[479] Gomara has given the per and contra of this negotiation, in which gold and jewels of the value of fifteen or twenty thousand pesos de oro were exchanged for glass beads, pins, scissors, and other trinkets common in an assorted cargo for savages. Crónica, cap. 6.
[480] Itinerario del Capellano, MS.—Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.
[481] “Hombre de terrible condicion,” says Herrera, citing the good Bishop of Chiapa, “para los que le servian, i aiudaban, i que facilmente se indignaba contra aquellos.” Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 3, cap. 10.
[482] At least, such is the testimony of Las Casas, who knew both the parties well, and had often conversed with Grijalva upon his voyage. Historia general de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 113.
[483] Itinerario del Capellano, MS.—Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 113.—The most circumstantial account of Grijalva’s expedition is to be found in the Itinerary of his chaplain above quoted. The original is lost, but an indifferent Italian version was published at Venice in 1522. A copy, which belonged to Ferdinand Columbus, is still extant in the library of the great church of Seville. The book had become so exceedingly rare, however, that the historiographer Muñoz made a transcript of it with his own hand; and from his manuscript that in my possession was taken.{*}
{*} [Several editions of the Itinerario have been published. The most easily accessible may be found in the Coleccion de documentos para la historia de Mexico, etc., tom. i.—M.]
[484] [The house in which he was born, in the Calle de la Feria, was preserved until the present century, and many a traveller has lodged there, desirous, says Alaman, of sleeping in the mansion where the hero was born. In the year 1809 the building was destroyed by the French, and only a few fragments of wall now remain to commemorate the birthplace of the Conqueror. Alaman, Disertaciones históricas, tom. ii. p. 2.]
[485] Gomara, Crónica, cap. 1.—Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 203. I find no more precise notice of the date of his birth, except, indeed, by Pizarro y Orellana, who tells us that “Cortés came into the world the same day that that infernal beast, the false heretic Luther, entered it,—by way of compensation, no doubt, since the labors of the one to pull down the true faith were counterbalanced by those of the other to maintain and extend it”! (Varones ilustres del Nuevo-Mundo (Madrid, 1639), p. 66.) But this statement of the good cavalier, which places the birth of our hero in 1483, looks rather more like a zeal for “the true faith” than for historic.
[486] Argensola, in particular, has bestowed great pains on the prosapia of the house of Cortés; which he traces up, nothing doubting, to Narnes Cortés, king of Lombardy and Tuscany. Anales de Aragon (Zaragoza, 1630), pp. 621-625.—Also, Caro de Torres, Historia de las Ordenes militares (Madrid, 1629), fol. 103.
[487] De Rebus gestis, MS.—Las Casas, who knew the father, bears stronger testimony to his poverty than to his noble birth. “Un escudero,” he says of him, “que yo conocí harto pobre y humilde, aunque cristiano, viejo y dizen que hidalgo.” Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 27.