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PBEPACE TO THE FIB.ST EBITIOH. y In addition to this stock of original documents obtained through these various sources, I have diligently provided myself with such printed works as have reference to the subject, including the magnifi cent publications which have appeared both in France and England on the Antiquities of Mexico, which, from their cost and colossal dimen sion.', would seem better suited to a public than to a private library. Having thus stated the nature of my materials, and the sources whence they are derived, it remains for me to add a few observations on the general plan and composition of the work.—Among the remarkable achievements of the Spaniards in the sixteenth century, there is no one more striking to the imagination than the conquest of Mexico. The subversion of a great empire by a handful of adven turers, taken with all its strange and picturesque accompaniments, has the air of romance rather than of sober history ; and it is not easy to treat such a theme according to the severe rules prescribed by histori cal criticism. But, notwithstanding the seductions of the subject, I have conscientiously endeavoured to distinguish fact from fiction, and to establish the narrative on as broad a basis as possible of contempo rary evidence; and I have taken occasion to corroborate the text by ample citations from authorities, usually in the original, since few of them can be very accessible to the reader. In these •extracts I have scrupulously conformed to the ancient orthography, however obsolete and even barbarous, rather than impair in any degree the integrity of the original document. Although the subject of the work is, properly, only the Conquest of Mexico, I have prepared the way for it by such a view of the civilisa tion of the ancient Mexicans, as might acquaint the reader with the character of this extraordinary race, and enable him to understand the difficulties which the Spaniards had to encounter in their subjugation. This introductory part of the work, with the essay in the Appendix, which properly belongs to the Introduction, although both together making only half a volume, has cost me as much labour, and nearly as much time, as the remainder of the history. If I shall have suc ceeded in giving the reader a just idea of the true nature and extent of the civilisation to which the Mexicans had attained, it will not be labour lost. The story of the Conquest terminates with the fall of the capital. Yet I have preferred to continue the narrative to the death of Cortes, relying on the interest which the development of his character in his military career may have excited in the reader. I am not insensible to the hazard I incur by such a course. The mind previously occupied
