mentary evidence, jointly they cover their field satisfactorily, as will be found bly the investigator who patiently searches through the many and voluminous collections into which their writings have been gathered, as Coleccion de Documentos Inéditos, in over 50 volumes; Pacheco and Cárdenas, Coleccion de Documentos, in over 40;Documentos para Historia de Mexico, in over 20; Ternauz-Compans, Voyages, and other issues, in more than 20; the even more bulky Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía, Boletin, the collections of Navarrete, Ieazbalceta, Ramirez, Hakluyt, Purchas, Cartas de Indias, Archivo, Mexicano, Florida Coleccion de Documentos, the unique Squier's MSS., in over 20 volumes; the original minutes and records in Concilios Provinciales, MS., and Papeles Franciscanos, MS.; the curious material in Monumentos de la Dominacion Española, MS.; Id., Históricos y Políticos, MS., and Libro de Cabildo, MS.; the collections and summaries of laws in Puga, Cédulario, Órdenes de la Corona, MS., and Reales Órdenes, both in a number of volumes, in Recopilacion de Indias Montemayor, and Zamora, and so forth.
Nevertheless there remain many features not touched by civilians, such as the wide-spread labors of religious, who to a great extent acted also as peaceful conquerors of vast provinces, and as rulers in their districts, guiding the destinies of millions. The labors and observations of these men were incorporated in monk-chronicles, written in many instances by themselves, and the better known by formally appointed historians for the orders and provinces concerned. While their attention is bent chiefly on religious topics, miracles, and biographies of friars, they narrate also political and kindred topics, although not with much connection, thoroughness, or impartiality. They nevertheless form a check on statements from the opposite side, and in this their very antagonism becomes valuable to the student in sifting the truth from varied testimony. Among the earliest of chroniclers stands Motolinia, whose Historia de los Indios relates in rambling and naive manner the personal experience of a founder of the Franciscan order in New Spain, and dwells also upon the relation between church, friars, and state, and the tfeatment of his native portégés. His follower, Mendieta, was an equally ardent defender both of his order and of the natives, yet more talented as a writer, so much so that he was appointed official historian of his province, and gained great distinction. His Historia Eclesiástica gives the most thorough account of religious labors for the greater part of the sixteenth century. Neither of these histories was published, however, till of late, and Torquemada stepped forward to avail himself of them, in connection with a mass of other material in print and manuscript, presenting in his Monarquia Indiana the most complete general history for the century of ecclesiastical, political, and Indian affairs. He is consequently copied by a number of both general and local writers, such as Vetancurt, who, while less full, adds a mass of information on orders, churches, cities, and other topics, in his numerous histories and treatises. Beaumont figures in his Crónica de Michoacan as the historian of a western province, yet he covers in a very complete manner all general affairs of New Spain that lead up to or are connected with his district. Tello and Mota Padilla write on the farther north-west, New Galicia, though adhering more closely to their particular sections, and Arricivita and Arlegui continue the link eastward. Cogolludo in the same manner stands forward