from Barcia, and the fifth from its MS. The letter of the ayuntamiento is given and a bibliographic notice of little value. A very similar collection is to be found in the Biblioteca Historica de la Iberia, i. But the most complete reproduction of the principal writings by Cortés, and connected with him, is in the Cartas y Relaciones de Hernan Cortés, Paris, 1866, by Gayangos, which contains 26 pieces, beside the relations, chiefly letters and memorials to the sovereign, a third of which are here printed for the first time. Although a few of Lorenzana’s blunders find correction, others are committed, and the notes of the archbishop are adopted without credit, and without the necessary amendment of date, etc., which often makes them absurd. The earliest combined production of Cortés’ relations, and many of his other writings, may be credited to Peter Martyr, who in his Decades gave the substance of all that they relate, although he also mingled other versions. Oviedo, in the third volume of his Hist. Gen., gives two versions of the conquest, the first, p. 258 et seq., almost a reproduction of Cortés’ letters, and the other, p. 506 et seq., from different sources.

Beside the relations, there are a number of miscellaneous letters, petitions, orders, instructions, and regulations, by Cortés, largely published in Navarrete, Col. de Viages; Col. Doc. Inéd.; Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc.; Icazbalceta, Col. Doc.; Kingsborough’s Mex. Antiq.; Alaman, Disert., and as appendices to histories of Mexico. A special collection is the Escritos Sueltos de Hernan Cortés, Mex., 1871, forming vol. xii. of the Bib. Hist. de la Iberia, which presents 43 miscellaneous documents from various printed sources, instructions, memorials, and brief letters, nearly all of which are filled with complaints against ruling men in Mexico.

Cortés’ letters have not inaptly been compared by Prescott to the Commentaries of Cæsar, for both men were military commanders of the highest order, who spoke and wrote like soldiers; but their relative positions with regard to the superior authorities of their states were different, and so were their race feelings, and their times, and these features are stamped upon their writings. Cortés was not the powerful consul, the commander of legions, but the leader of a horde of adventurers, and an aspirant for favor, who made his narrative an advocate. The simplicity and energy of the style lend an air of truth to the statements, and Helps, among others, is so impressed thereby as to declare that Cortés ‘would as soon have thought of committing a small theft as of uttering a falsehood in a despatch addressed to his sovereign.’ Cortés, ii. 211. But it requires little study of the reports to discover that they are full of calculated misstatements, both direct and negative, made whenever he considered it best for his interest to conceal disagreeable and discreditable facts, or to magnify the danger and the deed. They are also stamped with the religious zeal and superstition of the age, the naïve expressions of reliance on God being even more frequent than the measured declarations of devotedness to the king; while in between are calmly related the most cold-blooded outrages on behalf of both. There is no apparent effort to attract attention to himself; there is even at times displayed a modesty most refreshing in the narrative of his own achievements, by which writers have as a rule been quite entranced; but this savors of calculation, for the general tone is in support of the ego, and this often to the exclusion of deserving officers. Indeed, generous allusions to the character or deeds of others are not frequent, or they are merged in the non-committing term of ‘one of my captains.’ Pedro de Alvarado complains of this in one of his Relaciones, in Barcia, Hist. Prim., i. 165-6. In truth, the calculating egotism of the diplomate mingles freely with the frankness of the soldier. Cortés, however, is ever mindful of his character as an hidalgo, for he never stoops to meanness, and even in speaking of his enemies he does not resort to the invectives or sharp insinuations which they so freely scatter. His style bears evidence of training in rhetoric and Latin, yet the parade of the latter is not so frequent as might be expected from the half-bred student and zealot. Equally indicative are his regulations and instructions of the experience gained as notary and alcalde, and the promise once entertained of him as a legal light. The sentences are remarkably concise and clear for the time, and the expression both fluent and pure. The whole tends to confirm the opinion already formed of his character, as one who, while not wholly free from defects of his age, indulged in grand views, and stood forward conspicuous as a born leader of men.