"I have learned from Mr. Cogswell that you had originally proposed to treat the same subject, and that you requested him to say to me that you should relinquish it in my favour. I cannot sufficiently express to you my sense of your courtesy, which I can very well appreciate, as I know the mortification it would have caused me if, contrary to my expectations, I had found you on the ground.... I fear the public will not feel so much pleased as myself by this liberal conduct on your part, and I am not sure that I should have a right in their eyes to avail myself of it. But I trust you will think differently when I accept your proffered courtesy in the same cordial spirit in which it was given."
To this letter Irving made a long and courteous reply, not only assuring Prescott that the subject would be willingly abandoned to him, but offering to send him any books that might be useful and to render any service in his power. The episode affords a beautiful instance of literary and scholarly amenities. The sacrifice which Irving made in giving up his theme was as fine as the manner of it was graceful. Prescott never knew how much it meant to Irving, who had already not only made some study of the subject, but had sketched out the ground-plan of the first volume, and had been actually at work upon the task of composition for a period of three months. But there was something more in it than this. Writing to his nephew, Pierre Irving, who was afterward his biographer, he disclosed his real feeling with much frankness.
"I doubt whether Mr. Prescott was aware of the extent of the sacrifice I made. This was a favourite subject which had delighted my imagination ever since I was a boy. I had brought home books from Spain to aid me in it, and looked upon it as the pendant to my Columbus. When I gave it up to him I, in a manner, gave him up my bread; for I depended upon the profits of it to recruit my waning finances. I had no other subject at hand to supply its place. I was dismounted from my cheval de bataille and have never been completely mounted since. Had I accomplished that work my whole pecuniary situation would have been altered."[10]
There was no longer any obstacle in Prescott's way, and he set to work with an interest which grew as the richness of the material revealed itself. There came to him from Madrid, books, manuscripts, copies of official documents, and all the apparatus criticus which even the most exacting scholar could require. The distinguished historian, Navarrete, placed his entire collection of manuscripts relating to Mexico and Peru at the disposal of his American confrère. The Spanish Academy let him have copies of the collections made by Muñoz and by Vargas y Ponce—a matter of some five thousand pages. Prescott's friend, Señor Calderon, who at this time was Spanish Minister to Mexico, aided him in gathering materials relating to the early Aztec civilisation. Don Pascual de Gayangos, who had written the favourable notice in the Edinburgh Review, delved among the documents in the British Museum on behalf of Prescott, and caused copies to be made of whatever seemed to bear upon the Mexican conquest. A year or two later, he even sent to Prescott the whole of his own collection of manuscripts. In Spain very valuable assistance was given by Mr. A. H. Everett, at that time American Minister to the Spanish court, and by his first Secretary of Legation, the South Carolinian who had taken his entrance examination to Harvard in Prescott's company, and who throughout his college life had been a close and valued friend. A special agent, Dr. Lembke,[11] was also employed, and he gave a good part of his time to rummaging among the archives and libraries. Prescott's authorship of Ferdinand and Isabella, however, was the real touchstone which opened all doors to him, and enlisted in his service enthusiastic purveyors of material in every quarter. In Spain especially, the prestige of his name was very great; and more than one traveller from Boston received distinguished courtesies in that country as being the conciudadano of the American historian. Mr. Edward Everett Hale, whose acquaintance with Prescott was very slight, relates an experience which is quite illustrative:—
"I had gone there [to Madrid] to make some studies and collect some books for the history of the Pacific, which, with a prophetic instinct, I have always wanted to write. Different friends gave me letters of introduction, and among others the gentlemen of the Spanish Embassy here were very kind to me. They gave me four such letters, and when I was in Madrid and when I was in Seville it seemed as though every door flew open for me and every facility was offered me. It was not until I was at home again that I came to know the secret of these most diligent civilities. I still had one of my Embassy letters which I had never presented. I read it for the first time, to learn that I was the coadjutor and friend of the great historian Prescott through all his life, that I was his assistant through all his historical work, and, indeed, for these reasons, no American was more worthy of the consideration of the gentlemen in charge of the Spanish archives. It was certainly by no fault of mine that an exaggeration so stupendous had found its way to the Spanish Legation. Somebody had said, what was true, that Prescott was always good to me, and that our friendship began when he engaged me as his reader. And, what with translating this simple story, what with people's listening rather carelessly and remembering rather carelessly, by the time my letters were drafted I had become a sort of 'double' of Mr. Prescott himself. I hope that I shall never hear that I disgraced him."[12]
Actual work upon the Conquest began early in 1839, though not at first with a degree of progress which was satisfactory to the investigator. By May, however, he had warmed to his work. He went back to his old rigorous regime, giving up again all social pleasures outside of his own house, and spending in his library at least five hours each day. His period of rest had done him good, and his eyesight was now better than at any time since it first became impaired. After three months of preliminary reading he was able to sketch out the plan of the entire work, and on October 14, 1839, he began the actual task of composition. He found the introduction extremely difficult to write, for it dealt with the pre-historic period of Mexico, obscured as it was by the mist of myth and by the contradictory assertions of conflicting authorities. "The whole of that part of the story," wrote Prescott, "is in twilight, and I fear I shall at least make only moonshine of it. I must hope that it will be good moonshine. It will go hard with me, however, but that I can fish something new out of my ocean of manuscripts." He had hoped to dispose of his introduction in a hundred pages, and to finish it in six months at the most. It actually extended to two hundred and fifty pages, and the writing of it took nearly eighteen months. One interruption occurred which he had not anticipated. The success of Ferdinand and Isabella had tempted an unscrupulous publisher to undertake an abridgment of that book. To protect his own interests Prescott decided to make an abridgment of his own, and thus to forestall the pirate. This work disheartened and depressed him, but he finished it with great celerity, only to find that the rival abridgment had been given up. A brief stay upon the sea-coast put him once more into working condition, and from that time he went on steadily with the Conquest, which he completed on August 2, 1843, not quite four years from the time when he began the actual composition. His weariness was lightened by the confidence which he felt in his own success. He knew that he had produced a masterpiece.
Naturally, he now had no trouble in securing a publisher and in making very advantageous terms for the production of the book. It was brought out by the Harpers of New York, though, as before, Prescott himself owned the plates. His contract allowed the Harpers to publish five thousand copies for which they paid the author $7500, with the right of publishing more copies if required within the period of one year and on the same general terms. An English edition was simultaneously brought out by Bentley in London, who purchased the foreign copyright for £650. Three Spanish translations appeared soon after, one in Madrid in 1847 and two in Mexico in 1844. A French translation was published in Paris, by Didot in 1846, and a German translation, in Leipzig, by Brockhaus in 1845. A French reprint in English appeared in Paris soon after Bentley placed the London edition upon the market.
No historical work written by an American has ever been received with so much enthusiasm alike in America and in Europe. Within a month, four thousand copies were disposed of by the Harpers, and at the end of four months the original edition of five thousand had been sold. The reviewers were unanimous in its praise, and an avalanche of congratulatory letters descended upon Prescott from admirers, known and unknown, all over the civilised world. Ferdinand and Isabella had brought him reputation; the Conquest of Mexico made him famous. Honours came to him unsought. He was elected a member of the French Institute[13] and of the Royal Society of Berlin. He had already accepted membership in the Royal Spanish Academy of History at Madrid and in the Royal Academy of Sciences in Naples. Harvard conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws. Perhaps nothing pleased him more, however, than a personal letter from Humboldt, for whom Prescott had long entertained a feeling of deep admiration. This eminent scholar, at that time the President of the Royal Society of Berlin, in which body Niebuhr, Von Raumer, and Ranke had been enrolled, wrote in French a letter of which the following sentences form a part:—
"My satisfaction has been very great in studying line by line your excellent work. One judges with severity, with perhaps a bias towards injustice, when he has had a vivid impression of the places, and when the study of ancient history with which I have been occupied from preference has been pursued on the very soil itself where a part of these great events took place. My severity, sir, has been disarmed by the reading of your Conquest of Mexico. You paint with success because you have seen with the eyes of the spirit and of the inner sense. It is a pleasure to me, a citizen of Mexico, to have lived long enough to read you and to speak to you of my appreciation of the kind expressions with which you have done honour to my name.... Were I not wholly occupied with my Cosmos, which I have had the imprudence to print, I should have wished to translate your work into the language of my own country."
While gathering the materials for the Conquest of Mexico, Prescott had felt his way toward still another subject which his Mexican researches naturally suggested. This was the conquest of Peru. Much of his Mexican reading had borne directly upon this other theme, so that the labour of preparation was greatly lightened. Moreover, by this time, he had acquired both an accurate knowledge of sources and also great facility in composition. Hence the only serious work which was necessary for him to undertake as a preliminary to composition was the study of Peruvian antiquities. This occupied him eight months, and proved to be far more troublesome to him and much less satisfactory than the like investigation which he had made with reference to the Aztecs. However, after the work had been commenced it proceeded rapidly,—so rapidly, in fact, as to cause him a feeling of half-comical dismay. He began to write on the 12th of August, 1844, and completed his task on November 7, 1846. During its progress he made a note that he had written two chapters, amounting in all to fifty-one printed pages, in four days, adding the comment, "I never did up so much yarn in the same time. At this rate Peru will not hold out six months. Can I finish it in a year? Alas for the reader!" No doubt he might have finished it in a year had certain interruptions not occurred. The first of these was the death of his father, which took place on December 8th, not long after he had begun the book. His brother Edward had died shortly before, and this double affliction affected very deeply so sensitive a nature as Prescott's. To his father, indeed, he owed more than he could ever express. The two had been true comrades, and had treated one another with an affectionate familiarity which, between father and son, was as rare in those days as it was beautiful. Judge Prescott's generosity had made it possible for the younger man to break through all the barriers of physical infirmity, and not only to win fame but also the happiness which comes from a creative activity. They understood each other very well, and in many points they were much alike both in their friendliness and in their habits of reserve. One little circumstance illustrates this likeness rather curiously. Fond as both of them were of their fellows, and cordial as they both were to all their friends, each wished at times to be alone, and these times were when they walked or rode. Therefore, each morning when the two men mounted their horses or when they set out for a walk, they always parted company when they reached the road, one turning to the right and the other to the left by a tacit understanding, and neither ever thought of accompanying the other. Sometimes a friend not knowing of this trait would join one of them to share the ride or walk. Whenever such a thing as this took place, that particular route would be abandoned the next day and another and a lonelier one selected.