Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available at The Internet Archive) Montezuma Edition THE WORKS OF WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT TWENTY-TWO VOLUMES VOL. I _The Montezuma Edition of William H. Prescott’s Works is limited to one thousand copies, of which this is_ No. 345 [Illustration: _Copyright 1904, by J. B. Lippincott Company_ _Goupil & Cº., Paris_ ] _Montezuma Edition_ HISTORY OF THE Conquest of Mexico BY WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT EDITED BY WILFRED HAROLD MUNRO PROFESSOR OF EUROPEAN HISTORY IN BROWN UNIVERSITY AND COMPRISING THE NOTES OF THE EDITION BY JOHN FOSTER KIRK “Victrices aquilas alium laturus in orbem” LUCAN, Pharsalia, lib. v., v. 238 VOL. I PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY [Illustration: THE LANDING OF CORTÉS AT VERA CRUZ Page 365] Copyright, 1843, by WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT Copyright, 1871, by WILLIAM G. PRESCOTT Copyright, 1873, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. Copyright, 1904, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY Electrotyped and Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia U. S. A. INTRODUCTORY NOTE BY THE EDITOR William Hickling Prescott was born in Salem, Massachusetts, May 4, 1796. He died in Boston, January 28, 1859. William Prescott, his father, a lawyer of great ability and of sterling worth, was at one time a judge, and was frequently elected to public positions of trust and responsibility. His mother was a daughter of Thomas Hickling, for many years United States Consul at the Azores. His grandfather, William Prescott, was in command of the American forces at the battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775. On both sides, therefore, the future historian was descended from what Oliver Wendell Holmes aptly termed the “New England Brahman Stock.” He was prepared for college by an unusually accomplished scholar, John Sylvester John Gardiner, for many years the rector of Trinity Church, Boston, and entered Harvard College as a sophomore in 1811. Three years later he graduated with the Class of 1814.