PREFACE
THE narrative contained in the Letters of Fernando Cortes is the first description ever written of the most highly developed civilisation on the continent of North America at the date of its discovery. Astronomical science has brought the existence of planets within common knowledge, and our imagination is already so familiar with the possibility of a Martian population, that a discovery positively demonstrating such a fact would be received as confirmatory rather than surprising. By the discoveries of Christopher Columbus, the civilisations of two worlds as absolutely strange to one another as different planets were brought into sudden contact productive of conflict and that conflict was naturally fiercest where the alien invaders were confronted by the best organised effort to contest their advance; hence the period of the Spanish conquest of Mexico, which is depicted by Cortes in these letters to Charles V. was prolific in deeds the most striking to the imagination of any that modern history records. No element of drama was absent, for the most heroic qualities, as well as the blackest passions of the human heart, were engaged on both sides in a life-and-death struggle, which culminated in an appalling race-tragedy, replete with epic horror. The piratical complexion of the Conqueror's initial movements forced him to wrest justification from success, and this was only made possible by the exercise of his indomitable courage, his relentless and unscrupulous diplomacy, and by that strange favour, which capricious Fortune sometimes destines as a reward for sheer audacity.
Fortunate for posterity was the anxious need of Cortes
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