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m the representations which Francisco Lopez de Gomara and doctor Illescas have given of the heroic deeds of the marquis del Valle Oaxaca. As ignorant persons, like myself, always learn something from men of learning, I gave it to them, but under the condition that they should neither add nor take anything away from it; as everything I had related was conformable to truth. When the licentiates had read through the whole of my work, one of them who was a great rhetorician, said he was astonished at the sharpness of my memory, that I should not even have forgotten one single circumstance of the many things that had taken place from my first voyage of discovery under Cordoba down to the present time. With respect to my style of writing, both remarked, that it was plain old Castilian, which was more agreeable at that time than those embellished sentences which are generally affected by historians; and that though my style was plain it was rendered beautiful by the truth which it contained. They were, however, of opinion that I had written too conspicuously about myself, in describing the battles at which I was present, and that I should have left this to others. I ought also, they said, to have quoted other historians to confirm my statements, instead of dryly saying: This I did, This happened to me; for, added they, I was only witnessing for myself. To this I replied, and said as follows: "In certain despatches which Cortes forwarded to the emperor from Mexico in the year 1540, my name and the services I had rendered to the crown were also mentioned, and how I had made two former voyages of discovery to New Spain." In these despatches Cortes spoke as an eyewitness of my conduct in the many battles we fought with the Mexicans, of the courage I had evinced on every occasion, of the many wounds I had received in the numerous engagements, and also how I had accompanied him on the expedition to the Honduras, and said besides several other things in my praise, which it would be tedious to enumerate here. The illustrious viceroy, Antonio de Mendoza, wrote in a similar strain to his majesty respecting the officers who were then serving in New Spain. His accounts agreed perfectly with those of Cortes; and lastly, I myself in the year 1540 gave the royal council of the Indies sufficient proofs in confirmation of what both had said. But should you senores licentiates, continued I, not feel satisfied with such witnesses as the viceroy an
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