Note 1104 — Chapter VI

Bancroft, Mexico, i. 170. It is supposed that still a third letter went at the same time, which is now known to us. Three letters of this time were found in 1866 among some old account-books in a library sold in Austria. Two of them proved to be written in Spain upon the news of Cortés’ discoveries, while one was written by a companion of Cortés shortly after the landing on the Mexican coast, but is not seemingly an original, for it is written in German, and the heading runs: Newzeit wie unnsers aller-gnadigistn hern des Romischn und hyspaenischn Koningsleut Ain Costliche Newe Lanndschafft habn gefundn, and bears date June 28, 1519. There are some contradictions in it to the received accounts; but these are less important than the mistake of a modern French translator, who was not aware of the application of the name of Yucatan, at that time, to a long extent of coast, and who supposed the letters referred to Grijalva’s expedition. The original text, with a modern German and French version, appears in a small edition (thirty copies) which Frederic Muller, of Amsterdam, printed from the original manuscript (cf. his Books on America, 1872, no. 1,144; 1877, no. 2,296, priced at 120 florins) under the title of Trois lettres sur la découverte de Yucatan, Amsterdam, 1871 (Carter-Brown, vol. i. no. 66; Muller, Books on America, 1877, no. 2,296; C. H. Berendt in American Bibliopolist, July and August, 1872; Murphy, no. 2,795).