[1142] Cf. H. Vattemare in Revue contemporaine, 1870, vii. 532.
[1143] Prescott’s Mexico, iii. 266. Cf. references on this expedition to Honduras in H. H. Bancroft’s Central America, i. 537, 567, 582; ii. 144; and his Native Races, iv. 79. This Honduras expedition is also the subject of one of Ixtlilxochitl’s Relaciones, printed in Kingsborough’s ninth volume.
[1144] Cartas al Emperador (Sept. 11, 1526, Oct. 10, 1530), in Documentos inéditos (España), i. 14, 31, and in Kingsborough’s Mexico, vol. viii.; Memorial al Emperador (1539) in Documentos inéditos, iv. 201. Cf. also Purchas, v. 858, and Ramusio, iii. 187. His Última y sentidisima carta, Feb. 3, 1544, is given in Documentos inéditos, i. 41, and in Prescott’s Mexico, Kirk’s ed., iii. 460. Other letters of Cortés are in the Pacheco Coleccion and in that of Icazbalceta. The twelfth volume of the Biblioteca histórica de la Iberia (Mexico, 1871), with the special title of Escritos sueltos de Cortés, gives nearly fifty documents. Icazbalceta, in the introduction of vol. i. p. xxxvii. of his Coleccion, gives a list of the escritos sueltos of Cortés in connection with a full bibliography of the series of Cartas, with corrections, derived largely from Harrisse, in vol. ii. p. lxiii.
[1145] Mexico, i. 549, 696. “Ever ready with a lie when it suited his purpose; but he was far too wise a man needlessly to waste so useful an agent.”—Early American Chroniclers, p. 16.
[1146] Harrisse (Bibl. Amer. Vet.) gives numerous references on Cortés. It is somewhat singular that there is no mention of him in the Novus orbis of 1532, and none in De Bry. Mr. Brevoort prepared the article on Cortés in Sabin’s Dictionary.
[1147] Ticknor, Spanish Literature, ii. 30; Prescott’s Mexico, i. 474, and Peru, ii. 304, 457; H. H. Bancroft, Central America, i. 314, his Mexico, and his Early American Chroniclers, p. 21.
[1148] There are curious stories about this book, in which there is not entire accord with one another. The fact seems to be that Bustamante got hold of the manuscript, and supposed it an original work of Chimalpain, and announced it for publication in a Spanish dress, as translated from the Nahuatl, under the title of Historia de las conquistas de Hernando Cortés, under which name it appeared in two volumes in Mexico in 1826 (Ticknor Catalogue, p. 207). Bandelier and others referring to it have supposed it to be what the title represented (Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc., new series, i. 84; cf. Bibl. Amer. Vet., p. 204); but it is printed in Spanish nevertheless, and is nothing more than a translation of Gomara. Bustamante in his preface does not satisfy the reader’s curiosity, and this Mexican editor’s conduct in the matter has been the subject of apology and suspicion. Cf. Quaritch’s Catalogues, nos. 11,807, 12,043, 17,632; H. H. Bancroft, Central America, i. 315; Sabin, vii. no. 27,753. Quaritch adds that Bustamante’s text seems rather like a modern improvement of Gomara than a retranslation, and that a manuscript apparently different and called Chimalpain’s history was sold in the Abbé Fischer’s sale in 1869.
[1149] It is a small folio, and has become extremely rare, owing, perhaps, in part to the attempted suppression of it. Quaritch in 1883 priced a copy at £75. It should have two maps, one of the Indies, the other of the Old World (Ternaux, no. 61; Carter-Brown, nos. 177, 178; Sunderland, vol. iii. no. 7,575; Library of an Elizabethan Admiral, 1883, no. 338; Leclerc, no. 2,779; Rich (1832), no. 23, £10 10s.; Sabin, vol. vii. no. 27,724; Murphy, no. 1,062).
[1150] Carter-Brown, vol. i. nos. 179, 180; Sabin, vol. vii. no. 27,725; Leclerc, 800 francs. Mr. J. C. Brevoort has a copy. Sabin (no. 27,726) notes a Conquista de México (Madrid, 1553) which he has not seen, but describes it at second hand as having the royal arms where the Medina edition has the arms of Cortés, and intimates that this last may have been the cause of the alleged suppression.
[1151] Carter-Brown, vol. i. nos. 187, 188, with a fac-simile of the title of the former; and on p. 169 is noted another Saragossa edition of 1555. Sabin, vol. vii. nos. 27,727, 27,728.