Early in his work Mr Robertson applied to the proper authorities at Madrid, Vienna, and St Petersburg for access to material. Germany and Russia responded in a spirit of liberality, but Spain would none of it. In 1775 Robertson ascertained that the largest room occupied by the _Archivos de Simancas_ was filled with American papers, in 873 bundles; that they were concealed from strangers with solicitous care, Spanish subjects even being denied access without an order from the crown; and that no copies could be obtained except upon the payment of exorbitant fees. However, through the assistance of Lord Grantham, English ambassador at Madrid, and by preparing a set of questions to be submitted to persons who had lived in America, much new and important information was elicited, and copies of certain manuscripts were obtained. The letters of Cortés, and the writings of Motolinia, Mendieta, and others, which Robertson used in manuscript, have since been printed. It is greatly to be regretted that the learned Juan Bautista Muñoz did not live to complete his _Historia del Nuevo Mundo_, only the first volume of which appeared. This was published in Madrid, in 1793, bringing his work down to 1500. Muñoz was born near Valencia in 1745, graduated at the University, and in 1779 was commissioned by the king to write a history of America, all public and private material being placed at his disposal by royal order. Many papers were wanting in the archives of the department of the Indies in Madrid; whereupon he went to Simancas, Seville, Cádiz, and other towns, armed with a royal _cédula_, which opened to him family and monastic accumulations as well as all public depositories. So great was the confusion in which he found the royal archives, that it seemed to him as if they had been disarranged purposely to hide what they contained. Even in the indices of the _Archivo Secreto del Consejo de Indias_ there was scarcely any indication of papers belonging to the earlier American periods. Nevertheless, by persistent search, mass after mass of rich material was unearthed in the secret archives as well as in the _Real Casa Audiencia de la Contratacion_, the archives at Simancas, the royal libraries of Madrid and the Escorial, the _Contaduría Principal_ of the _Audiencia de Indias_ in Cádiz, the _Archivo General de Portugal_, the monastery of Monserrate, the colleges of San Bartolomé and Cuenca at Salamanca, and San Gregorio at Valladolid, the cathedral of Palencia, the Sacromonte of Granada, and in the convents of San Francisco of Tolosa in Guipúzcoa, Santo Domingo of Málaga, and San Acacio, San José, and San Isidro del Campo of Seville, until it may be said of him that his efforts were buried beneath the magnitude of their invocation. Then it was that he found he had undertaken greater things than he could accomplish. Even with the aid of government he could not master the confused masses; for money and men unlimited cannot accomplish everything without time.