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thing to lofe but our lives. Cortes on his part made them a general 

 promife, that by the next convenient opportunity he would fend them 

 to their Ifland of Cuba. 



The hiftorian Gomara in his account of this tranfadion makes no 

 diftindlion between us and the foldiers of Narvaez, as if we were equally 

 concerned in prefenting the memorial; and this he docs in order to en- 

 hance the merits of his hero, Cortes, and to depreciate us the true con- 

 querors of Mexico, becaufe we did not think it became us to bribe him 

 with gifts to fpeak favourably of us, when we were thofe, and thofe 

 only, who fupported Cortes. And now this hiftorian would annihi- 

 late our reputations, in faying, forfooth, that we memorialled! ! 



It would have better become this hiftorian to attend more to mat- 

 ters of fad:, and lefs to his figures of rhetoric in what he writes. I 

 have been aftonifhcd at that part of his relation, where he affigns the 

 vi6tory at Obtumba folely to the valor of Cortes. I have faid before, that 

 it was in the firft inftance owing to God's mercy; I fay alfo that Cortes 

 did every thing that ought to be expeded from a wife and valiant gene- 

 ral, and that he owed his fuccefs, under God, to the ftout and valiant 

 captains, and to us brave foldiers, who broke the force of the enemy, 

 and fupported him by fighting in the manner we fought, and as I have 

 related. What that hiftorian fays relative to his charging the general 

 and bearer of the royal ftandard of Mexico is true, and it was Juan de 

 Salamanca, afterwards alcalde major of Guacacualco, who killed him 

 w^ith his lance, and prefsnted the ornamented plume to Cortes ; which 

 plume his Majefty was afterwards pleafed to give Salamanca in his coat 

 of arms. Not that I am unwilling to afcribe all due honour to our Cortes ; 

 for I know that he deferves it ; and if it was the cuftom, as formerly, to 

 give triumphs to generals, he is more worthy of one than any Roman. 

 Gomara alfo greatly exaggerates the numbers of our Indian allies, and 

 the population of the country beyond all reafon; for it was not the fifth 

 part of what he reprefents it. According to his account there would 

 have been more thoufands here, than inhabit all Caftille; but where 



he 



