Note 964 — Chapter IV · (continued 2)

[Rich in 1832 (no. 34) cited a copy at £31 10s., which at that time he believed to be unique, and the identical one referred to by Pinelo as being in the library of the Duque de Sessa. There is a copy in the Grenville Collection, British Museum, and another is in the Lenox Library (B. Smith’s Letter of De Soto, p. 66). It was reprinted at Lisbon in 1844 by the Royal Academy at Lisbon (Murphy, no. 1,004; Carter-Brown, vol. i. no. 596). Sparks says of it: “There is much show of exactness in regard to dates; but the account was evidently drawn up for the most part from memory, being vague in its descriptions and indefinite as to localities, distances, and other points.” Field says it ranks second only to the Relation of Cabeza de Vaca as an early authority on the Indians of this region. There was a French edition by Citri de la Guette in 1685, which is supposed to have afforded a text for the English translation of 1686 entitled A Relation of the Conquest of Florida by the Spaniards (see Field’s Indian Bibliography, nos. 325, 340). These editions are in Harvard College Library. Cf. Sabin, Dictionary, vi. 488, 491, 492; Stevens, Historical Collections, i. 844; Field, Indian Bibliography, no. 1,274; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. nos. 1,324, 1,329; Arana, Bibliografía de obras anónimas (Santiago de Chile, 1882), no. 200. The Gentleman of Elvas is supposed by some to be Alvaro Fernandez; but it is a matter of much doubt (cf. Brinton’s Floridian Peninsula, p. 20). There is a Dutch version in Gottfried and Vander Aa’s Zee-und Landreizen (1727), vol. vii. (Carter-Brown, iii. 117).—Ed.]