A fan of variegated feather-work, with thirty-seven rods plated with gold.
Five fans of variegated feathers,—four of which have ten, and the other thirteen, rods embossed with gold.
Sixteen shields of precious stones, with feathers of various colors hanging from their rims.
Two pieces of cotton very richly wrought with black and white embroidery.
Six shields, each covered with a plate of gold, with something resembling a golden mitre in the centre.
[57] “Una muy larga Carta,” says Gomara, in his loose analysis of it. Crónica, cap. 40.
[58] Dr. Robertson states that the Imperial Library at Vienna was examined for this document, at his instance, but without success. (History of America, vol. ii. note 70.) I have not been more fortunate in the researches made for me in the British Museum, the Royal Library of Paris, and that of the Academy of History at Madrid. The last is a great depository for the colonial historical documents; but a very thorough inspection of its papers makes it certain that this is wanting to the collection. As the emperor received it on the eve of his embarkation for Germany, and the Letter of Vera Cruz, forwarded at the same time, is in the library of Vienna, this would seem, after all, to be the most probable place of its retreat.
[59] “By a ship,” says Cortés, in the very first sentence of his Second Letter to the Emperor, “which I despatched from this your sacred majesty’s province of New Spain on the 16th of July of the year 1519, I sent your highness a very long and particular relation of what had happened from my coming hither up to that time.” (Rel. Seg. de Cortés, ap. Lorenzana, p. 38.) “Cortés wrote,” says Bernal Diaz, “as he informed us, an accurate report, but we did not see his letter.” (Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 53.) (Also, Oviedo, Hist. de las Ind., MS., lib. 33, cap. 1, and Gomara, ut supra.) Were it not for these positive testimonies, one might suppose that the Carta de Vera Cruz had suggested an imaginary letter of Cortés. Indeed, the copy of the former document belonging to the Spanish Academy of History—and perhaps the original at Vienna—bears the erroneous title of “Primera Relacion de Cortés.”{*}
{*} [There can be little doubt that the “Letter of Vera Cruz” is the document referred to by Cortés, writing in October, 1520, as the “muy larga y particular Relacion” which he had “despatched” to the emperor in the summer of the preceding year. This language would not necessarily imply that the letter so described bore his own signature, while it was a natural mode of designating one of which he was the real author. It is easy to understand why, holding as yet no direct commission from the crown, he should have been less solicitous to appear as the narrator of his own exploits than to give them an appearance of official sanction and cover up his irregularity in not addressing his report to Velasquez, the official superior from whose control he was seeking to emancipate himself. Nor is it necessary, in accepting this hypothesis, to reject the statement of Bernal Diaz that Cortés sent to the emperor a relation under his own hand which he did not show to his companions. It seems to have been his habit on subsequent occasions, when sending a detailed report, to accompany it with a briefer and more private letter, giving a summary of what was contained in the longer document, sometimes with the addition of other matter, to be read by the emperor himself. One such letter, cited hereafter (vol. iii. p. 266, note), mentions “una relacion bien larga y particular,” which he was sending under the same date. That letters of this kind should not always have been preserved can excite no surprise; but it is highly improbable that the same fate should have befallen a full official report, the first of a series otherwise complete and disseminated by means of copies.—K.]
[60] This is the imputation of Bernal Diaz, reported on hearsay, as he admits he never saw the letter himself. Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 54.