Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 1.djvu/129

Rh recorded), he has known how to lend the realism to his descriptions which usually only an eyewitness can impart. When not vindicating Cortes, Gomara has every claim to be ranked amongst the most trustworthy of the early writers on SpanishAmerican events, and his facts and descriptions generally stand the test of comparison with authentic temporary records.



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bernal diaz del castillo

Bernal Diaz was a perfect type of the military adventurer of his age, and first went as a private soldier to America in 1 5 14, under the command of Pedrarias de Avila, bound for Darien. He next appeared in Cuba, where he was always ready to join any expedition of adventure which might be organised, and, indeed, he went on most of them, and was one of the few who escaped from the disastrous exploration conducted by Ponce de Leon on the Florida coast. He next joined Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba on his journey to Yucatan. He returned again thither the following year with Juan de Grijalba, from whose expedition he arrived once more at Cuba just in time to take service under Fernando Cortes. Diaz was a brave soldier, popular amongst his comrades, and esteemed by his commander, who some years later (in 1540), recommended him to the notice of the Emperor, as did likewise the Viceroy Don Antonio Mendoza.

After the conquest, he received an encomienda in Guatemala, where he held the office of regidor of Santiago de los Caballeros, where presumably he died. And this would have been all there was to say about Bernal Diaz, had Francisco Lopez de Gomara not published his history of the conquest in 1552. His exaltation of Cortes, to the exclusion of other members of the expedition, enraged the old soldier, living in peaceful retirement on his estate at Chamula, and he resolved that he and his fellows, who had borne the burden of the conquest, should likewise make good their just claims to a share of the credit. It was a case of "mine enemy writing a book," and the old veteran slashes his cultivated rival's polished prose in the language of the camp. Thirty years