Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/534

508 508 SPANISH COLONIAL POLICY. PART II. into a westerly, instead of southerly direction, it would have carried him into the very depths of the golden regions, whose existence he had so long and vainly predicted. As it was, he " only open- ed the gates," to use his own language, for others more fortunate than himself; and, before he quitted Hispaniola for the last time, the young adventurer Herrera and Mnnoz. seems to have been fully sensible of his own imperfections, and his lib- eral spirit, are so apparent, as to disarm criticism in respect to com- paratively venial errors. But the writer who has furnish- ed the greatest supply of materials for the modern historian is Antonio de Herrera. He did not flourish, indeed, until near a century after the discovery of America ; but the post which he occupied of histo- riographer of the Indies gave him free access to the most authentic and reserved sources of informa- tion. He has availed himself of these with great freedom ; trans- ferring whole chapters from the unpublished narratives of his prede- cessors, especially of the good bish- op Las Casas, whose great work, " Cronica de las Indias Occiden- tales," contained too much that was offensive to national feeling to be allowed the honors of the press. The Apostle of the Indians, how- ever, lives in the pages of Herrera, who, while he has omitted the tu- mid and overheated declamation of the original, is allowed by the Cas- tilian critics to have retained what- ever is of most value, and exhibit- ed it in a dress far superior to that of his predecessor. It must not be omitted, however, that he is also accused of occasional inadvertence in stating as fact, what Las Casas only adduced as tradition or conjecture. His " Historia General de las Indias Occidentales," bringing down the narrative to 1554, was published in four volumes, at Madrid, in 1601. Herrera left several other histories of the different states of Europe, and closed his learned labors in 1625, at the age of sixty. No Spanish historian had since arisen to contest the palm with Herrera on his own ground, until at the close of the last century, Don Juan Bautista Muiioz was commis- sioned by the government to pre- pare a history of the New World. The talents and liberal acquisitions of this scholar, the free admission opened to him in every place of pub- lic and private deposit, and the immense mass of materials collect- ed by his indefatigable researches, authorized the most favorable augu- ries of his success. These were justified by the character of the first volume, which brought the narrative of early discovery to the period of Bobadilla's mission, writ- ten in a perspicuous and agreeable style, with such a discriminating selection of incident and skilful ar- rangement, as convey the most dis- tinct impression to the mind of the reader. Unfortunately, the untime- ly death of the author crushed his labors in the bud. Their fruits were not wholly lost, however. Se- iior Navarrete availing himself of them, in connexion with those de- rived from his own extensive inves tigations, is pursuing in part the plan of Mufioz, by the publication of original documents ; and Mr. I