Produced by Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) DOCUMENTS AND NARRATIVES CONCERNING THE DISCOVERY AND CONQUEST OF LATIN AMERICA PUBLISHED BY THE CORTES SOCIETY NEW YORK NUMBER TWO _Edition limited to 250 copies of which ten are on Kelmscott paper_ _This copy is Number_ 85 AN ACCOUNT OF THE CONQUEST OF PERU WRITTEN BY PEDRO SANCHO SECRETARY TO PIZARRO AND SCRIVENER TO HIS ARMY TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH AND ANNOTATED BY PHILIP AINSWORTH MEANS THE CORTES SOCIETY NEW YORK 1917 COCKAYNE, BOSTON TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE The work of Pedro Sancho is one of the most valuable accounts of the Spanish conquest of Peru that we possess. Nor is its value purely historical. The "Relación" of Sancho gives much interesting ethnological information relative to the Inca dominion at the time of its demolition. Errors Pedro Sancho has in plenty; but the editor has striven to counteract them by footnotes. In every instance the translator has preserved Pedro Sancho's spelling of proper names, calling attention to the modern equivalent on the first occurrence of each name. In a few instances, where the text was unusually obscure, close translation has not been adhered to. The virtues, as well as the shortcomings of this account, are so obvious that an extended reference to them here is superfluous. It must always be borne in mind that this document partook of the nature of an "_apologia pro vita sua_" and that it was directly inspired by Pizarro himself with the purpose of restoring himself to the Emperor's favor. Its main purpose was to nullify whatever charges Pizarro's enemies may have been making to the sovereign. Consequently there are numerous violations of the truth, all of which are, for us, easy to recognize.