Note 290 — Chapter V
Reading edition
Zuñiga, Annales de Sevilla, p. 504.—Gomara, Crónica, cap. 237.—In his last letter to the emperor, dated in February, 1544, he speaks of himself as being “sixty years of age.” But he probably did not mean to be exact to a year. Gomara’s statement, that he was born in the year 1485 (Crónica, cap. 1), is confirmed by Diaz, who tells us that Cortés used to say that when he first came over to Mexico, in 1519, he was thirty-four years old. (Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 205.) This would coincide with the age mentioned in the text.