Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Sales catalogue 502: Maggs Bros. Source: Wellcome Collection.
44/908 page 32
![CORTES (FERNANDO)—continued. Cortes ; in which he gives an account of the lands and provinces, as yet undescribed, newly-discovered in Yucatan from the year XIX [1519] to the present, and subju- gated to the royal crown of His Sacred Majesty. In particular he gives a relation of a vast and very wealthy province called Culua, wherein there are many great cities and wonderful buildings and great commerce and riches. Amongst these is a city which is richer and more marvellous than any other, called Timixtitan, which is, by wonderful art, built upon a great lagoon. The king of this city and province is a very great ruler called Muteecuma, and here, events which are terrible to hear of, have befallen the Captain and the Spaniards. He gives a lengthy account of the vast empire of the said Muteecuma and of its rites and ceremonies and mode of service.”’ Sabin, No. 16933; Escudero (Hispalense), No. 224; Medina, No. 64; Palau’s Manual, Vol. Il, p. 311; Gallardo, No. 1925; John Carter Brown Library Catalogue, Vol. I, p. 81; Harrisse, B.A.V., No. 118. In addition to the Harrisse-Barlow-Ives Church copy (now in the Henry E. Huntington Library) there are only two copies of this letter in the U.S.A., viz., in the John Carter Brown Library and the Lennox (New York Public) Library. In the rest of the world only four copies are known (British Museum, State Libraries at Vienna, Munich, and a library at Madrid). This is the excessively rare and important first edition (in Spanish) of the second letter of Cortes, which was written soon after his arrival in Mexico (dated Oct. 30, 1520), to the Emperor Charles V; the first letter he wrote (which is believed to have been printed at the time) has so far not been discovered, in spite of diligent search for several hundred years. Pinelo (the first American biblio- grapher) never saw a copy of this letter. This letter traces the events in Mexico after the departure of Cortes from Vera Cruz, when the Spaniards had been driven back from Mexico City. Cortes devotes a great deal of space to his dealings with Montezuma; the latter’s remarkable empire; and how some of Montezuma’s children died whilst prisoners in the Spaniards’ hands. He frankly admits his mis- givings in the face of heavy odds, and that on more than one occasion he thought the Spaniards must inevitably be overcome. At the end Cortes reviews all his embarrassments and remarks that he holds danger and fatigue light in comparison with the attainment of his object ; and that he is confident that the Spaniards would shortly be restored to their former position, and repair all their losses. He com- pares Mexico to Spain, and names the country New Spain of the Ocean Sea. ‘‘The letter excited the greatest sensation at the Spanish court and among the friends of science generally. Previous discoveries in the New World had dis- appointed the expectations which had been formed after the solution of the grand problem of its existence. They had brought to light only rude tribes, which, how- ever gentle and inoffensive in their manners, were still in the primitive stages of barbarism. Here was an authentic account of a vast nation, potent and populous, exhibiting an elaborate social polity, well advanced in the arts of civilisation,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b31641295_0044.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
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