CORTÉS MEDAL.
This follows the engraving in Ruge’s Das Zeitalter der Entdeckungen (p. 361) of a specimen in the Royal Cabinet at Berlin. The original is of the same size.
Cortés had reached Spain in the early part of 1540, and had been received with honor by the Court; but when he began to press for a judgment that might restore his losses and rehabilitate him in his self-respect, he found nothing but refusal and procrastination. He asked to return to Mexico, but found he could not. With a reckless aim he joined an expedition against Algiers; but the ship on which he embarked was wrecked, and he only saved himself by swimming, losing the choicest of his Mexican jewels, which he carried on his person. Then again he memorialized the Emperor for a hearing and award, but was disregarded. Later he once more appealed, but was still unheard. Again he asked permission to return to New Spain. This time it was granted; but before he could make the final preparations, he sank under his burdens, and at a village near Seville Cortés died on the 2d of December, 1547, in his sixty-second year.[1081]
[CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE DOCUMENTARY SOURCES OF MEXICAN HISTORY.]
MR. H. H. BANCROFT, in speaking of the facilities which writers of Spanish American history now have in excess of those enjoyed by the historian of thirty years ago, claims that in documentary evidence there are twenty papers for his use in print to-day for one then.[1082] These are found in part in the great Coleccion of Pacheco and others mentioned in the Introduction. The Mexican writer Joaquin Garcia Icazbalceta (born 1825) made a most important contribution in the two volumes of a Coleccion de documentos para la historia de México which passes by his name and which appeared respectively in 1858 and 1866.[1083] He found in Mexico few of the papers which he printed, obtaining them chiefly from Spain.
Of great interest among those which he gives is the Itinerario of Grijalva, both in the Italian and Spanish text.[1084] Of Cortés himself there are in this publication various letters not earlier made public. The quarrel between him and Velasquez is illustrated by other papers. Here also we find what is mentioned elsewhere as “De rebus gestis Cortesii” printed as a “Vida de Cortés,” and attributed to C. Calvet de Estrella. The recital of the so-called “Anonymous Conqueror,” held by some to be Francisco de Terrazas, is translated from Ramusio (the original Spanish is not known), with a fac-simile of the plan of Mexico.[1085] There is also the letter from the army of Cortés to the Emperor; and in the second volume various other papers interesting in connection with Cortés’ career, including the memorial of Luis de Cárdenas, etc. Two other papers have been recognized as important. One of these in the first volume is the Historia de los Indios de Nueva España of Fray Toribio Motolinia, accompanied by a Life of the Father by Ramirez, with a gathering of bibliographical detail. Toribio de Benavente—Motolinia was a name which he took from a description of him by the natives—had come over with the Franciscans in 1523. He was a devoted, self-sacrificing missionary; but he proved that his work did not quiet all the passions, for he became a violent opponent of Las Casas’ views and measures.[1086] His labors took him the length and breadth of the land; his assiduity acquired for him a large knowledge of the Aztec tongue and beliefs; and his work, besides describing institutions of this people, tells of the success and methods secured or adopted by himself and his companions in effecting their conversion to the faith of the conquerors. Robertson used a manuscript copy of the work, and Obadiah Rich procured a copy for Prescott, who ventured the assertion, when he wrote, that it had so little of popular interest that it would never probably be printed.[1087]