While busily engaged writing this narrative, the eloquent History of the Conquest of Mexico and New Spain, by Gomara, fell into my hands; and when I perceived the elegance of his style, and considered the rudeness of my own, I laid down my pen, ashamed at the very thoughts of its being read by men of distinction. With my spirits thus damped, I once more undertook to go through his history; it was then I, for the first time, discovered how mistaken this author was with respect to the occurrences which had really taken place in New Spain. He is equally bad whenever he writes about the magnitude of the towns and number of the inhabitants; in which, whenever it suits him, he does not, for instance, hesitate a moment to put 8000 for eight. In the same way he mentions the extensive buildings we were stated to have commenced, though, in fact, we were only 400 in number when we first went out to war, and had sufficient work to defend ourselves and prevent the victory from going over to our enemies. Though the Indians may have been timid, we were, nevertheless, guiltless of such wholesale slaughter and other barbarities as Gomara would lay to our doors. On the contrary, such was our situation, and I hereby seal my words with an oath when I state, that we daily offered up our prayers to God and the Holy Virgin to preserve us from destruction. Alaric was certainly a most courageous monarch, and Attila a soldier whose excessive pride would not allow him to shrink back from anything; yet they never slaughtered such multitudes of human beings on the Catalonian plains as we do in the book of Gomara!