Conquest of Mexico
glory nor gain would accrue to him."—De Rebus Gestis, MS.—Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 19.—Las Casas, Hist de las Indias, MS., cap. 114.
Page 143 (2).—Las Casas had the story from Cortés' own mouth.—Hist. de Las Indias, MS., cap. 114.—Gomara, Crónica, cap. 7.—De Rebus Gestis, MS.
Page 144 (1).—Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., cap. 114.—Herrera, Hist. General, dec. 2, lib. 3, cap. 12. Soils, who follows Bernal Diaz in saying that Cortés parted openly and amicably from Velasquez, seems to consider it a great slander on the character of the former to suppose that he wanted to break with the governor so soon, when he had received so little provocation. (Conquista, lib. 1, cap. 10.) But it is not necessary to suppose that Cortés intended a rupture with his employer by this clandestine movement; but only to secure himself in the command. At all events, the text conforms in every particular to the statement of Las Casas, who, as he knew both the parties well, and resided on the island at the time, had ample means of information.
Page 144 (2).—Hist. de las Indias, MS., cap. 114.
Page 145 (1).—Las Casas had this also from the lips of Cortés in later life. Las Casas. . . "All this Cortés told me himself, with many other things, after he became a Marquis. . . laughing and mocking and saying in so many words; 'Upon my faith, we went away looking like a regular charnel-house.'"—Hist. de las Indias, MS., cap. 115.
Page 146 (1).—Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 24.—De Rebus Gestis, MS.—Gomara Crónica, cap. 8.—Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., cap. 115. The legend on the standard was, doubtless, suggested by that on the labarum,—the sacred banner of Constantine.
Page 148 (1).—The most minute notices of the person and habits of Cortés are to be gathered from the narrative of the old cavalier Bernal Diaz, who served so long under him, and from Gomara, the general's chaplain. See in particular the last chapter of Gomara's Crónica, and cap. 203 of the Hist. de la Conquista.
Page 148 (2).—Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., cap. 115.
Page 148 (3).—Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 24.
Page 148 (4).—Ibid., cap. 24.
Page 149 (1).—Ibid., cap. 26. There is some discrepancy among authorities, in regard to the numbers of the army. The Letter from Vera Cruz, which should have been exact, speaks in round terms of only four hundred soldiers (Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.). Velasquez himself, in a communication to the chief judge of Hispaniola, states the number at six hundred (Carta de Diego Velasquez al Lic. Figueroa, MS.). I have adopted the estimates of Bernal Diaz, who, in his long service seems to have become intimately acquainted with every one of his comrades, their persons, and private history.
Page 149 (2).—"In vos propongo grandes premios, mas embueltos en grandes trabajos; pero la vertud no quiere ociosidad." (Gomara, Crónica, cap. 9.) It is the thought so finely expressed by Thomson:
"For sluggard's brow the laurel never grows;
Renown is not the child of indolent repose."
Page 149 (3).—The text is a very condensed abridgment of the original speech of Cortés, or of his chaplain, as the case may be.—See it in Gomara, Crónica, cap. 9.
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