[1022] Conquest of Mexico, i. 80, n. Of his Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, this historian says: “However good the motives of its author, we may regret that the book was ever written.... The author lent a willing ear to every tale of violence and rapine, and magnified the amount to a degree which borders on the ridiculous. The wild extravagance of his numerical estimates is of itself sufficient to shake confidence in the accuracy of his statements generally. Yet the naked truth was too startling in itself to demand the aid of exaggeration.” The historian truly says of himself, in his Preface to the work quoted: “I have not hesitated to expose in their strongest colors the excesses of the conquerors.”
[1023] Llorente, i. 365, 386.
[1024] [Helps (Spanish Conquest) says: “Las Casas may be thoroughly trusted whenever he is speaking of things of which he had competent knowledge.” Ticknor (Spanish literature, ii. 31) calls him “a prejudiced witness, but on a point of fact within his own knowledge one to be believed.” H. H. Bancroft (Early American Chroniclers, p. 20; also Central America, i. 274, 309; ii. 337) speaks of the exaggeration which the zeal of Las Casas leads him into; but with due abatement therefor, he considers him “a keen and valuable observer, guided by practical sagacity, and endowed with a certain genius.”—Ed.]
[1025] Sabin’s Works of Las Casas, and his Dictionary, iii. 388-402, and x. 88-91; Field’s Indian Bibliography; Carter-Brown Catalogue; Harrisse’s Notes on Columbus, pp. 18-24; the Huth Catalogue; Brunet’s Manuel, etc.
[1026] [Field says it was written in 1540, and submitted to the Emperor in MS.; but in the shape in which it was printed it seems to have been written in 1541-1542. Cf. Field, Indian Bibliography, nos. 860, 870; Sabin, Works of Las Casas, no. 1; Carter-Brown Catalogue, i. 164; Ticknor, Spanish Literature, ii. 38; and Catalogue, p. 62. The work has nineteen sections on as many provinces, ending with a summary for the year 1546. This separate tract was reprinted in the original Spanish in London, in 1812, and again in Philadelphia, in 1821, for the Mexican market, with an introductory essay on Las Casas. Stevens, Bibliotheca historica, 1105; cf. also Coleccion de documentos inéditos (España), vol. vii.
The Cancionero spiritual, printed at Mexico in 1546, is not assigned to Bartholomew Las Casas in Ticknor’s Spanish Literature, iii. 44, but it is in Gayangos and Vedia’s Spanish translation of Ticknor. Cf. also Sabin, vol. x. no. 39,122; Harrisse, Bib. Am. Vet., Additions, No. 159.—Ed.]
[1027] [Field does not give it a date; but Sabin says it was written in 1552. Cf. Field, nos. 860, 870, note; Sabin, no. 2; Carter-Brown, i. 165; Ticknor Catalogue, p. 62.—Ed.]
[1028] [Field says it was written “soon after” no. 1; Sabin places it in 1543. Cf. Field, no. 862, 870, note; Carter-Brown, i. 166; Sabin, 3; Stevens, Bibl. Geog., no. 595; Ticknor Catalogue, p. 62.—Ed.]
[1029] [Sabin says it was written in America in 1546-1547. Field, nos. 863, 870, note; Carter-Brown, i. 167; Sabin, no. 6.—Ed.]
[1030] [There seems, according to Field (nos. 864, 865), to have been two distinct editions in 1552, as he deduces from his own copy and from a different one belonging to Mr. Brevoort, there being thirty-three variations in the two. Quaritch has noted (no. 11,855, priced at £6 6s.) a copy likewise in Gothic letter, but with different woodcut initials, which he places about 1570. Cf. Field, p. 217; Carter-Brown, i. 168; Sabin, no. 8; Ticknor Catalogue, p. 62.