and Extension of the Merino Breed of Bheep. 395 



was the thirty-ninth monarch from the nominal commencement of the kingdoms 

 of Castile and Leon under Pclagius, after the death of Rodfiic, last king of tlie 

 Goths, in 714. This Don Pedro was Peter, commonly called the Cruel, who 

 reigned 19 years, and, while supported by Edward the Black Prince of Wales, was 

 successful against liis brother Henry ; but was afterwards defeated and slain by 

 him. 



Histories of this prince are given us by various ancient writers. Among these, 

 Alfonsus a Carthagena, Bishop of Burgos, author of the Anaccphalasosis of the 

 Kings of Spain, in 1456, must have lived within 30 or 40 years of the death of 

 Pedro; and the work of Rodericus Santius, Bishop of Palentia, De Rebus Hisi 

 paniae, was published in the reign of Henry IV. who succeeded to the crowns of 

 Castile and Leon in 1454. After the birth of these writers, all tlic remarkable 

 occurrences in the reign of Peter must have been remembered by many persons 

 then living; and any event which, in the words of the Encyclopedist, had "tended 

 " to secure the affection of the Castilians," would probably have been seized and 

 commemorated by the historians. But not a word is saiH by them on this subject. 

 Neither is any farther information respecting it to be derived from Franciscus 

 Tarapha, Canon of Barcelona, who wrote on the Kings of Spain, or from the long 

 history of that country by Lucius Marineus Siculus, Royal Historiographer,' both 

 in the reign of Charles the Fifth. 



The same ignorance of this event is exhibited in the recent History of Peter the 

 Cruel, by Dillon, who had access to ail the best political and historical writers of 

 Spain, and who, if it had been discoverable in tb^m, would necessarily have consi- 

 dered it as of too great importance to have been omitted in his relation of the 

 Spanish commerce in wool at diat period. 



All the historians, to whom I have had access, are equally silent on any impor- 

 tation of sheep from Barbary by Cardinal Ximenes. That ecclesiastic, who admi- 

 nistered the public affairs of Castile while Ferdinand the Catholic was regent after 

 the death of his son-in-law Philip, commanded an army, which, in 1509, made a 

 successful attack on the Moorish city of Oran. This war continued one or two 

 years afterwards; and Ximenes himself asserted, that he gained from it no personal 

 emolument but a few Arabic manuscripts, and some other curiosities for his library.* 



From the accession of Charles the Fifth, in 1516, no active hostilities were 

 * Fkchier Histoire du Cardinal Xinients, page 327. 



